"Consumer" Students
- beckgarya
- Jan 30, 2016
- 2 min read
As an educator at multiple universities over the past decade, I've had the pleasure of meeting all manner of students. Traditional, non-traditional, older, younger, part-time, full-time, etc. Categorizing is pointless here, it's more a variety of interests, experiences, and orientations to learning.
Of the fairly common orientations or approaches that students express is that they are "Consumers." As consumers, they pay for a service (i.e., an education), delivered by employees (i.e., teachers, advisors, counselors) and ulimately evaluated by the value of the product (i.e., what does it get you, like jobs, prestige, higher income level over your lifetime). BTW, included in those products is knowledge, or a skill.
Before I start in on this post, t
his perspective is in some ways justified. Higher education is more expensive each year, and a four year degree (sometimes five) is no small fee. When you add tuition, room & board, books, lab fees, and social expenses, you're talking about years of lifestyle-affecting loan repayments. The consumer mentality is in some ways built into the fact that this is one of the most expensive purchases an individual may make in a lifetime besides a home.
On the otherside of the coin, the perspective is troublesome and problematic. A merchant-customer relationship is very different than the teacher/student mentorship I base my own classroom perspective on: My work often extends beyond "standard working hours." My feedback and guidance is given freely without expectation of repeat buiness, or investing in my best clients disproporationally. Effective teaching doesn't work by fully embracing that metaphor, as easy as it may be for both students and teachers to invoke it at random moments of frustration.
Recent relevant research, referred to me Prof. Alison Lietzenmayer (Thx!), looked at the consquences of students based in England adopting a more consumer-oriented approach to education. The translated findings? Consumer-orientated attitudes suggested a higher focus on grades (rather than intellectual engagement) and that the lower your empahasis on learning the material the more you tended to be focused on the grade, and the worse your grade performance was. What?
Why would focusing on a grade lead to worse grade peformance? The researchers suggest that potentially a learning-orientation competes with a consumer-orientation. As in you can't have a high level of both because they don't mix well.
This makes some sense if we think about how an over-focus on the points of an assignment, might actually lead us to miss the actual point of the assignment.
Check out the article yourself!
References:
Louise Bunce, Amy Baird & Siân E. Jones (2016): The student-as-consumer approach in higher education and its effects on academic performance, Studies in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03075079.2015.1127908
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