The purpose of this qualitative single case study is to understand the underlying reasons for a perceived lack of satisfaction and engagement in a Singapore engineering school using a Service-dominant logic (SDL) perspective. The foundation for the study is the SDL framework, which suggests that “all social and economic actors (e.g., individuals, households, firms, nations, etc.) are resource integrators” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008, p. 3), and that “value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary” (Vargo & Lusch, 2008, p. 7). Viewing the student experience in higher education (HE) through this broad lens allows us to synthesise HE concepts, such as satisfaction, engagement, expectations and wellbeing, which are often presented discretely in the literature for clarity but in reality are not separate elements for studying the student experience. In fact, the entire university student experience is complex and dynamic and bound to have many overlaps. Most importantly, part of the appeal of value co-creation (VCC) is that the process is inherently one of mutual value creation (Lusch et al., 2008); hence, adopting an SDL lens mitigates the weaknesses of the student engagement (SE) perspective (a one-sided benefit accorded to students only) and the student satisfaction (SS) measurement (based on short-term affective outcomes only), ensuring both the student and the institution stand to benefit together in the long run. The overarching research question, What can be done to enhance the student experience in the tertiary sector of Singapore?, is underpinned by four guiding questions to drive the study. These relate to what students value in their HE experience; how they perceive their roles and experience within the university; and, what the outcomes of students’ interactions with the university are. This study will use the findings of a single case study in an engineering school in a public university in Singapore as the basis for researching common trends across other schools/fields in the sector. With limited research in this area, this study used a phenomenological approach (Creswell & Poth, 2016) within a flexible or qualitative case study methodology to gain an understanding of students’ lived experiences in a contemporary HE setting in Singapore. Student experience in HE involves complex processes; hence, the aim is to develop and validate a conceptual framework from a single case study and ground this research in HE and services marketing literatures. A qualitative data collection method (semi-structured interviews) was used to approach this complex phenomenon. Purposive sampling was used to select 24 participants—final-year engineering students aged between 22 and 25 years old—at an engineering school in a public university in Singapore. The transcribed qualitative data were inserted into NVivo Pro 12 for computer-assisted qualitative analysis and further analysed following an open, axial and selective coding procedure (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Some quantitative data were also collected during the semi-structured interviews and analysed using Microsoft Excel. Ultimately, the analysis of the primary data and the validation with secondary data led to the emergence of three key findings and two unanticipated findings, which suggest that key facilitating conditions must exist for co-creation to take place to enhance the student experience. These are: (1) ensuring the presence of a conducive academic and organisational culture for learning and social interactions; (2) setting clear expectations for and with students early in the student journey; and, (3) keeping student wellbeing (SWB) as the key focus and outcome of students’ educational journey. This study also culminated in the development of a conceptual framework (Figure 33), proposing that the university: (1) frames itself as a service ecosystem; (2) identifies drivers and barriers at key touchpoints during RI; (3) situates wellbeing at the heart of teaching and learning activities; and, (4) supports students to achieve their long-term life goals and the institution to achieve its organisational goals. This means adopting a “whole university” approach (Broglia et al., 2021; Cage et al, 2021) as the way forward to embrace change in order to deliver SWB and the best possible student experience. Last, but not least, this study offers theoretical and practical insights, drawing new connections between VCC and value co-destruction (VCD), as well as between processes in HE, and argues that there should be more focus in HE research on bridging the gap between students’ value expectations and perceptions of HE and enhancing their wellbeing, and making every interaction count (Shamim et al., 2022), not just the positive ones. In particular, this study has empirically validated the typology of resource misintegration manifestations developed by Laud et al. (2019) by connecting the barriers identified in VCC and SE studies and the findings from this study to their typology (Table 21). In spite of some limitations, this study provides valuable insights on an under-explored topic in Singapore. It is also timely as policymakers and HE staff are at a watershed where they can reshape the student experience and improve their wellbeing (“HE valuedemic”) as part of the post-pandemic recovery efforts, and where the intersection of SWB and service research has started to spike (Chen et al., 2020).
| Date of Award | 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Supervisor | Irfan KHAN (Supervisor) & Abu SALEH (Supervisor) |
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