Learners as Customers

Mr John Findlay, Dr Robert Fitzgerald & Mr Russell Hobby

University of Wollongong, University of Canberra & Hay Group (UK)
Australia & United Kingdom

 

Abstract

Explore the marketing literature and you will find numerous studies that report on what young people as consumers want: from toys, foods, sweets, clothes, entertainment and appliances. Trawl through the education literature and what do you find? Academics, teachers, parents and technology providers alike are focused on what they think learners need. Davis & Botkin (1994) forecast that the next wave of economic growth would be underpinned by businesses that saw themselves as educators and their customers as learners. But what of the logical alternative, whereby those in the business of education, such as schools, see learners as customers? A new business strategy for education adopted by a UK management consultant is the first sign that we must acknowledge that today's learners may know more about their own needs than we suppose. This paper reports on what teachers say when presented with the results of online surveys of what students think about their pedagogical performance and classroom climate and then go on to invent a new and better world for learners. The paper also reports on what students feel about the use of ICT in their classrooms and what they might do to re-invent school.

Introduction

Schools generally ‘do not prepare students to prosper in tomorrow’s workplace’, says Stephen M. Case, the CEO of AOL, America’s largest online Internet provider (Business Week, 25 September, 2000). However, the new digital learning environments are ‘geared towards such vital new economy skills as rapidly finding and assessing information and working in teams to solve problems . . . teachers have added the Internet like they're adding salt to a dish’.

Young people today are immersed in a rich and rapidly evolving digital world, in which technology (or tools) have become more complex, expert and capable of scaffolding the tacit acquisition or creation of cultural and other forms of knowledge. Many adults are out of touch with what their children learn from their tools - television, mobile phones, computers, Internet chat rooms, BLOGs, games, music and movies that they use or consume, with great enthusiasm and seemingly minimal effort, without much adult intervention.

The main teacher response has been to deny the existence of these artefacts. Teachers frequently reject what students bring to the classroom, from popular culture, as being irrelevant and inferior to the school experience (Bordieu, 1997). Children’s prior experiences/culture are often seen as a deficit that must be remediated by school (Marsh 2000). Children learn not to speak to teachers about their interests and ideas (Arthur, 2001), to avoid the rejection of their world. Arthur argues that it is important to not destroy the enjoyment children experience and that teachers should be embracing this world as a space in which to engage children.

Much of what goes on in a conventional classroom, even without any technology, that is considered to be peer or collaborative learning, is often low level activity involving a rehearsal of facts (King, 2002). By contrast, working together to solve ill-defined problems or problems with alternative solutions involves a much higher level of cognitive processing (King 2002). Although the role of the teacher (Hannifin, Burgess & Little, 2001) is to scaffold learning through prompting, making analogies, using metaphors, asking questions, elaborating on responses and modelling behaviour, many teachers are unable to do so and resort to teacher-centred methods to maintain control (Baumfield & Obserski, 1998).

Efforts to leverage the digital worlds and attempt to integrate the technology with pedagogical best practice has been limited (Becker, 2000, Elliott, 1999, Downes 2002). It has been the authors’ experience in Hong Kong, Australia and the United Kingdom, that efforts to 'integrate' information and communication technologies (ICTs) with pedagogy has achieved not much more than technical-level effects that mostly leaves traditional approaches to teaching and learning unchanged.

Contrast this to the success that popular ‘media giants’ such as IT guru Bill Gates, producer Stephen Spielberg, singer Madonna and actor Jim Carrey who put many young bums on theatre seats, provide easy access to millions of free Internet sites or sell millions of videos and CDs every year. What are Bill, Stephen, Madonna and Jim doing that makes a difference?

Learners as Customers

Many teenagers find school less than useful or rewarding. They are anxious, poorly motivated or simply bored (Leone & Richards, 1989). At the other end of the scale of human satisfaction is the ‘optimal experience’ or ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihaly, 1975, 1997a, 1997b). This is where people report feelings of concentration and deep enjoyment and the activity becomes worth doing for its own sake. ‘Flow’ occurs in many kinds of daily activities, but mostly in games, play and creativity, when the task is within the capability of the individual, but a bit of a stretch. Young people experience ‘flow’ frequently when they use MTV generation technologies, and especially when playing computer games (Kubey & Csikszentmihaly, 1990) and surfing the world wide web (Chen, Wigand & Nilan, 2000). Teenagers experience ‘flow’ three times more often when they play sport or games (44%) than when they watch TV (13%) (Csikszentmihaly, 1997) but they also experience ‘flow’ when they are involved in hobbies (34%).

