Service Quality of Private Nurseries in Kuching City: Perception of Parents

Abstract

The spring-up of private nurseries in this era has triggered the trend for working parents to send their kids to private nurseries. This phenomenon has led to an increasing interest in assessing the service quality provided by nurseries. Therefore, this study aims to examine the relationship between service quality and parents’ satisfaction towards the private nursery. A total of 399 samples were obtained in this study through the distribution of questionnaires in Kuching city, Sarawak. Pearson’s correlation is used to examine the direction of the relationship between independent variables (tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy) and dependent variable (parent satisfaction); while multiple regression analysis had also been used to determine the most dominant dimension that contributes to parents’ satisfaction. The findings of this study revealed that the majority of the respondents have a high level of satisfaction towards the service offered by the private nursery in Kuching. Meanwhile, there is a significant relationship between SERVQUAL dimensions and parents’ satisfaction except for the reliability dimension. In addition, findings also found out that the tangibility of the service is the most dominant dimension in enhancing parent satisfaction. The results suggest the service providers in nursery place should emphasize more on physical facilities of the nursery as well as maintaining hygiene to leverage parents’ satisfaction.