The application of non-profit marketing in the international higher education sector

This study considers the impact of the university service and learning environments (which we define as non educational factors) on student satisfaction among international postgraduate students from Asia studying in Australian universities. It is based on the expectations/perceptions paradigm and analyses the relationship between key variables and overall satisfaction of student groups in respect of their service and learning environments. The aim of this paper is to consider the importance of non-educational factors in international postgraduate university students, in particular, with regard to information and communication, infrastructure, and university recognition. The data used in this study is derived from a mail survey conducted among international postgraduate students from China, India, Indonesia and Thailand studying in five universities in Victoria. Structural Equation Modelling was used to understand the relationship between the constructs in this study. The results indicate that noneducation related factors are very important to international postgraduate students and they are predictors of overall satisfaction.

Strategies for the marketing of higher education with comparative contextual references between Australia and Turkey

Education is now a global product with institutions worldwide competing for students and finding ever more creative ways to satisfy student needs and preferences. With the continuing rise in the preference for flexible distance learning, educational institutions are finding that when students and faculty have significantly different cultural backgrounds and learning styles that the expectations of the learning experience can be unfulfilled. In Australia, international students have made education Australia’s third largest service export, earning $5.8 billion. This means that student populations have moved from being homogenous and captive to domestic constraints and expectations, to being multi-cultural, dispersed and subject to a plethora of constraints and expectations. Today in Turkey, education is the responsibility of government however, in recent years, the private sector has entered the market providing educational services at all levels. In particular, after the 1990s, private higher education institutions (HEIs) with a commercial focus have mushroomed.

In 2007, there are 25 private universities in Turkey with more than 2.000.000 students enrolled in these universities. Of these students, more than 1.000.000 are registered in distance education faculties. With such large student numbers competition between private universities for students has intensified particularly over the last 15 years. As a consequence the need to develop strategies for attracting students has become more important. Marketing strategies in Turkey have tended to concentrate on three distinct categories: strategies between governmental HEIs, private HEIs and distance education HEIs. The contribution of technologies to education processes has been immense with students and faculty each learning to adapt to an environment of continuous change and opportunities. This paper seeks to explore the notion that a competitive advantage in marketing of higher education can be attained by customizing learning experiences for particular student cohorts in a pro-active and constructive way.

Conceptions of teaching with integrity online in higher education: a case in the field of engineering

The viewpoints of academic teaching staff take centre stage in the analysis of the changing conceptions of what it means to act with integrity when teaching online. To teach with integrity in contemporary online-supported environments in higher education is not necessarily to teach the same as if one would in teaching regularly face-to-face in the classroom. The paper argues that to teach with integrity online is to teach differently. With integrity both enhanced and in some respects diminished in teaching online, the apparent contradiction can only be resolved through developing conceptions of what teaching with integrity means in the contemporary world of higher education. Implications are drawn in the context of teaching extended and wholly online units in the field of engineering.

Occupational health services in higher education : second annual report : summary

The second of three surveys of occupational health provision in UK higher education institutions was carried out in March 2003.

Information was collected on occupational health provision arrangements for all 193 members of UUK, other HEIs funded by HEFCE, constituent parts of the University of London and the University of Wales, and degree awarding bodies in the UK. There was a wide variety of arrangements. Thirty-eight percent had in-house services, 33% contracted with external providers for occupational health services, 13% made use of a local general practice or student health service, 6% had other or ad hoc arrangements and 9% had no occupational health service.

Higher education services exports : sources of growth of Asian students in US and UK

The paper reviews the recent trends and current developments in the global higher education market with a particular focus on growth of Asian students studying in US and UK. Using pool cross section-time series data over the 1985–2003 period, it is found that different factors affect students from different countries differently. This suggests that the marketing strategies of offshore higher education providers need to be tailored to the specific needs of different markets in order to be successful. The emergence of a number of new players in the higher education export market is also rapidly becoming a major threat to the traditional higher education service exporters.

Valuing creativity in the higher education sector : what price the creative knowledge economy?

Contemporary economic and social contexts including the creative knowledge economy provide competing perspectives on ‘the future’ of higher education and the role of the academic within these contexts. Increasingly educators and educationa leaders are expected to act in ‘futures’ oriented ways whilst remaining true to the professional standards of their present environments. Working in the creative industries or as part of the creative knowledge economy increasingly contributes to Australia’s strategic directions for the future but also has an influence on what is valued in the higher education sector.
This paper explores the impact of the creative knowledge economy on the higher education sector and its response to the changing educational landscapes. An exploration is undertaken of the shift towards creative industries where the value of creativity and the arts is linked to economic value. It is argued that this shift requires researchers to alter their identities from that of having ‘academic’ value to engaging with the commodification of knowledge. The paper concludes with a suggested way forward for both the creative industries and the higher education sector using Giri’s (2002) model for transdisciplinarity.