By contrast to this highly interactive way of life, the learning posture of many classrooms is often passive, with young people spending a large amount of time listening (Mayers, 1978). Students often say ‘in most classes you sit around at get lectured at’ (Walker & Warhurst, 2000). Yet students report the highest boredom when the teacher is lecturing but the very highest boredom when another student is presenting (Csikzentmihalyi & Larson 1984). It seems clear that the problem has more to do with the style of presentation than the presenter. This style sees schools more focused on print-based text and teaching methods (Arthur, 2001). The students who seem to be performing best in the school system (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975) are those who are passive and able to tolerate independent work. Children are also quick to work out that the world values right answers and that wrong answers, or failure, is usually socially unacceptable (Holt, 1974). In many cases, school reinforces what is considered a good or bad result (Tsui & Ashford, 1994) and, by the end of their school years, many young people have succumbed to the system.

As young people mature and their consumer instincts become more finely honed, their appreciation of the school learning service diminishes. In a recent study of students in New South Wales, Australia (Quality of School Life Survey, 2000), it was found that student enjoyment of school falls significantly (25%) between primary and secondary school.

There is no question that school is a significant experience (for better or worse) for young people. However, schools are not the centre of the learner’s world, contrary to the belief and practice of many educators, even though they play a major role in the social relationships of young people. Connections and relationships outside of school, particularly to popular culture, are critically important (Nespor, 1997). Ignoring these needs marginalises the school experience so it becomes irrelevant to learners’ needs.

If teachers are to remain relevant to learners, they need to do some market research and discover what the learner, as the customer - who consumes their learning or teaching service - needs? What turns them on? What are the mechanisms that cause them to want to ‘consume’? How do the teachers make the product or deliver the service – using all of their expert knowledge about learning – so that it is desired by the customer? What is the unique selling proposition? How will the product or service be packaged? How can we ensure the product meets the same high standards everywhere, so that the customer is not disappointed? And how will we know the product or service is a success?

Marketers try to give the customer what they want. They see children as able to make their own decisions about who they are, through what they buy (Cook, 2000). They enter into a kind of consumer apprenticeship (McNeal, 1992) that enables them to become increasingly discriminating and autonomous consumers. Few businesses sell kids anything unless they know in advance that they will buy and use them (McGee & Heubusch, 1997). They ask kids to help them invent new toys and games.

Solomon (1999) has shown that many young children are able to function as independent consumers and voice their opinion on the purchase of services and products in the home (McNeal, 1992). Children are informed and not want to be patronised (Miles, 1998). Their understanding of the media is sophisticated (Tobin, 2000) and are able to recognise and even resist extreme ideological positions and advertised claims about products or toys. In research conducted by Guber & Berry (1993), nearly two-thirds of primary-aged children cook for themselves one to five times a week, with almost half of this group involved in buying food for their family.

So What do Learners Want and Need?

This paper focus on three studies of learner needs; a survey of classroom climate in the United Kingdom (Hobby & Smith, 1992), an informal study of teacher views of learner’s needs seen through the teacher’s eyes and an imagined student perspective (Hobby & Smith, 1992) and a recent study of the learner’s view of the use of collaborative technology in classrooms (Findlay, 2004).

A survey of classroom culture by the Hay Group (Hobby & Smith, 1992) of 8,000 students in 1,500 classrooms found that primary students in the United Kingdom regard their lessons as interesting, challenging and clear but were concerned about discipline and personal safety. Secondary students generally felt their lessons were challenging, safe and fair, but were concerned about discipline and structure and unimpressed with the quality of the physical environment, including technology. The study found that class size has a dramatic effect on student engagement. In primary schools, all measures decline as class size increases. In secondary school, climate improves with increased size up to 30 students, and then worsens dramatically. Large classes are seen as disorderly and intimidating. In primary schools, length of teacher experience made no difference to the creation of motivating climates. In secondary schools, newly qualified teachers have difficulty with discipline and gaining the active involvement of students; older teachers either get better or go into decline, with the best results between 11 and 20 years of teaching experience.

The study evolved into a service the Hay Group now provides to schools in the United Kingdom to help teachers improve classroom climate and better meet the needs of their students, especially what engages and motivates them. The Hay ‘Transforming Learning’ research model (Hobby & Smith, 1992) has eight dimensions of classroom climate:

• Clarity: the transparency and explicit relevance of what goes on in class;
• Environment: the comfort and attractiveness of the physical environment;
• Fairness: justice and equality within the classroom;
• Interest: stimulation and fascination in class;
• Order: discipline and structure in the classroom;
• Participation: student involvement and influence in conducting the class;
• Safety: Absence of threat or fear;
• Standards: expectations of achievement and encouragement to improve; and,
• Support: Encouragement to try new things and learn from mistakes.

