ارزیابی کیفیت در دوره های دیپلم قبل از فارغ التحصیلی از دیدگاه دانشجویان: یک مطالعه اکتشافی در برزیل  Quality evaluation in post-graduate diploma courses from the students’ perspective: An exploratory study in Brazil

1. Introduction Changes in the social, political and economic environment have occurred recently in Brazil and have led to a marked increase in the number of higher education institutions and greater access to this type of education (Bueno, Rocha, Veiga, & Duclos, 2015
). By the end of 2011, the country had 6.5 million university students. Of these, 6.3 million were undergraduate students, and 173,000 were in post-graduate courses, more than twice the number at the beginning of the decade (Brasil, 2014). Many of the changes that have occurred in the area of education are derived from new products offered by Higher Education Institutions (HEI), which have gained strength due to increasing investments by the federal government, changes to the legislation and programs such as PROUNI, FIES and REUNI (Bueno et al., 2015; Saraiva & Nunes, 2011). Given that post-graduate diploma courses represent an important segment in higher education, generating greater knowledge, skills and competences than undergraduate courses, they have also become strategic to the institutions that operate in this field, being an important investment in methods that will promote greater learning and student satisfaction. A better understanding of the attributes of the quality of education that most influence this satisfaction has become an important source of information for HEI so that they can make better investments in the post-graduate segment. In the literature, several studies have analyzed the quality perceived in higher education services (Arambewela & Hall, 2009; Mondini, Domingues, Correia, & Mondini, 2012; Zwierewicz, 2008). However, research in this field has established indicators and dimensions of quality from particular theoretical or methodological concepts, which in turn have limited its results. In this context, the present study evaluated the quality of services provided by HEI based on the dimensions of the SERVQUAL methodology, which is an established and respected model among academics and managers, as it was developed specifically for the context of services from a rigorous methodological process. This forms the research question: Which attributes of the SERVQUAL model have an influence on the quality of service as perceived by post-graduate diploma students?