Using insights from (public) services management to improve student engagement in higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that current approaches used to assess and monitor student engagement in UK higher education are failing to fulfil their potential by superficially helping institutions to appear professional and innovative yet failing to accurately measure and improve engagement. Drawing on service management literature including (Public) Service Dominant theory, this paper argues that current strategies are failing to deliver for three main reasons. They do not capture the full value students derive from their engagement experience, they underplay the impact of peers within the ecosystem and they do not effectively engage employees. The paper concludes by exploring the implications of these omissions for further research and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Student engagement
• student ecosystem
• behavioural analytics
• service dominant logic
• public services management

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.