The role of information platform in improving the quality of teaching service——Based on the SERVQUAL model

Yuxie Xi¹²

1 College of Teacher Education,

2 School of International and Public Affairs,
Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
Shanghai 200030, China

Abstract: This paper analyzes the background, purpose, and significance of the teaching service quality of information technology platforms, combs through the relevant theories and literature at home and abroad, comprehensively employs the literature method, pattern analysis method, and questionnaire survey method, constructs the teaching service quality evaluation model of the information technology platform based on the SERVQUAL model, prepares the teaching service quality questionnaire matched with the evaluation model, and conducts an empirical study on the teaching service quality. The empirical study of teaching service quality was conducted, and the results of the empirical research and the IPA quadrant analysis chart were combined to clarify the priority order for improving the quality of online teaching services and to propose improvement strategies.

Keywords: information platform, teaching service quality, online teaching, SERVQUAL model

1. Introduction

With the in-depth development of the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial revolution, the digital transformation of education has become a global consensus. President Xi Jinping emphasized that “the digitalization of education is an important breakthrough for China to open up a new track of education development and shape a new advantage. Further promoting digital education provides effective support for personalized and lifelong learning, expanding the coverage of quality educational resources and modernizing education.” It is of great significance for the modernization of education and the construction of a strong education nation to follow the digital trend, grasp the pulse of the times, and promote educational change and innovation.

At present, the digital transformation of education is shifting from top-level design to application demand-driven, and various countries and regions are exploring the landing of digital transformation in multiple aspects of teaching, evaluation, and governance to explore various application scenarios. Since 2020, online teaching has become the normalized mode, and the in-depth fusion of digital technology and traditional education has promoted the transformation and development of online education, which has gradually become an important way to encourage education change and innovative development. The deep integration of Internet + education has promoted the reorganization of all elements of the education system, which is undergoing an unprecedented transformation.

However, online education has strong service attributes. Under the background of “double first-class” target construction, the teaching management service of colleges and universities should highlight the status of students, emphasize the effective interaction between teachers and students based on understanding the learning needs of students, and provide the quality of teaching service that satisfies students. Therefore, combined with the current information technology platform, how to improve the quality of teaching management services in colleges and universities is an important research content of colleges and universities. Colleges and universities must be student-centered, focusing on talent cultivation, stimulating and mobilizing the enthusiasm of both teaching and learning, promoting the interaction between teachers and students, improving the quality of teaching management services, and providing a strong guarantee for the construction of “double first-class” universities.

SERVQUAL model is the most widely used gap analysis model in service quality research, and it has good applications in hospitality management, finance, marketing, and other fields. College course education also has the characteristics of the service industry, so the SERVQUAL model can also be used to evaluate and diagnose the quality of course teaching services. In 2020, many colleges and universities have adopted information technology platforms to carry out online teaching work. The quality of online teaching directly affects the quality of talent cultivation, but there are few studies on the quality of online teaching services. This study designs a questionnaire on online teaching service quality based on the SERVQUAL model, investigates the current status of online teaching service quality in our university, analyzes the current problems, and gives strategies to improve the quality of online teaching service.

