Application of SERVQUAL Model and Fuzzy Logic in Quality Assessment of Educational Services from Viewpoint of Students of Qom Islamic Azad University

Human judgments are often vague and it is not easy for people to express their perceptions and expectations about quality of services using an exact numerical value. It is more realistic to use linguistic terms to describe the expectation and perception value. In this paper, combined approach of SERVQUAL and fuzzy logic to evaluate the quality of educational services provided at Islamic Azad University of Qom. This study was descriptive and cross-sectional was conducted in 2013. For implementing the study, the sample 365 of students was selected randomly by stratified sampling. Data was collected through standard SERVQUAL questionnaire. Validity of questionnaire was confirmed by experts and its reliability using Cronbach's alpha was 0.84. For analysis of data descriptive statistics and Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon tests were used. Comparison between the perceptions and expectations of the students indicated that there were significant differences in all dimensions of educational service quality (P<0.05). The average gap of educational services was 79/0, which represents a negative gap in service quality. The greatest and lowest gap were in the tangibles (-0.90) and responsibility and reliability (-0.74), respectively. The gap between the quality of education in terms of gender, college and field, there was a significant difference (P<0.05). Based on the findings of the study the largest gap was in the tangible factors. It is suggested to enhance the improvement of library resources and increase computer workshops in priority.