EVALUATING THE SERVICE QUALITY ASSESSMENT OF INDIVIDUALS ATTENDING FITNESS CENTERS IN ANTALYA ACCORDING TO AGE, GENDER AND EDUCATION

The aim of the study is to evaluate the service quality assessment of individuals attending fitness centers in Antalya, according to gender, age and education variables. The Population of the research consists of 1400 individuals attending two different centers of a same fitness club in Antalya city center. The Sample of the study was formed by random sampling method. According to this, study group included 170 men ( age=31.43±9.81) and 132 women ( age=30.01±9.21) making a total of 302 individuals ( age=30.81±9.56) who were attending regularly to these centers. In this study the data collection tool was the “Service Quality Assessment Scale” which consisted of 34 items and four sub-dimensions. The scale wasdeveloped by Lam (2000), adapted to Turkish language and evaluated for validity and reliability by Gürbüz et al. (2004). In data analysis, descriptive statistics were utilized for demographic variables. In order to compare Staff, Programme, Locker Room and Facility sub-dimensions of service quality assessment scale, One-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (ONEWAY MANOVA) is used. The results of the MANOVA suggested that, according to age variable (Hotelling’s T2=.014; F(4,297)=1.062; η2=.014; p>0.05) no significant difference was found in service quality assessment scale and sub-dimensions, however, significant differences were observed according to gender (Hotelling’s T2=.034; F(4,297)=2.498; η2=.033; p<0.05) and education (Hotelling’s T2=.048; F(4,297)=3.598; η2=.046; p<0.05) variables. In conclusion, it can be accepted thatparticipants had satisfactory evaluations concerning the service quality of fitness centers that they were attending.