The role of brand orientation in the higher education sector: a student-perceived paradigm

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived brand orientation (PBO), satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour in the Australian higher education sector.

Design/methodology/approach
Two hundred and fifty-eight questionnaires were completed by undergraduate students of a particular university in Australia. Structural equation modeling was employed in this study to examine the associations between the constructs.

Findings
This study provides empirical evidence that PBO has a positive and significant relationship with all dependent variables. The research reveals that students' perception of a university's brand orientation is significantly related to satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour.

Research limitations/implications
The findings may guide the key decision makers in higher education institutions to understand the importance of brand orientation in their corporate strategy to enhance satisfaction, loyalty, and positive WOM, which can be used to differentiate themselves from other institutions in the highly competitive education market.

Originality/value
Past researchers have not looked into the dynamic relationships between PBO, satisfaction, loyalty, and post-enrolment communication behaviour, and hence research is to be called for in this area. The paper is the first to examine brand orientation from the perspective of the students and provide higher education institutions with recommendations to improve service quality through brand orientation.

'Global’ is not just ‘out there’ but also ‘right here’: expectations and experiences in internationalised and globalised higher education

This paper reports on a study that took a cross-disciplinary and cross-institutional approach to investigate postgraduate student expectations and experiences in internationalised and globalised higher education. The researchers drew on Giddens’ theory of structuration1. They explored the way samples of specialist medicine trainees in the UK and pre-service teacher education students in Australia identify and make meaning of their circumstances in an era that is increasingly characterised by greater internationalisation of the student body and more globalised curricula. In this paper, we discuss some of the tensions students reported encountering, and propose several ways in which such tensions might be counteracted.

Enriching interdisciplinary connections : student engagement in theory and practice in higher education programs in Australia and the UK

This paper provides insight into how postgraduate students in two pre-service disciplines, namely medicine and education, identify and make meaning of their circumstances in the globalised era of tertiary education.
Drawing on elements of Giddens’ theory of structuration, we discuss some of the tensions students have reported encountering in an era which is characterised by greater internationalisation of the student body and more globalised curricula.

We did the how to teach it: music teaching and learning in higher education in Australia

The Australian Government recognizes that the Arts are acritical part of formal school education and it should not be viewedas subordinate or extra. This paper forms part of a wider researchproject titled “Pre-service teacher attitudes and understandings ofMusic Education” that started in 2013. The focus of this paperinvestigates music teaching and learning in a core unit within theBachelor of Education (Primary) course at Deakin University(Australia). Using questionnaire and interview data gathered in 2014,I employ Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to analyse andcodify the data. Three themes are discussed in relation to: Why it isimportant to include music in the primary school? What wasenjoyable and what aspects were challenging in the musicworkshops? What can students integrate as generalist teachers intotheir future classrooms? Though the findings focus on “we did thehow to teach it”, it also highlights some challenges and opportunitiesfor students and staff. Tertiary educators are challenged to raise thecapacity and status of music when preparing students to translate themusic curriculum into their future classrooms.

Modes of Diversification in Bulgarian Higher Education: Case Studies in four Disciplines

This project was stimulated by the unprecedented speed and scope of changes in Bulgarian higher education since 1989. The rapid growth of the student population and the emergence of a new private sector in higher education led to tightening governmental control and a growing criticism of autonomy and academic freedom. This raised questions about the need for diversification in the field, about the importance of recent innovations in terms of strategic choices for future development and so of how higher education governance could maintain diversity without the system deteriorating. The group first traced the extent of spontaneous processes of innovation at the level of content, of institutions, and the organisation of teaching and learning processes. They then identified the different parties in the struggle for institutionalisation and against diversification, and promising mechanisms for maintaining diversity in higher education. On this basis they outlined a basis for a wide-ranging public discussion of the issue which may serve as a corrective to the mechanisms of state control. Their work included analysis of the legislative framework laid down in the Higher Education Act, which effectively dispenses with the autonomy of universities. They then surveyed the views of both high-level executives in the field and the academics actually involved in the process, as well as of the "consumers" of the educational product, i.e. the students. In considering diversification, they focused on four different types of programmes, including those where diversification is largely limited to content level (e.g. Law), those where it operates mainly on structural levels (e.g. Industrial Management), those where it is often feigned (e.g. Social Work), and those where it is at best formal and sporadic (e.g. Mechanical Engineering). They conclude that the educational system in Bulgaria has considerable internal resources for development. The greatest need is for adequate statutory regulation of academic life which will provide incentives for responsible academic development of higher education institutions and create conditions for the institutionalisation of academic self-organisation and self-control, which will in turn limit the pathological trends in the diversification processes.

