The measurement of perceived value in higher education: a unidimensional approach

Abstract

Higher education institutions increasingly need to establish long-term relationships with their clients through the provision of high-value services. Hence, understanding how the provision of education is viewed by recipients along with the means to reliably measure perceived value are both fundamental. This paper deals with perceived value as a higher order construct making recourse to a unidimensional approach. The results indicate that the perceived value construct can be measured with a high degree of robustness when incorporating the trade-off between price and quality and a comparison with other alternatives. The results also show that image is an important influence on perceived value and that satisfaction is the main consequence.

Keywords:

• perceived value
• higher education
• unidimensional approach

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Portuguese Science Foundation through NECE – Núcleo de Investigação em Ciências Empresariais.