Methodological approaches to assessing the quality of services in higher education

Abstract

The article highlights the category “services in the field of higher education”, presents the author’s classification of their types and the definition of the concept of “quality of services in the field of higher education” based on the systematization of scientific approaches of foreign and domestic scientists and the authors’ own research. The importance and expediency of assessing the quality of services in the field of higher education is substantiated and a flow diagram of the methodology for their comprehensive assessment is proposed, reflecting the sequence and content of each stage of the study. The authors defined the goals and objectives of the assessment, the choice of scientific and methodological approaches and research principles, identified the basic determinants of the quality of services, and substantiated the feasibility of choosing the proposed methods and tools for assessing the quality of services in the field of higher education. Criteria for the quality of services have been proposed for direct and indirect influence on the quality of educational services. A system of private indicators of the quality of services has been developed and presented, in the context of identified determinant criteria of a social, organizational and technical nature, methods for calculating private indicators - quality indices in the context of each group and a comprehensive, generalizing index of the quality of services in the field of higher education are presented. The conclusion is substantiated that the quality of services provides significant competitive advantages to educational organizations in the field of higher education, creating additional consumer value for educational services in general for its direct consumers.