The literature review revealed two opposing views of the ‘student as customer’; either it is considered to be a deliberate policy construct rooted in the marketisation of higher education, which encourages public universities to behave like private businesses. Or it is considered to be a natural extension of rising consumerism in society, rendering universities as ‘cathedrals of consumption’. Both perspectives recognise that there is an attempt at creating a market in English higher education. This study discusses a ‘paradigm shift’ signalling an intensification of marketisation that began in the early 1980s. The purpose is to identify how these policy changes are perceived, by interviewing a large sample of senior managers and policy analysts in English higher education. Four themes emerged from the interviews. First, universities were said to be becoming increasingly “business like” suggesting that senior managers of English universities were faced with an identity crisis in grappling with their purpose as businesses or educational institutions. Second, was the idea that they performed in a “market like” fashion, displaying an uncomfortable acceptance of the idea whilst being open to the discussion of a free market in the future. Third, was the characterisation of student relationships with the university as “customer like” revealing an uncertainty as to whether students are customers or not. Fourth, was “individualism” a concept accepting the fact that universities would have to see higher education as an individual investment by a student. The implication of these uncertain themes is that senior managers would need to get out of ‘debate mode’ to adopt a clear and radical stance instead of being locked in the indecisive “like” dilemmas. They must develop the ability to see through the ‘strategy illusion’ and either challenge or accept the policy-induced uncertainties of higher education in the 21st century.

This study explored the complexity of working and teaching within one English post -1992 university from the perspectives of thirteen members of academic staff. Work relationships, work load and perception of the management’s support of teaching were investigated via semi-structured interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) as a theoretical framework. This method offered a way to analyse and interpret the experiences of lecturers working in Higher Education by maintaining a focus on the academics’ own words. Previous research using IPA has been established within health and counselling fields (Smith et al, 2009) and its use within educational settings is emergent (Creanor, Trinder, Gowan et al, 2008; Biggerstaff and Thompson, 2008). The academics interviewed mostly entered higher education with no formal teacher training and many found their initial time in the role to be stressful and poorly managed. Support mechanisms (induction, mentoring, team teaching, teacher training courses) were described as being areas that could all be improved. The dramatic metaphorical language used to describe their entry into the HE system vividly depicted these challenges. The capturing of this highly expressive language offered new insight into understanding the lives of lecturing staff. Participants expressed their working lives with multiple references to the language of war, battle and struggle. Aspects of both vulnerability and tenacity were present in the findings, with the responses to challenges being expressed in both positive and negative ways. Most participants found that the levels of university bureaucracy impeded their teaching effectiveness; they battled with time management and felt tension between the levels of control, audit and freedom within their roles. This was somewhat ameliorated by the satisfaction they gained from teaching their students. The majority described students as consumers who were increasingly demanding and had varied abilities which created challenges for the lecturers. Traditional HE lecture-based techniques were perceived to be less effective in engaging students and most participants actively tried new methods of teaching, despite having little knowledge of theoretical aspects of learning to support this work. Few had experienced formal observation mechanisms and there were mixed responses about the level of support they received from their colleagues around teaching and its associated administrative tasks. The interviewed academics did not perceive that teaching was overtly valued by their superiors as their efforts remained largely unrecognised by those in senior management. Insights into the complex lives of the lecturers gave the researcher scope to create initiatives to promote positive change and make recommendations to senior management that could foster further improvements. In light of the data collected, the induction processes were changed to include more consistent mentoring, peer teaching observation groups (peer learning circles) were coordinated and staff development was organised to facilitate enhanced support for lecturers.

This phenomenological study was designed and conducted in a Post 1992 ‘new university’ situated in the UK. The aims of the study were a) to investigate inclusive practice amongst disabled students in higher education, b) to explore students’ perceptions on their lived experiences of the support provided c) to explore disabled students’ experiences of the process in gaining support d) to identify the kind of practices disabled students used to support their own effective learning in HE. A sample of 14 students, aged 19 to 56 volunteered to participate in the study. The study was underpinned by inclusive theory and equality policy provided for higher education institutions. Rich data from phenomenological interviews was analysed using thematic and narrative analysis. Analysis of the data uncovered new knowledge for lecturers and support staff in understanding disabled students’ lived experiences as they approached support systems and classrooms in higher education. The key findings involved a) barriers to communication and collaboration between students and lecturers, b) attitudes of staff and the asymmetries of power experienced by students in accessing support, c) issues around student anxiety, dependence and independence and ownership of learning, d) the idea that a reasonable adjustment could be unreasonable and embarrassing and evidence of tokenism in supporting students. The recommendations included a) the need for more in-depth training for all staff in equality and inclusive practice and inclusive course design, b) more support for students in negotiating their Study Needs Assessment, c) bridging the communication gap between Student Wellbeing, lecturers and students. The changes in funding to the Disabled Students’ Allowance came into force during 2016 which has consequently reduced or removed support for students who have disclosed a disability. Due to such changes, it will be even more important for universities to support the training of students, lecturers and support staff in creating and maintaining more inclusive environments in the future.

Purpose – Understanding student value in the Higher Education Sector has traditionally been conceptualised and measured using cognitive indicators, such as the National Student Survey (NSS). This thesis aims to build on the body of literature of service excellence, and alternative market sensing methods, such as the role of images and emotions in determining a deeper level of value for consumers. To apply a market sensing method to understand student value in an ever increasing complex environment, thus enabling a framework to develop differentiation in marketing strategy and communications for a University Business School. Design/methodology/approach – The focus for this inductive study was a Business School in which both undergraduate and post graduate students (n=24) were interviewed at depth, using a photo elicitation methodology based on Zaltman’s Metaphor Elicitation Technique, (ZMET) to explore their relationship with the business school and their real value. The process consisted of the candidate choosing a number of images, in-depth interview and then constructing emotion/value maps to elicit thoughts and feelings of value and relationship with the business school with respect to their stage of the journey. Findings – Results from the study found a number of emerging themes that were more significant at different stages of the transformational student journey. The study found that students resonated with similar images at respective stages of their programmes, and that a deeper level of understanding of the students emotional factors relating to their relationship with both the Business School and University, thus finding that an emotion based methodology was a better predictor of understanding student value, than cognitive measures of satisfaction such as National Student Survey (NSS). The findings from the ZMET based methodology also enabled better differentiation for market strategy, emotion based marketing communication and identified areas of operational process that could be improved through the internal marketing towards the internal customer. Originality/Value – The thesis establishes the need to use emotional depth methodologies when understanding the customer, to create differentiation in market strategy and customer driven market communications. This is the first time a Zaltman based methodology has been used in the UK Higher Education sector, specifically understanding student value. The thesis also contributes knowledge by extending the ZMET methodology with the development of a “Deep Value Mining” (DVM) depth gauge for understanding quality of data obtained through research methodologies understanding customer value. The research also created Emotional Value Maps (EVM) as a construct tool, creating a further extension to the ZMET methodology, to help researchers understand the association between value and emotion on a customer journey enabling the understanding of what’s really important to the participants of the research subject.