2. Literature review

(1) Research on the quality of higher education services

Scholars such as Shank and Walker (1995) argued that from the viewpoint of the whole process of providing educational services by schools and the participation of students in academic services, education also has the general attributes of services, such as intangibility, heterogeneity, inseparability, variability, and volatility. Subsequently, scholars have focused on the study of higher education service quality on the setting and delineation of dimensions and indicators. For example, Mohammad S. Owlia, and Elaine M. Aspinwall (1996) classified the quality of higher education services into six dimensions, namely, hardware facilities, service capacity, service attitude, service content, service process, and reliability. Adee Athiyaman (2000) classified the quality of higher education services into reliability in terms of the characteristics of services, tangibility, responsiveness, convenience, curriculum, and instruction. Firdaus (2005) classified higher education service quality into four dimensions academic, non-academic, reliability, and empathy through empirical analyses. Robert and Christopher (2012) viewed higher education from the perspective of service science. They argued that the service perspective provides a comprehensive Robert and Christopher (2012) look at higher education from the standpoint of service science, arguing that the service perspective provides us with a comprehensive way to perceive students’ needs and suggests that the “product” of education is a co-created learning service. According to Li Yining (1999), a domestic scholar, “the product of education refers to the products provided by the education sector and education units, also called education services”. Liu Junxue (2002), a pioneer in the study of higher education service quality in China, analyzes the characteristics of higher education service quality in his book “Theory of Higher Education Service Quality” and proposes that “the quality of higher education is the quality of higher education service products, which depends on the comparison between the expectations of the subject of higher education demand for the quality of education services and the actual perceived level of services”, and argues that serviceability is the key factor of higher education service quality. And that serviceability is the basic characteristic of higher education service quality, and students are the subject of evaluation of education service quality”. Ma Wanmin (2004) defines higher education service as “the non-physical form of products that colleges and universities utilize educational facilities and equipment and educational technology to meet the needs of learners, to enable educational consumers to improve or enhance the quality of intellectual and ideological qualities, and to promote the value-added of the human capital of those who need education. “.

(2) Research on factors affecting the quality of teaching services

Abdullah F (2006), after testing and comparing the relative validity of three service quality measurement instruments in higher education settings and analyzing them in terms of the components of higher education service quality: non-academic aspects, academic aspects, reliability, and empathy, proposed an improved HEDOERF five-factor structure as being the most appropriate for measuring higher education service quality. Gary (1996), based on PZB’s study, argued that the five basic factors affecting service quality – tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy – also affect higher education service quality. Lampley (1999) emphasized the importance of measuring service quality in education and looked at teaching and learning facilities, accessibility Lampley (1999) emphasized the importance of measuring service quality in education and investigated perceived service quality in terms of teaching facilities, accessibility, responsiveness, instructional programs, management of educational practices, and social relationships among doctoral students in state universities in the U.S. Hadikoemoro S (2001) argued that the quality of educational services is determined by whether the outcomes of higher education activities meet the needs of students. It is proposed that the quality of higher education services is made up of tangibles, service facilities, attention, fairness, and general attitudes of the university.

(3) Research on quality assessment of teaching services

Initially, most of the foreign studies on the evaluation of service quality in higher education were measured by simply using the SERVQUAL questionnaire of PZB. For example, Gaston and Nha (1999), Martin, A.O, and Adrian Palmer (2004) have used a simple SERVQUAL questionnaire in their studies. With further research on higher education service quality, foreign scholars realize that education has a non-profit nature and has certain special characteristics compared with enterprises, and the simple use of SERVQUAL questionnaire for higher education service quality evaluation has obvious limitations. For this reason, foreign research on the evaluation of higher education service quality is gradually divided into two categories, one is the use of other models and research methods for its measurement, such as Anne, M, D. (2001) using a comparative research model of five different types of schools for customer satisfaction assessment testing, Firdaus (2005) compiled the HEDPER Higher Education Service Quality Scale to be used to Firdaus (2005) developed the HEDPER Higher Education Service Quality Scale (HESQ) to measure higher education services; Wu, P.Y. used IPA analysis to study the quality of educational services for graduate students of architectural programs, and the other type is to modify the SERVQUAL model according to the characteristics of the higher education services, for example, Richard Emanuel (2006) measured the satisfaction of students with faculty members’ teaching services at a university in the United States by using a revised SERVQUAL model. Richard Emanuel (2006) used the revised SERVQUAL model to measure students’ satisfaction with faculty teaching services at a university in the United States, and Zafiropoulos (2008) also used the revised SERVQUAL model to explore the differences in the evaluation of service quality between undergraduates and faculty members at a college of technical education in Greece.W. Laaser (2004) and Fahy (2000) pointed out that the evaluation of the quality of teaching and learning online refers to the development of scientific standards based on the objectives of teaching and learning and the use of all effective technological means to evaluate the quality of teaching and learning. Using all effective technical means, the process and results of teaching activities are determined, measured, and given value judgments; Bates (2004) and Churton (2004) focused on analyzing the roles of quality evaluation and control in teaching strategies, teaching modes, teaching methodologies, media resources, technology applications, and instructional design links.

