Joining Rural Areas to Hamedan City and its Effect on Households' Satisfaction with the Perceived Services Quality: An Application of SERVQUAL Model

Understanding the quality of perceived services is one of the key steps in analyzing rural household satisfaction and developing service quality improvement programs. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the quality of perceived services and satisfaction of rural households after joining the city of Hamedan based on the SERVQUAL model. The study follows the quantitative paradigm and empirical research method in terms of purpose. Also, in terms of data collection, it is a survey-based research. The statistical population of the study was all residents of eight villages (Moradbeig Dareh, Faghireh, Khezr, Dizaj, Dizaj Hesar, Mazdaqineh, Aghashams Ali Hesar and Imam Hesar) joined the Hamedan city in which 200 households were selected as a sample population by calculating the Cochran formula and were surveyed through stratified random sampling. The data collection tool was a two-part questionnaire including demographic information and 26 questions to evaluate the quality of services based on the SERVQUAL model. Data were analyzed through t-test by SPSS20 Software. The results showed that there is a significant difference between residents' perceptions of the current services’ quality and their expectations of acceptable services’ quality in all dimensions. Therefore, a negative and significant gap was observed between the expectations and perceptions of rural residents about the services received, which indicates the dissatisfaction of rural residents with the quality of services perceived after joining the city of Hamedan.