Survey on student motivation and approval of educational environment at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid within the European Higher Education area implementation

A recent study elaborated by Vicerrectorado de Ordenación Académica y Planificación Estratégica of Technical University of Madrid (UPM) defines the satisfaction of the university student body as "the response that the University offers to the expectations and demands of service of the students, considered in a general way ". Besides an indicator of academic and institutional insertion of the student, the assessment of student engagement allows us to adapt the academic offer and the extension services of the University to the real needs of the students. The process of convergence towards the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) raises the need to form in competitions, that is to say, of developing in our students capacities and knowledge beyond the purely theoretical-practical thing. Therefore, the perception and experience of the educational process and environment by the students is an important issue to be addressed to accomplish their expectations and achieve a curriculum accordingly to EHEA expectations. The present study aims to explore the student motivation and approval of the educational environment at the UPM. To this end a total of 97 students enrolled in the undergraduate program of Civil Engineering, Computer Engineering and Agronomic Engineering at UPM were surveyed. The survey consisted of 40 questions divided in three blocks. The first one of 20 questions of personal character in that they were gathering, besides the sex and the age, the degree of fulfilment, implication and dedication with the institution and the academic tasks. In the second block we identify 10 questions related to the perception of the student on the teaching quality, and finally a block of 10 questions regarding the Bologna Process. The students personal motivation was moderately high, with a score of 3.6 (all scores are provided on a 5-point scale), being the most valuable items obtaining a university degree (4,3) and the friendship between students (4,2). Any significant difference was shown between sexes (P=0.23) since the averages for this block of questions were of 3.7±0.3 and 3.5±0.4 for women and men respectively. The students are moderately satisfied with their graduate studies with an average score of 3,2, being the questions that reflect a minor satisfaction the research profile of the teachers (2,8) and the organization of the Schools (2,9). The best valued questions are related to the usefulness and quality of the degrees, with 3,5 and 3,4 respectively, and to the interest of the courses within the degree (3,4). For sexes, the results of this block of questions are similar (3.1±0.3 and 3.2±0.3 for men and women respectively=0.79). Also, there were no differences (P=0.39) between the students who arrange work and studies or do not work (3.1±0.2 and 3.2±0.3 respectively). In conclusion, students at UPM present an acceptable degree of motivation and satisfaction with regard to the studies and services that offer their respective Schools. Both characteristics receive the same value both for men and for women and so much for students who arrange work and studies as for those who devote themselves only to studying. In a significant way, students who are more engaged and are in-class attendants present the major degree of satisfaction.Overall, there is a great lack of information regarding the Bologna Process. In fact to the majority, they would like to know more on what it is, what it means and what changes will involve its implementation.

A report on public and community health personnel : prepared for the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, House of Representatives and the Committee on Labor and Human Resources, United States Senate, as required by section 793 of the Public health service act

"December 7, 1979."

The judicious utilization of new technologies through authentic learning in higher education: A case study

Though technology holds significant promise for enhanced teaching and learning it is unlikely to meet this promise without a principled approach to course design. There is burgeoning discourse about the use of technological tools and models in higher education, but much of the discussion is fixed upon distance learning or technology based courses. This paper will develop and propose a balanced model for effective teaching and learning for “on campus” higher education, with particular emphasis on the opportunities for revitalisation available through the judicious utilisation of new technologies. It will explore the opportunities available for the creation of more authentic learning environments through the principled design. Finally it will demonstrate with a case study how these have come together enabling the creation of an effective and authentic learning environment for one pre-service teacher education course at the University of Queensland.

Power perceptions and modes of complaining in higher education

This study examines the relationship between student perceptions of different types of educator power and different modes of student complaining behaviour in the case of university education. A large sample of marketing students in the business school responded to the study from a state university in Northeastern United States. Factor analysis and canonical correlation analysis are used to explore the relationships between five bases of power perceptions (referent, expert, reward, legitimate, and punishment) and four modes of complaining behaviour (voice, negative word of mouth, third party, and exit). The results indicate that students engage in different modes of complaining as they perceive different types of educator power. The predominant complaining mode is found to be voice under referent or expert power, third party under legitimate power, and exit under reward or punishment power. Our findings offer important implications for student satisfaction, retention, and completion rates in higher education.