Re: Measurement in Education LO1523

djustice@wppost.depaul.edu
Tue, 06 Jun 1995 08:37:14 -0600

Replying to LO1478 --

Replying to LO #1478 and the thread concerning students as customers.

Before deciding if students are "customers" or not, it may be useful to
distinguish among some of the many functions of higher education. It is
possible, for example, to look at the question from the perspective of the
student. Clearly he or she is looking to the educational institution to
provide something for the substantial tuition paid (at least at private or
independent institutions). If you were to ask them, they would likely
reply, " a degree" or perhaps, "an education" Few would say, "knowledge."
Thus, I find the 'students as purchasers of knowledge' model not
particularly helpful. Parents, and other funders, i.e. employers,
foundations, governments, corporations each have clear (and not so clear)
interests in maintaining both the institutions and the functions they
carry out. One interest is in maintaining the 'cultural' effect of the
institution on the community; another is the interest in maintaining a
resource of knowledge producers and theory builders, a capacity to be used
when needed. The "customer" for these more amouphous functions is the
society at large, although clearly some benefit more than others. A
University is also a place which creates new knowledge and disseminates
it. Who are the customers? businesses, the community, government,
individuals, society? How should the costs be distributed? in accordance
with benefits? How to measure? Students may be (and in graduate school
frequently are) also creators of knowledge, but rarely are they paid for
it. Who is the customer? Perhaps the faculty member who uses the 'cheap
grad student labor to publish an article which enhances his/her economic
potential. In the final analysis, it seems that the concept "student as
customer," borrowed as it is from the exchange of things, does not
adequately capture the more complex relationship of the student to the
higher education institution. Client, as used in social services, therapy
or the legal field might come closer, but has its own problems. What
seems very clear, however, is that at least a part of every higher
education institution's responsibility is to provide a set of services to
its students from which the student has at least a high likelihood of
learning something personally and socially valuable. This relationship
does require, it seems to me, that unversities take very seriously the
need to serve the students in ways that can improve the services and
better achieve the outcomes they believe they are paying to acquire. All
of this does little, I am afraid to shed the clear light of "customer
driven strategies" onto the murky enviorns of higher education, but
perhaps it does something to deepen our appreciation of the complex ways
in which all institutions may carry out multiple roles in society beyond
the explicit or articulated one.

--
djustice@wppost.depaul.edu