ABSTRACT
The higher education sector is currently facing new challenges that have never been previously experienced because of increased global competitiveness, advances in technology, and the rise in the numbers of universities that offer students a broader range of courses to choose from. Students are the customers and main stakeholders in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) (Abbas, 2020). Hence, it is essential to investigate student perceptions of service quality (SQ) in HEIs. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of COVID-19 pandemic on the SQ in HEIs in Egypt from students' perspectives through the following research question: Has COVID-19 pandemic influenced the different dimensions of service quality in higher educational institutions? The paper aims to shed light on the impact of an unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic on higher education services, as it deliberates on the challenges and responses in the short/medium term through customers' or students' perspectives as the main stakeholders of the educational process. The question that the paper addresses is accompanied by several hypotheses that evaluate the influence of COVID-19 on different dimensions of service quality in the learning context.