This research aims at providing basic data to help effectively enhance service quality of archives especially for public institutions by developing a unique scale which is able to assess the service quality of archives. For that purpose, the researc...
This research aims at providing basic data to help effectively enhance service quality of archives especially for public institutions by developing a unique scale which is able to assess the service quality of archives. For that purpose, the research brought up the following research questions:
First, which component factors exist in the evaluation of archival service quality?
Second, is the scale developed for evaluating the archive service quality, valid, reliable, and able to measure differences in service quality recognized by users?
First of all, based on literature study, definition, characteristics, and types of existing services, and examples of service quality and service quality measuring models, this study produced repetitive component concepts. Then by relating these component concepts and service quality measuring statements of Calvert and Hernon(1997), seven factors and 96 preliminary statements were developed. Those preliminary statements had gone through double reviews done by 12 experts before being reduced to a total of 7 factors and 76 statements which include nine statements on appearance, 13 on reliability, nine on speed, 13 on convenience, 12 on accountability, 10 on empathy, and 10 on equality. Then regarding these selected statements, a pilot survey was conducted on 30 people divided into five people in each group of six archival institutions who are semi-experts. According to the I-CVI calculation of 29 questionnaires collected, what had .78 and above agreements represents 7 factors and 69 items including nine statements on appearance, 12 on reliability, nine on speed, nine on convenience, 12 on accountability, nine on empathy, and nine on equality.
There were two series of expert reviews and pilot tests of semi-experts. They were conducted on inside and outside users of three most frequently used archives which provide a range of type-based reference service, value added service, and outreach service. Those 300 users subjected to these reviews were divided into groups of 50. These reviews generated seven factors and 69 statements. The researcher distributed questionnaires which consisted of a total of 81 statements including those 69 statements, six statements on user satisfaction and attitude, and six statements to identify demographic characteristics. Consequently a total of 295 valid items of data were collected. First, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted based on 295 items of data in order to decide factors and statements of the newly developed scale. As a result, five factors and 33 statements were selected. In addition, in order to verify this structure, the study surveyed on a total of 450 inside and out side users of three second most frequently used archives which provide a range of type-based reference service, value added service, and outreach service. Those 450 users were also divided into groups of 75. As a result, a total of 410 valid items of data were gathered and the confirmatory factor analysis on this was conducted. The result showed that the scale well reflected the conceptual scheme and contents as seen in factor loading and model fit. Additionally, the verification result of configural invariance and metric invariance of five factor model showed that the scale was able to be used on both inside and outside users. The scale verified construct validity through exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis.
Next, the study confirmed the validity of the scale through tests on convergent validity, discriminant validity, and criterion-relation validity, and verified its reliability through Cronbach's α coefficient.
Lastly, in order to find if the scale measures the recognition of archive users on service quality reliably and properly, the t-test was performed to identify how differently the service quality is considered between satisfactory and unsatisfactory users of archives.
The followings are the analysis results of the archive service quality scale.
First, the subcategory of the scale consists of five factors such as equality, appearance, convenience, accountability, and empathy. The equality factor includes seven statements designed to measure the fairness of the subject, period, qualification, method, process, and policy of the service provided to users. The appearance consists of seven statements to evaluate how stable and relaxing the facility, environment and space are in terms of providing service. The convenience factor comprises eight statements to measure how easy and useful the method, condition, and process are in providing service. There are six statements in the accountability factor to measure the extent of responsible management and expertise level of the service providers of archives. Finally, the empathy factor consists of five statements to measure individual consideration and attention the customers feel while using the archives.
Second, the factor analysis on archives of the first and second user surveys showed the scale has consistent factor structures. In addition, in order to verify the same application of measuring the inside and outside users based on the same structure concept, multi-group confirmatory factor analysis was performed using 410 effective data collected from the second and additional user surveys. Consequently, the result of configural invariance and metric invariance verification process showed the appropriate model fit, showing that the scale is able to be commonly used by both inside and outside users.
Third, the scale is not only related to SERVQUAL and LibQUAL+ which were already verified but also holds additional R2 on user satisfaction, which brings convergent validity and discriminant validity. It was also verified to have criterion-relation validity since it showed meaningful impact on user satisfactory level which is criterion variable.
Fourth, the scale reliability spanned between .89 and .91 in low factor scale and .97 in the overall scale has reliability of generally high level internal consistency.
Fifth, the t-test to confirm the gap of service quality consideration showed meaningful difference between satisfactory and unsatisfactory users. It showed the clear difference of service quality recognized between the two groups. It also represented the scale could measure the recognition of archive users properly and reliably.
This study confirmed the structural concept based on concept definition of archival service quality, conducted statistical analysis, and developed the service quality scale equipped with validity and reliability. Developing the scale is expected to play a practical role in presenting for each archive more effective operation method to enhance service quality by diagnosing its status and identifying the differences from other archives.