Acciones de seguimiento y procedimientos de recogida

The expectation/perception paradigm was regarded as a good foundation on which to develop the research question. Jamaica is engaged in an administrative reform process that includes reforms to the justice system, including the Supreme Court civil registry, but there is no indication that service quality has been considered as an issue in this reform process. The first question, therefore, is whether with these reforms practitioners are enjoying satisfactory service quality. This may be

represented as follows:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory overall service quality from the Supreme Court civil registry?

If the study cannot establish the hypothesis that the civil registry’s clients are satisfied with the services they have received, then the justice system reforms may not be effective and other solutions should be considered.

Research Question 2

Much of the debate over the use of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF instruments have been on whether service quality is best understood as a single- dimensional construct (overall service quality or OSQ) and what instrument best captures it. Another view is that there are underlying dimensions of service quality (SQDs) and that these dimensions can be identified by examining the attributes of service quality and grouping them into these dimensions. This study adopts both approaches that service quality may be viewed as both single-dimensional and multidimensional.

The performance model of service quality was used to examine OSQ only, while the gaps model of service quality was used to examine OSQ as well as the attributes of Tangibles, Reliability, Responsiveness, Assurance and Empathy (SQDs). The study, therefore, sought to answer the five additional questions, which

concentrate on these five dimensions of service quality. The first of those is Research Question 2:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory service quality in the tangibles dimension from the Supreme Court civil registry?

That question tests the respondents’ opinion on the physical aspects of the civil registry, such as the equipment, the physical facilities, the appearance of the employees and the materials the civil registry produces.

Research Question 3

The third research question tests the respondents’ opinion on the reliability of the civil registry, such as whether the registry will deliver on time, show interest in solving the practitioners’ problems, providing error-free service the first time the task is attempted and insisting on error-free records. This question may be put in these terms:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory service quality in the reliability dimension from the Supreme Court civil registry?

Research Question 4

The fourth research question tests the responsiveness of the civil registry, and focuses on the promptness of the registry’s services, the capacity of employees to tell customer exactly when services will be performed, to provide prompt service, to demonstrate the willingness to help the practitioners using the registry, and not to be

too busy to provide aid or respond to the practitioners’ requests for help. Research Question 4 may be put in the following terms:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory service quality in the responsiveness dimension from the Supreme Court civil registry?

Research Question 5

The fifth research question tests the assurance dimension, and it focuses on the behaviour of the employees of the civil registry, whether they instil confidence in the practitioners, whether the latter will feel safe in their transactions with the staff of the registry, whether the staff are courteous with practitioners and whether the registry staff have the knowledge to answer the practitioners’ questions. The fifth research question may be put as follows:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory service quality in the dimension of assurance from the Supreme Court civil registry?

Research Question 6

Research Question 6 addresses empathy. This may be summarised as a demonstration that members of the registry’s staff have the practitioners’ best interest at heart. It includes the capacity of the staff to provide individual attention to the customers, keeping convenient operating hours, understanding the needs of the users of the registry, and providing them with personal attention. Research Question 6 may be stated as follows:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory service quality in the dimension of empathy from the Supreme Court civil registry?

Research Question 7

Practitioners may value some of these attributes of service quality more than others. In practice, one attribute or dimension may be more useful than another. It is useful to determine whether practitioners experienced satisfactory service quality in the dimensions which were important to them. This is represented by the following Research question:

Do practitioners perceive that they receive satisfactory overall service quality from the Supreme Court civil registry in the dimension of service quality they regard as most important?

Research Question 8

It is a legitimate question whether males and females both appreciate the same level of service quality from the service quality interaction (Frater, 2006;

Papanikolaou & Zygiaris, 2014). It has been suggested that “there is the significant relationship between gender and service quality” (Hu, Liu, Su, & Huang, 2016, p. 284). Gender issues, including gender discrimination, gender roles and gender stereotypes continue to be contested in Jamaica. Darby (2009) highlighted the importance of gender equality issues, and gender neutrality, in the recommended improvements for the Jamaica justice system. The Statistical Institute of Jamaica (2017) reported that females in Jamaica are almost twice as likely as males to be unemployed. Although significant strides in reducing gender discrimination have been made in recent years, especially in the legal profession, it remains to be determined if females accessing the civil registry perceived that they received the same services as males. The Research question 8 addressed this issue:

Do male and female practitioners perceive that they receive equal overall service quality from the Supreme Court civil registry?

Research Question 9.

With more persons joining the legal profession, it has become more difficult getting suitable accommodation in offices and chambers in downtown Kingston. Increasingly, more entrants to the profession in Kingston have had to move away from the vicinity of the Supreme Court to accommodations uptown to the commercial district of New Kingston. The question remains whether practitioners who remain in the downtown area with easier access to the Supreme Court perceive that they receive better services than those further away. This may be represented in the following research question:

Do practitioners working in closer proximity to the Supreme Court perceive that they receive the same overall service quality from the civil registry as do practitioners who do not work near the Supreme Court?