Based on foreign scholars’ research on the evaluation of higher education service quality, China has made certain improvements and innovations to the evaluation methods chosen. Zhu Guofeng, Lan Xingfang, et al. (2003) utilized the service quality gap theory to investigate the quality of higher education services using questionnaires and measured the difference between students’ expectations and perceptions of higher education services. Chen Yunhong (2003) established a quality index system for information monitoring in the dimensions of online time, number of content clicks, interaction, and effect; Qi Hong (2003) established feedback information on click-through rate; Zhang Weiyuan, Yang Tingting, and Hao Chengyi (2003) analyzed and evaluated the quality influencing factors of the implementation environment elements of online teaching activities, respectively; Qiu Chongguang (2003) proposed to theoretically analyze Qiu Chongguang (2003) proposed to theoretically analyze the means and measures of e-learning monitoring and scientifically analyze the monitoring results in order to guide the quality improvement of e-learning activities; Gu Jiafeng (2006) took Peking University as an example for empirical analysis, and developed a higher education service quality measurement tool with good reliability and validity on the basis of SERVQTUAL, as well as developed an overall gap analysis table and a scanning diagram of university service quality as a basic tools for educational service management in higher education. Similarly, domestic scholars have realized the special characteristics of higher education and the limitations of directly applying the service quality scale of PZB in their empirical studies, so Chinese scholars have also begun to try to construct a model that is more suitable for the study of service quality measurement in Chinese higher education. Chai Qinfang (2004), JI Xiaoyi, Huang Xiaoping (2005), Ma Wanmin (2006), Hu Xiaohui (2006), Chen Ping (2006), and other scholars have devoted themselves to conducting more targeted measurement research on the quality of educational services in vocational colleges and universities and constructed models for the measurement of the quality of higher education services with their characteristics according to the uniqueness of the educational services in vocational colleges and universities. Yang Xue and Liu Wu (2006) constructed the Chinese Higher Education Customer Satisfaction Index model (CHE-CSI) and measured student satisfaction in six higher education institutions in Shenyang City in an attempt to achieve the generalization of this model for higher education service quality measurement. Lei Shuxiang and Lin Hui (2008) proposed a quality assurance system for online education from the aspects of teaching assessment (mainly including assessment of teaching ideology, assessment of teaching environment and conditions, assessment of teaching process, assessment of teaching management, assessment of teaching effect), student assessment, teacher assessment, course assessment, and overall assessment of online education colleges; Zeng Navy and Fan Xinmin (2008) made a study on the quality of online courses in the United States, Canada, Britain, France, Japan and other countries. and Japan to conduct a comprehensive comparative analysis of the quality standards, management and monitoring system, and assurance system of network courses in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and other countries, and concluded that to realize the three-dimensionality, digitization, and socialization of China’s quality assurance system of network education, it is necessary to combine internal self-regulation and external supervision, and shift the focus of the work to pay more attention to the teaching work and improve the quality of talent cultivation; Zhu Zulin (2009) proposed a quality assurance system of network education in terms of the mainstream Service Quality Measurement Theory as the basis, and the types of support services, factors and their functions as the measurement conceptualization, established the Distance Learning Support Service Quality (DLSSQ) Measurement Model which is relatively complete in terms of both the internal theoretical structure and the external model framework.

(4) Study on improving the quality of online teaching services

Since 2020, online teaching has been launched in China, and domestic scholars have begun to study the countermeasures to improve the quality of online teaching. Wang Yunwu, et al. (2020) proposed that to better improve the quality of online education, it is necessary to create a smart home office learning environment, choose a suitable online education model, adopt good preparation for online education, build online gold classes, make good use of live teaching experience and skills, and enhance the interactivity of online teaching. Ping Wang and Chang Lin (2020), suggest optimizing online teaching from four aspects: society, universities, teachers, and students. Lei Ling and Song Canyuan (2020) believe that to improve the quality of online teaching, we need to adjust the teaching process, rationally design the links, improve the teaching method, strengthen the interaction between teachers and students, strengthen the construction of online teaching platform, and strengthen the teaching organization and management.