A follow-on informal study in 2004 by Hay found considerable enthusiasm for transformational change in those schools that had undertaken the ‘Transforming Learning’ climate surveys. Focus workshops were conducted, with two groups of teachers using a prototype collaborative version of, Transforming Learning, based on a computer-based team meeting and learning system that supports real-time group discussion and the electronic collection or integration, in real time, of participants’ views.

The study revealed that teachers already have a clear understanding of the needs and interests of students, although many feel unable or constrained by the system to deliver the kind of service the customer wants.

When asked to describe the classroom climate through the eyes of the ‘teacher’, they concentrated on tasks and outcome, but as students, their focus was on fun and social interaction. From the teacher’s perspective, the ideal classroom climate is ‘where children can be safe, inspired, challenged, engaged and motivated’ and there are ‘clear parameters, shared understanding’ and they are ‘emotionally and physically safe’. The students should be provided ‘the things that are needed to progress’, and ‘know what they are learning and why’, and ‘understand the tasks and outcomes and how they relate to their learning’. Teachers said they would like to see a ‘culture shift from schooling to education’, with ‘schools and parent sharing responsibility for supporting children’. The classroom learning environment should ‘appeal to all learning styles and be nurturing and welcoming’. It should ‘lead to greater interaction between students’ and offer a mix of ‘challenge, novelty and high impact’ activities ‘combined with space for reflection’. Teachers will need ‘to take risks’ and ‘allow students to learn from mistakes’ so they ‘take responsibility for their own learning’. Teachers will create an ‘atmosphere that is conducive to learning’, ‘be facilitators providing support and guidance’, and be ‘there to help with information rather than give information’, so the students ‘self-learn rather than be taught’.

From the learner’s perspective (as conceived by the same teachers in this study), the ideal classroom climate should be ‘exciting, fun’ and make me ‘feel grown up’ with ‘greater choice’, so the students ‘can begin to see the point’. They said the teachers should ‘have a sense of what I need/want’ and ‘know what it would be like to sit in my desk’. There should be ‘things for me to try’ and ‘objects and practical activities to stimulate my curiosity and learning’, ‘more interactive toys and bigger chairs’ and more ‘people’ to interact with. Students should have the ‘freedom to move about and talk to others’ and be ‘allowed and able to join in’. They should be ‘treated equally and not picked on or overlooked by teacher’, ‘say what [they] think without being ridiculed’ and be ‘able to interact when I think my contribution is valuable and not when pressured to’.

A third study of secondary school students’ first time use of a collaborative learning technology ( Findlay, 2004) found that learners are generally disenchanted with the limited use of ICTs in the classroom setting. Twenty Year 7 and eleven Year 12 students were asked about their patterns of ICT use at school and home and what changes they would prefer to the way they learned and the way school was organised. Although the senior students had access to ICT at the school, they were prevented from using other forms of communication that were a routine part of their daily lives, such as the telephone and chat rooms. They said ‘there is little or no opportunity to use these tools’ in school ‘because they are banned’. Moreover, for many students, ‘home life and school are completely separate’. Students typically spend little or no time at school using computers ‘because they are shoddy’ and there are ‘too many restrictions’. At home they spend between one and four hours daily, although some students preferred to complete all their work at school, because they did not wish to be ‘trapped’ in a school life at home.

When asked how they would prefer school to be organised, the senior students said that most would prefer to hold group discussions but their teachers expected them to work alone. They said there should be ‘more interaction’ and more use of technology, especially the flexibility to work from home or school, using the Internet. The school should ‘make the classes more interactive’ and employ ‘better teacher techniques’ to suit ‘different types of learners’. Smaller classes would ensure that people were ‘more comfortable and confident to say what they want within reason’. Students should be allowed ‘to take more control over their own learning’ and ‘have their own opinions’, even if their teachers do not agree with them.

The Year 8 students said they had limited access to ICT and almost no use of ICT in classroom lessons. Most students were expected to attend classes to learn how to use ICT but were already competent users. Students said they used the computer ‘at home lots’ (2-3 hours per day) and ‘at school never’ (0 hours at school). The students gave varied reasons including: ‘the teachers think IT is distracting’; ‘the computers at school are ‘dodgy’’, ‘teachers are nasty and won’t let us’, as ‘it may distract us from our work’. Finally, the ‘librarians don’t let us in their (precious) library’.

Year 8 students would like school to be more ‘fun’ and have access to ‘more technology’, more often. They wanted more ‘interesting teachers’, to ‘sit where [they] want’ and more ‘class discussions’, so that ‘everyone is involved’, resulting in ‘better relationships with other people’. One particularly vocal young person, who typed his contributions in capitals (shouting), said he used the computer:

‘AT HOME AS I GET IN TIL I GET TO BED AT HOME AT SCHOOL I DONT HARDLY PART FROM ICT LESSONS COS THEIR NOT VERY AVAILABLE COS THE LIBRARY PERSON ONLY LETS US UN FOR ABOUT 5 MINUTE WICH IS HARSH [sic]’.

