Expectation, Perception, and Confirmation: A Mixed-Methods Study of Academic Library Service Quality and Student Satisfaction in Chongqing, China

Chinese universities have invested heavily in library infrastructure over the past decade, yet student evaluations continue to fall short of institutional expectations. This study examines why, by treating the distance between what students expect of an academic library and what they perceive it to deliver as the analytic object rather than as background noise. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design grounded in the SERVQUAL model and Expectation–Confirmation Theory, questionnaire data were collected from 400 undergraduates at five universities in Chongqing, followed by semi-structured interviews analysed thematically. Paired-samples t-tests revealed statistically significant negative gaps for overall service quality and for each of the five SERVQUAL dimensions, with the overall gap reaching an unusually large magnitude (mean difference = 0.401, t(399) = 74.58, p < .001). All five perceived dimensions correlated positively with satisfaction, and together they explained 34.5% of its variance, with Tangibility emerging as the strongest predictor (β = .304), followed by Empathy (β = .269). The qualitative strand produced five themes that mapped directly onto the SERVQUAL dimensions and four improvement priorities: facilities, resources, staff attitude and training, and digital support. Integration showed that students' expectations were anchored not in their own institution's past performance but in externally sourced comparisons (commercial digital platforms and better-resourced universities), which explains why negative disconfirmation persisted despite documented improvements in service provision. The study contributes a contextualised account of how the relative weight of SERVQUAL dimensions shifts with regional infrastructure conditions, and argues that gap-based diagnosis remains more actionable for library managers than perception-only satisfaction measurement.

academic library service quality, SERVQUAL, Expectation–Confirmation Theory, student satisfaction, mixed methods, Chinese higher education

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