3. Research design

(1) Research Objects

In May 2024, the author randomly distributed questionnaires to students in our school, 500 questionnaires were distributed and 455 questionnaires were recovered. Among them, 450 questionnaires were valid, and the validity rate of the questionnaires was 90%.

(2) Questionnaire design

The evaluation index system of teaching service quality refers to the five evaluation indexes of tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy of service quality in the SERVQUAL scale, and 20 indexes in five dimensions of tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy are designed. As shown in Table 1, the expectations and perceived values of each index in the questionnaire are standardized using a scale of 1-5, with 1-5 corresponding to the degree of agreement from low to high (very dissatisfied, very dissatisfied, dissatisfied, average, satisfied, very satisfied, very satisfied).

Table 1 Online Teaching Service Quality Indicator Measurement Scale

4. Empirical analysis

(1) Reliability

The reliability analysis used was the Cronbach alpha coefficient method, which examines the internal consistency between scale items. Usually, the reliability of the questionnaire is very good if the Cronbach alpha coefficient is above 0.9. The Cronbach coefficient of this questionnaire is 0.955, which indicates that the questionnaire has excellent internal consistency and stability.

Table 2 Cronbach’s reliability statistics

(2) Validity

In this study, KMO and Bartlett’s test of sphericity were conducted using SPSS. The KMO measure was 0.651 which is greater than 0.5 and the probability of significance of Bartlett’s test of sphericity was 0.000 which is less than 0.01. This indicates that the data from the questionnaire was able to be factor analyzed.

Table 3 KMO and Bartlett’s test

(3) Expectation-Perception Analysis

We conducted an “expectation-perception mean” gap analysis of the quality of teaching services, and calculated the service quality gap value of each item according to the service quality gap analysis formula (Q= P-E) based on the expectation and perception means of the 20 items in Table 1.

Table 4 Students’ evaluation of the quality of online teaching services

As can be seen in Table 4, the gap values for all dimensions are negative and the dimensional gaps are, in descending order, responsiveness, tangibility, assurance, empathy, and reliability. The “reliability” dimension has the largest gap, with a mean gap value of -0.52.

(4) Dimension Weight Measurement

The questionnaire was used to analyze the relevant data in conjunction with the weighting measurements of the five evaluation dimensions, and finally the weighting of each dimension. Students can score based on their perception of the importance of the five dimensions, and the sum of the scores for each dimension is 100.

Table 5 Weighting statistics of five dimensions of online course service quality

Table 5 shows that “reliability” has the highest weight among the five dimensions with 22.37%, followed by “empathy” and “assurance” with 21.33% and 20.37%, respectively. 20.37%, followed by “empathy” and “assurance” with weights of 21.33% and 20.37% respectively, and finally “tangibility” and “responsiveness” with weights of 18.80% and 17.13% respectively. This shows that students’ evaluation of the quality of online course teaching services emphasizes “reliability”, “empathy” and “assurance”. Online teaching services should focus on these three aspects to improve the quality of online teaching services.

(5) Calculation of the quality gap in teaching services

After determining the weights of the five dimensions of online course teaching service quality, the weighted teaching quality evaluation formula is then utilized to calculate the online course teaching service quality evaluation results.

①

denotes the perceived value of the measurement index, the expected value of the measurement index denotes the expected value of the measurement indicator, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, and Q5 represent the sum of the mean value of each indicator under each dimension respectively, and substituting into equation ① yields.

②

According to the data in Table 4, the expectation and feeling means of the measures can be known. Using the summation formula, it is possible to know the sum of the gap between expectations and feelings for each dimension, Q1 = -1.9, Q2 = -2.06, Q3 = -1.61, Q4 = -1.93, Q5 = -2.05.

