- There's a view that students have become more instrumental and demanding, wanting more rather than less individual support. Partly this is to do with there being more students and more diversity of background, age and achievement; partly it may be to do with rising student contributions to the cost of education.
- Some people think this means adjusting teaching and the curriculum to meet 'customer' needs. But another view holds that this would not be fair to students. Creating the best learning environment does not imply simply meeting student expectations, according to this view. No: it means setting and managing expectations and standards -- helping students to adjust to higher education rather than the other way round; making it their responsibility. And if students expect more individual attention in a mass higher education system, maybe they will have to pay more for it.
- There's a view that developing academic and support staff skills to meet the new expectations will be a major challenge. Elsewhere I have heard it mentioned that we have contracts and performance management systems that haven't caught up with the needs of students in the 21st century university.
- Some people are worried (rightly, I think) that changes in student expectations and universities' responses to these expectations may lead to a bigger disconnect between research and teaching.
- RHC - yes, David Melville's group and JISC have been asked to contribute.
Some more questions:
- What things are you (or your institution) doing to accommodate changing student expectations?
- What do you think we need to do in the UK to maintain and improve the quality of the student experience?
- Should colleges and universities 'contract' with students to offer minimum numbers of teaching hours, etc? (one example of this - Lancaster - is here)
