Which classroom service encounters make students happy or unhappy?

Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to explore satisfactory and dissatisfactory student‐professor encounters in higher education from a student's perspective. The critical incident technique (CIT) is used to categorise positive and negative student‐professor interactions and to reveal quality dimensions of professors.Design/methodology/approachAn exploratory study using an online application of the well‐established CIT method was conducted. The study took place at a large European university. A total of 96 students took part in the study on a voluntary basis and reported 164 incidents. Respondents were aged between 19 and 24 years (x=23.2) and slightly more female students (52 per cent) filled in the online CIT questionnaire than male students (48 per cent). On average, every student provided 1.7 incidents.FindingsThe results of the critical incident sorting process support previous classification systems that used three major groups to thoroughly represent the domain of (un)satisfactory student‐professor encounters. The results of the CIT study also revealed ten quality dimensions of professors, corroborating previous research in this area.Research limitations/implicationsOwing to the exploratory nature of the study and the scope and size of its student sample, the results outlined are tentative in nature. The research study also only investigates the experiences of one stakeholder group.Practical implicationsGaining knowledge of students' classroom experiences should be beneficial for professors to design their teaching programmes. Based on the results, universities might consider the introduction of student contracts or student satisfaction guarantees to manage student expectations effectively.Originality/valueThe paper was the first to successfully apply an online version of the CIT techniques to the issue of higher education services. This paper shows that the CIT method is a useful tool for exploring student‐professor encounters in higher education. The paper has hopefully opened up an area of research and methodology that could reap considerable further benefits for researchers interested in this area.

Identifying satisfied/dissatisfied service encounters in higher education

“…From the viewpoints of Swanson and Davis (2000), and Voss et al (2010), educational services are one of the most intangible, complex, heterogeneous and perishable in nature. Hence such services fall under credence category.…”

Ties That Bind: Academic Advisors as Agents of Student Relationship Management

“…Finally, although online CIT surveys offer accepted ways to collect critical incident data (Voss, Gruber, & Reppel, 2010), researchers cannot follow up with partic ipants to elaborate on a specific encounter or experience. Despite the limitations, the findings provide a rich snapshot of participant satisfaction and dissatisfaction with academic advising at the university level.…”

A View from the Aisle Revisited: Delight and Outrage in the Classroom

“…As noted by Voss, Gruber, and Reppel (2010), "the behaviours and attitudes of professors should be the primary determinant of students' perceptions of service quality in higher education" (p. 617). Understanding what our students experience and expect during classroom encounters is needed for professors to provide learning experiences that are both educationally and experientially beneficial.…”

“…Several researchers have suggested that the examination of student satisfaction in higher education is still underresearched (Appleton-Knapp & Krentler, 2006;Arambewela, Hall, & Zuhair, 2006;Hoffman & Lee, 2014). Voss, Gruber, and Reppel (2010) have specifically called for more research on classroom-based service encounters. While there has been some controversy as to whether education should be treated as a service with students viewed as customers (see, e.g., Bowden, 2011;Clayson & Haley, 2005;Obermiller, Fleenor, & Raven, 2005;Smith, 2013;Svensson & Wood, 2007), student satisfaction, or even delight, can create competitive advantage for the educational institution (Sukwadi, Yang, & Liu, 2011) and positively impact both student motivation (Elliott & Shin, 2002) and learning (Guolla, 1999).…”