Using the students-as-customers concept in technology disciplines: students' perspectives

Abstract

Educational institutions increasingly adopt the students-as-customers concept to satisfy their students. Understanding students’ perspectives on the use of this business concept in educational institutions is necessary for the institutions to effectively align these perspectives with their management practice. The study investigates whether students in technology and business disciplines have significantly different attitudes toward using the students-as-customers concept in educational institutions and explores the impact of treating students as customers in technology disciplines under students’ perspectives. The results from quantitative and qualitative data analyses show that technology students, in contrast to business students, fairly disagree with educational institutions to treat students as customers. Treating students as customers in technology disciplines will have a negative influence on teaching performance, instructor-student relationships and educational institutions’ aim, but a positive influence on service quality in educational institutions. The paper discusses the findings and concludes with implications and limitations of the study.