-(a) denotes the weight of each dimension of “tangibility”, “reliability”, “responsiveness”, “assurance” and “emotionality”. The weights of each dimension of “Emotionality” for the five dimensions have been derived above as follows.  = 18.8. = 22.37. = 17.13. = 20.37, = 21.33. = 21.33. Substituting each value into the formula, the final value of the quality of online teaching services can be calculated:

SQ = (-1.9)*18.8% + (-2.06)*22.37% + (-1.61)*17.13% + (-1.93)*20.37% + (-2.05)*21.33% = -1.92

The negative sign indicates that the perceived value of online course teaching service quality is less than the expected value, and the total gap value is -1.92, which indicates that the teaching service quality of online courses is low. Teachers and teaching managers should analyze the reasons according to the results, improve and adjust the various teaching services that affect the evaluation results, narrow the relevant gaps, and improve the quality of online teaching services.

(6) IPA Quadrant Analysis

Based on the mean values of the expected and actual perceived scores of each dimension, an IPA quadrant analysis diagram of online teaching service quality was formed (Figure 4-1). As shown in the figure, among these 5 dimensions, the 2 dimensions of assurance and empathy are located in the competitive advantage zone (first quadrant), therefore, online teaching should continue to develop the services of these 2 dimensions as the competitive advantage of online teaching services; the responsiveness dimension is located in the maintenance zone (second quadrant), therefore, while maintaining the existing services of the responsiveness dimension, we should try our best to improve the satisfaction level of its dimensions so that it can be stabilized in the maintenance zone; the tangibility dimension is located in the secondary improvement zone (third quadrant), which is a secondary improvement dimension, so after dealing with the priority improvement dimensions, it is also necessary to start solving such problems to move the tangibility dimension toward the maintenance zone; the reliability dimension is located in the priority improvement zone (fourth quadrant), which graduate students have high expectations but low actual perceived satisfaction, so the reliability dimension is a quality of online teaching service weak link and is the first direction to be prioritized for improvement.

Figure 4-1 Online Teaching Service Quality IPA Quadrant Analysis Chart

According to the IPA quadrant analysis of specific indicators in Figure 4-2, this study found that there is only one indicator Q5 in the priority improvement area (Quadrant 4), which is categorized under the dimension of reliability, and corresponds to “Detailed content of corrections for online submission of homework, reports, test papers, etc.”. This indicates that there is a large gap between students’ expectations and actual perceptions of teachers’ online corrections, which is a weak point of online teaching services and needs to be improved and upgraded. Secondly, there are 7 indicators in the secondary improvement area (the third quadrant), the specific corresponding content is shown in Table 4-1. 2 indicators are accounted for in the tangible dimension, many students reflect that the network smoothness has problems affecting the normal class from time to time and also affects the clarity of the teacher’s voice in the class, which requires the relevant departments in charge of ensuring the stability of the network and the process; 1 indicator is accounted for in the reactive dimension, some students think that the teacher does not teach online promptly, which is the weak point of online teaching service. The responsiveness dimension accounted for one indicator, some students thought that teachers did not respond in time when teaching online; the assurance dimension accounted for one indicator, teachers need to strengthen the use of online teaching platforms; the empathy dimension accounted for two indicators, online teaching did not pay enough attention to the students and need to strengthen the interaction and communication with the students.

Table 4-1 Correspondence of quadrants of online teaching service quality indicators

Figure 4-2 IPA Quadrant Analysis Chart for Specific Indicators

4. Findings and discussion

(1) Conclusion of the study

In this paper, we analyze the background, purpose, and significance of online teaching service quality evaluation, sort out the related theories and literature at home and abroad, comprehensively use the literature method, pattern analysis method, and questionnaire survey method, construct an online teaching service quality evaluation model based on SERVQUAL model, prepare an online teaching service quality questionnaire matched with the evaluation model, and conduct empirical research on the online teaching service quality. Conduct empirical research, combine the results of empirical research and the IPA quadrant analysis chart, clarify the priority of improving the quality of online teaching services, and put forward improvement strategies. This study finally draws the following conclusions:

First, the basic ideas and theories of service quality evaluation and the application of the SERVQUAL evaluation model in the field of online teaching service quality management are not only feasible but also have great application prospects. However, the original SERVQUAL model needs to be revised in the citation process. This paper constructs an online teaching service quality evaluation model including five dimensions of tangibility, reliability, empathy, responsiveness, and value, corresponding to 20 specific indexes, which further broadens the scope of application of the SERVQUAL model.

