With regard to the higher gaps obtained by
interviewees with a higher education level, it could
be argued that people with a higher education
level may feel more accomplished and, therefore,
set higher standards for the level of quality they
perceive as satisfactory. If so, this is a trend that
could conceivably be observed with people of a
higher income level, a point that needs further
analysis. Also, educated people may feel more
qualified to evaluate the services they experience,
whereas uneducated people may be reluctant to
be strict on services delivered by staff of a similar
or higher educational background.
Brady and Cronin40 suggested that service
quality is a performance-based construct, and
therefore, it is more appropriately measured with
perceptions, rather than expectations as a point of
reference. Cronin and Taylor3,41 suggested that
the gap between expectations and perceptions
measurement framework can be potentially misleading
indicator of service quality perceptions
because people interpret differently the ambiguous
meaning of expectations. Parasuraman
et al.42 defended their framework by arguing that
expectations should be included in the assessment
of service quality because perception values alone
do not outperform gap scores in terms of prediction
of overall evaluations of service quality.
Further research is needed here to shed more
light on this issue. It has been suggested that the
use of either expectation or perception scale of
SERVQUAL may be more informative and
useful than the gap difference.