Managing the student experience in English higher education: differing responses to market pressures

Temple, Paul, Callender, Claire, Grove, Lyn and Kersh, Natasha (2016) Managing the student experience in English higher education: differing responses to market pressures. London Review of Education, 14 (1). pp. 33-46. ISSN 1474-8460

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Abstract

This paper reports on recent research aimed at assessing how the management of the undergraduate student experience in English higher education is changing in the light of the new tuition fee regime introduced in 2012, as well as other government policies aimed at creating market-type pressures within the higher education sector. A distinction was observed between the research-intensive universities studied – defined here as institutions where research income comprised 20 per cent or more of total turnover, with correspondingly strong positions in published research-based rankings – and universities largely dependent on income from teaching, with weaker market positions. Broadly speaking, the latter group were responding to market pressures by centralizing services, standardizing procedures, and strengthening management controls over teaching processes. The research-intensive universities tended to work within existing institutional cultures to respond to students' needs. Organizational change here usually took the form of creating more coherent functional groupings of student services, rather than comprehensive reorganizations. It appears to us that these different responses to a changed environment point to the creation of two distinct English university types, one strongly managerial with 'student as customer' orientations, and a smaller group with less centralized, more collegial cultures.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://www.ucl-ioe-press.com/journals/london-revi...
Additional Information:	© 2016 The Authors © CC BY
Divisions:	Centre for Analysis of Time Series
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Date Deposited:	07 Dec 2016 17:04
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 01:16
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/68548

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