Motivation, Expectations and Experiences in Higher Education – Online DBA defense
On 28 January 2022 Mr. Ton Borchert successfully defended his DBA thesis titled: Motivation, expectations, and experiences in higher education – The case of HU IMC Commercial Economics Department, in an online session.
About the research of Dr. Borchert
Education plays an important role in our rapidly changing society. To gather insights into the quality of Higher Education, a multi-method case study research, involving students, teaching staff and management, was performed at the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences IMC CE Department by Dr. Borchert.
Education can be seen as a service marketing delivery process that takes place within an imaginary triangle, with at its vertices the organisation, customers (students) and employees (lecturers). The interaction between teaching staff and students is especially important because this is where the actual “service encounter” takes place. Quality aspects, as related to satisfaction and dissatisfaction, play a crucial role.
The research findings of Dr. Borchert reveal that motivation, expectations and experiences of students and teaching staff are similar in many ways. Substantial gaps, however, exist between the organisational policies and the needs and wants of both students and teaching staff. These misalignments appear to lead to an actual deterioration of (the perception of) quality.
Based on the outcomes of the study it is recommended that universities further investigate the associated issues and apply principles of (services) marketing to the educational process. This may lead to adaptations of organisational policies, in order to optimise alignment within the services triangle, which may result in the improvement of the quality of HE in the Netherlands.
“To me the DBA study at MSM has been an interesting and challenging experience. The combination of working as a professional in the educational area, while researching its specific aspects - with a view to find ways to improve the quality of education - proved fascinating. During this period, I was well supported by both supervisory professors.”
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