Dissertation Proposal Assignment: Students as Customers (Research Proposal Sample)

Dissertation proposal: Students as customers
Name
Professor
Institution
Course
Date
Introduction
In our modern society, the issue of students being considered as customers to higher institutions of learning, that is universities and colleges, has been on the rise. Most universities and colleges are customer oriented and serve to make profit out of their students instead of upholding the original focus of provision of quality education and knowledge to the students. The concept of commercialism has crept into the university system and the administrators of the institutions are making money through the system. The universities and colleges also put up structures to lure students and make profits out of them for example building of swimming pools in the university premises and charging the students for the services that were availed using the students’ money.
When students are treated as customers then there is a possibility that the performance of the students would be low since the administrators are money oriented rather than being education oriented. This causes them to have more focus on gaining from the students rather than delivering to the students. In the past universities and colleges treated students as students and that takes credit for the exemplary performance of the then students. A similar survey conducted by BizEd, showed that when universities and colleges treat students as customers then they are encouraging low performance on the side of the students.
In another survey by Abeyta, the researcher came to a conclusion that higher education institutions should upgrade all their approaches to business and management so as to cope up with the demands and characteristics of today’s students who behave like customers. This was due to the demand by the students to have the ability and gain the driving force in demanding alterations on how their education needs are being delivered. According to the concept of student-as-customers, the higher education institutions are viewed as the producers while the students are the consumers.
Aims and objectives
The main aim of the project is to assess the efficiency of the management of higher institutions of learning in handling students as customers and providing the best education to the students at the same time. The project is aimed at getting the clear picture of the management system and the influence on the outcome of results as either positive or negative.
The project also aims at understanding the structural relationship between the administration and academics, administrative staff and students and students and academics and their detrimental effects on the success or failure of the management system of the higher institutions of learning.
Literature review
In recent times, a lot has been put forward or rather written about the quality of education offered at the higher levels of institutions of learning and the impact on the lives of the students. A research by Clayson, it shows that the situation of turning students into customers is brought about by the increased economic accountability of the institutions of learning due to the reduced funding that is supposed to be offered by the government and the wide focus in the direction of consumer choice (Clayson, 2015 pg. 1-10). The current way of viewing ‘customers’ of education has created the need for reviewing the relationship between the consumers that is the students and the university or college employees. Most of the reviews and researches have mainly laid emphasis on the quality of service that is offered and the teaching aspect of education in general. The administrative section of the higher education has been widely overlooked when it comes to the issue of quality service deliverance. This is not a surprise as most universities and colleges are focused on teaching and research with the administration tasked to facilitate these aims. Most of what has been written about the topic has been done by so by academics who focus on only the areas that are of concern to them. This means that the role of the administrative staff in the institutional culture has been ignored.
The administration in the higher institutions of learning views customer service beyond the mere service transaction and focuses on a wide range of view. The institutions aim at attaining an ‘institutional fit’ environment whereby the student is made to feel comfortable or has a sense of satisfaction from the services that are offered in the institutions (Eagle and Brennan, 2016 pg.44-60). In an interesting way, the survey found out that satisfaction had a great impact on performance than performance had on satisfaction. In order to treat a student as a customer, it requires a perception of quality services combined with the right academic or teaching criteria and an assurance of an enjoyable campus life. Just as taking care of customers or consumers in a firm or business results in higher profitability, higher institutions of education seek to attract and retain their students who are their customers.
When discussing the quality of the services offered then language is a key factor. How the service to be offered is described matters to the consumer of the product. The language used by the university to the student determines the quality of service the institution will provide and the willingness of the student to joining the university (Rothschild, 2014 pg.573-586). Understanding the trends in the management of universities is also a key factor that should be put into consideration. Real customer service involves more than just an individual and sometimes it even surpasses the departmental level. In order to ensure the smooth running of the customer based institutions, all the stakeholders must take part in one way or the other to build the trust of the customers who are the students and retain them.
In a research by (De Vita, 2015 pg. 393-398), it is advised that the students should be treated with respect and dignity so as to increase the chances of the students being managed in a customer type of way. The success of the institution is based on the type of quality services provided to the students. All the employees should be reminded that regardless of their position in the institution, they are all in the business of serving the students no matter the interaction between them and the students. It also gives a point that requires the workers to understand the students since perception is like reality in the mind of a student.
Methodology
In this section I will put more of my interests in finding more information in a detailed manner considering the fact that I am to determine the whole concept through which the topic is portrayed. Indeed it is well shown in moist of our higher education facilities or rather institution today as students have been mistakenly taken and made to be potential customers (Owlia, 2011 18). Why will I have to say this? This is due to the to the fact that if you conduct a sample experiment by visiting some of the higher education facilities today, you will realize that the fees through which one has to offer in order to take part in a learning sessions has risen to over 8000 US dollars. This clearly shows to what extent this higher education facilities have turned to be business enterprises whose main agenda is to make money and to succeed in business rather than performing well by producing good services that may help the students in their learning process. ( Cuthbert, R., 2015 pg.81) Instead, these institutions have put more of their interests in business matters leading to great figures in fee structures thus making their goals paramount.
In my research proposal I will take much of my interests in finding more on how some of the institutions that are there really made it to making student hood with them a business other than a mutual benefit in that the students will get what they went for, as they pay back some amount of cash for the services rendered. In my research will use quite a number of data collecting methods or rather approaches that will help me analyze the whole data at the end of my research. In my research the participants will mainly be consisting of higher education students with whom I have so many hopes that they will help me in conducting this whole process. I intend to use a total of sixty five students from five major universities whereby each one of them will have a specific role to play in helping determining the situation at hand (Slaughter, 2008 pg. 69).
There are a number of general methodological approaches with which one may use in a research and at the end of it all one will have a clear data analysis. These approach types are normally influenced by the strategy to which one is to use in the process of collecting the intended data having a particular target of respondents for instance the type of data collection is use questionnaire (Sax, B., 2014) Another dimension that might seem simple but really is of great influence to towards ones use of a particular method of data collection is that of the skills that one will use to complete the whole process of data collection. The last factor of influence many a times happens to be the required accuracy and the variables that will derived from the process.as for me Intend to use some of the methodological approaches that I believe are of unique accuracy in terms of data collection and they are all-encompassing from sampling, questionnaire and conducting interviews. I also believe that through the use of these three methods I will be able to ascertain a clear data from the particular point of the data collected.
Questionnaire
With the help of the sixty five member team I will employ this method perfectly through creating specific questions putting them into files that will enable each of the members to take num...