Second, the results of the empirical analysis of online teaching service quality show that students’ actual perception of online teaching service quality is lower than their expectation, and their overall and dimensional online teaching service quality gaps are negative. Among them, the perceived-expectation gap of the reliability dimension is the largest, and students believe that reliability is the most important dimension in online teaching service quality. This indicates that there are some problems with the current online teaching service quality and there is still much room for improvement. From the perspective of each dimension, the problems in the tangibility dimension include insufficient network smoothness of the online teaching platform and insufficient clarity of the teacher’s voice in class; the problems in the reliability dimension include insufficient detail in the teacher’s correction of students’ assignments and reports submitted online; the problems in the responsiveness dimension include the teacher’s failure to respond to the student’s needs promptly and to praise the student’s progress in the classroom; the problems in the assurance dimension are Some teachers may not be proficient in using the online teaching platform; the empathy dimension is that teachers do not understand students’ needs when teaching online and do not reserve enough time and opportunities for communication and interaction with students.

Third, according to the results of IPA quadrant analysis, the empathy and assurance dimensions of online teaching services are located in the competitive advantage area; responsiveness is located in the maintenance area; tangibility is located in the secondary improvement area; and reliability is located in the priority improvement area. Therefore, we should firstly improve the detailed degree of feedback on the assignment reports submitted by students when teachers teach online and prioritize the improvement of the services provided in the reliability dimension; secondly, improve the services provided in the tangibility dimension by strengthening the stability and ease of use of the online teaching network platform; thirdly, improve the services of the responsiveness dimension so that they can be maintained in the stable area, and lastly, improve teachers’ teaching ability by establishing a student-service-centered Finally, by establishing a student service-centered ideology, improving the teaching ability of teachers, and establishing an incentive mechanism for teaching services, the services provided in the empathy and assurance dimensions will continue to be utilized to their advantage.

(2) Suggestions for improvement

Online teaching service quality contains multiple dimensions, due to the limited nature of resources, when improving online teaching service quality, it is necessary to prioritize the various dimensions that need to be improved according to the degree of urgency of the problem, for the existence of problems in the field of more serious and urgent need to be prioritized for improvement, for the current quality of service in the field of less problematic, only need to make certain local adjustments.

First of all, for the problems that exist in the reliability dimension, the teacher should pay attention to the feedback on students’ output after class, give detailed instructions, and carefully correct the assignments and reports submitted online, etc. If the teacher has difficulties in submitting the corrected feedback online, he/she can ask the course, or assistant, to help upload the teaching platform or give guidance to the students through social software such as WeChat QQ. At the same time, lecturers should also strengthen their own academic ability and teaching level. Online courses are disseminated and reproducible, and zero error in teaching content should be guaranteed. For, the school management can set up an online teaching inspection team, from time to time for online teaching inspections, and organize online teaching courses special assessments, supervise the teacher on the class at the same time, but also can improve the quality of online teaching services.

Second, for the problems that exist in the tangibility dimension, school network departments should seek cooperation with network operators for centralized solutions. Problems such as unclear learning webpage images and muffled teacher voices in online courses are largely the result of unstable networks. Online learning has certain requirements on computers, cell phones, campus and home network bandwidth, and mobile traffic. For example, some difficult students are affected by the online courses because of the poor network signal in their areas, the school management can consider applying for special funds for online teaching to provide special bandwidth or purchase mobile traffic to provide for students with difficulties; and as a teacher, you should also adjust your online teaching equipment beforehand, which can be confirmed by the teaching secretaries or teaching assistants before the class, to guarantee the smoothness of the network, and if an emergency occurs, the school management should provide a special bandwidth or purchase mobile traffic to provide for students with difficulties; and as a teacher, you should also adjust your online teaching equipment beforehand. In case of emergency, the school management should provide an emergency place for teachers to stand.

Then, the problems in the dimensions of responsiveness and empathy are mainly centered on the lack of interaction between teachers and students in online teaching. Therefore, school management and teachers should establish a service consciousness of “student-oriented”, and teachers should pay attention to students’ needs and respond to them on time, especially when students make progress in the classroom, they should give more encouragement and praise. For example: when teachers teach, they can let students ask questions at any time or open the message function, if teachers can’t look at the message board, they can let the teaching assistants collect good questions and focus on responding; each class can reserve some time for group discussion, to diversify the way of teaching; in addition, the school management can also regularly organize some online teaching training and experience sharing of the benchmark teachers, and regularly organize the feedback of the faculties and departments. Students’ learning needs and difficulties.

Finally, for the problems that exist in the assurance dimension, school management should organize training and assessment for the use of online teaching platforms, so that each teacher can be skilled in the use of changing platforms before giving lessons. In addition, the technicians of the platform can be arranged to provide online guidance and do a good simulation test before the class to anticipate various operational problems that may arise and familiarize themselves with various functions. At the same time, teachers should take the initiative to understand students’ interests and knowledge needs, use diversified teaching methods to stimulate students’ interest in course learning, and proactively improve their own business ability and teaching level.

5. Opinions and recommendations on the application and dissemination of research results

Firstly, the SERVQUAL model can be used as a tool to measure the quality of educational services. It can be applied not only to online teaching but also to offline teaching; the research object can be not only students but also teachers or managers. At the same time, the SERVQUAL model can be continuously refined and transformed so that it can be applied to service quality areas that need to be evaluated, such as continuing education and training services, teaching management services, student management services, and so on.

Secondly, according to the problems in the responsiveness dimension of the research results, it is mainly because the teachers’ sense of service is not strong enough, and the deeper reason is that the performance appraisal standard for teachers’ teaching lacks the assessment of indicators related to service to students, which causes some teachers to neglect the important duty of teaching for a long time, and focus on the completion of tasks closely related to the appraisal, such as scientific research, etc. In addition, there is a lack of incentives for teachers to teach, for example, “My favorite teacher” can be held every year, and the winning teachers provide certain spiritual and material rewards, but this incentive activity is missing in the daily evaluation of teachers. Specifically, the following two points can be taken into account:

First, improve the teacher assessment and evaluation mechanism, enhance student participation in performance appraisal and evaluation, and make students one of the main subjects in evaluating teacher performance appraisal. At the same time, the evaluation indexes of students’ service attitude, timeliness, and effectiveness in responding to their needs should be added to the content of the performance appraisal. In addition, by the principle of openness and transparency, the results of the appraisal will be announced to all teaching staff and students promptly, and the results of the appraisal will be used as an important basis for the promotion of titles, the evaluation of excellence, and the end-of-year appraisal.

Second, establish a service incentive mechanism to improve teachers’ teaching service motivation. Incentive mechanisms can motivate teachers to adjust their services to meet the individualized needs of graduate students and encourage them to choose the best service path and conflict resolution methods to complete complex tasks. The development of incentives can be divided into two categories, one of which is positive and rewarding, and the other is negative and punitive incentives. Therefore, teachers can be guided to devote themselves to the service of education and teaching with a positive mindset through certain material and spiritual rewards. At the same time, a corresponding punitive mechanism should be established to impose certain penalties on teachers who are unwilling to convert to students, have a bad attitude toward teaching, and have poor teaching results, to prompt teachers to consciously and actively work for the improvement of the quality of teaching services.

Finally, to address the problems in the dimension of empathy, teachers should actively change their work concepts, establish a “student-centered” service consciousness, grasp the most realistic, most concerned, and most direct problems of students, and pay full attention to and absorb the reasonable needs of students in the course. Firstly, the two-way communication between teaching managers and students should be strengthened. Heads of relevant departments and teaching secretaries of colleges should strengthen communication with student cadres and take the initiative to communicate with student representatives to understand students’ opinions and suggestions on the school’s teaching services, improve the school’s work promptly according to the suggestions, and provide services in a targeted manner. Second, according to individual needs, targeted teaching services. Since the level of students is not uniform, especially for some ethnic minorities or international students, teachers should design different teaching activities and teaching objectives for different difficulties for different groups of students.

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