Discussion

Young people are increasingly inventing the new emerging culture, not only with assistance from adults who, in times of slower cultural transformations, played a bigger role. They are using the cultural tools that just happen to be within easy reach, the tools made, or fashioned by, Bill, Stephen, Madonna and Jim. The learners are able to use these tools to create new enriched tools – their own Flash movies, BLOGS, animations, websites, images, stories and software, such as viruses and worms, without much adult help. As a result, teachers no longer know what learners know and are independently doing and learning.

In this study we have trialed a new way of doing research, both academic and market. Instead of ‘objectively’ determining what the customer thinks at this moment, the focus is on collaborating with the customer to co-create a new kind of world that does not yet exist. The commercial world has adopted this new approach for the design and development of consumer products because conventional methods of bringing products to market are too slow in a rapidly transforming world. At the heart of the problem is the growing ‘cultural’ gap between corporations and their customers, particularly young customers, as the new, emerging culture races away from the old. The current generation of adults, including corporate executives and teachers, who were born and raised in the ways of the industrial age (1800-1950) or information age (1950-1990), seem to be at least one, and possibly two, large scale cultural transformations away from their youngsters, who were born and raised in the ways of the knowledge age (1990-).

Business has realised the need, not only to peer into the ‘future mind’ of these younger customers, and to know where they are heading and how fast, but also to help them co-invent it. In the past, the expert automotive designer and builder (read expert teacher) envisaged a product, such as a motor car, and made it available to the consumer. Now, to gain any competitive advantage whatsoever, the car manufacturer needs to know, not what the user might think about the current design, but what might be possible in the future, given the fact that that the whole system is changing unpredictably: the users needs, the rules governing the market, the roles of the car maker and user, and the car itself. The automotive industry has begun using collaborative tools to build rapid knowledge and get the new models that customers want to the market faster, and with better quality. The new approach generates a series of transformational matrices that explicitly require the customer voice to be considered, so that each stage of development is not 'behind the eight ball' and, in the end, the effect is contagious, as customers tell others about the benefits. Understanding customers’ needs, interests and feelings is not just good design, it is also good business (Norman, 1993).

School educators can also learn from another recent corporate innovation, Business Process Improvement (BPI). Thanks to improvements in the corporate-customer interface, travellers can now make airline and hotel reservations without the help of a travel agent. Bank customers can manage their finances without the aid of a teller. This approach not only empowers the customer but has the significant bottom-line effect of shifting the workload to the customer. School students are crying out for the same kind of treatment. But many teachers see this as a threat, rather than an opportunity.

How far can we take the ‘learner as customer’ metaphor? What does it mean to be satisfied as a customer and satisfied as a learner? Who are the customers of school education, anyway? Is this a useful metaphor? What are the limits of the analogy?

Students are not the only customer of education; parents, employers and society generally also have a stake in what we do as educators. Already employers are asking for something new and different from school education; for almost two decades employers have been telling educators that they want young people to be able to work in teams, plan, solve problems, use technology and communicate successfully with others (Australian Education Council, 1992). Parents want a better future for their children; a well-paid job and happiness. They also need schools to mind their children while they go to work, a super child-minding service. Alternative, more flexible methods of learning delivery, such as NO SCHOOL, as suggested by Stephen Heppell (2004), would not serve these interests.

The outcomes of consumer’s interactions with suppliers usually depend on the level of competition within the marketplace. Even if there is no choice, a dissatisfied customer can either return the product and receive a better quality product or reimbursement in return. Alternatively, the contract could be renegotiated or the choice to not purchase a product or service again could be made. The consumer could also switch to another supplier or choose not to consume at all. If there is no competition, the customer has little choice. In many education contexts, there is a monopoly supplier, both in terms of the school a child may attend, and the choice of teacher. The purchase of education services is often determined by where the parents live and, as the de facto purchasers on behalf of their children, the parents have little say in the matter. Perhaps this is why private schooling is on the rise. Even where there is choice, the price of an alternative education is usually set at a price point that many can not afford.

The two paths available to the customer are thus choice-exit or voice-negotiation. The exit strategy of ‘I'll take my business elsewhere’ is what children all over the world are doing. They might attend school, but many are there in body only. The alternative of choice has some limitations: How can a young child negotiate what they need to learn in order to be a competent member of society, when they have such a limited view of the future? How can young people sensibly resolve the conflict between the present need to have fun or hanging around with friends with a low investment of effort, and their future need for employable skills and the long, and often hazardous journey, to get them? Perhaps the task of the educator should be to develop a means of providing children with a voice so they can have a role in creating their own future, and/or providing a way to exit the standard curriculum, so they do not fall into the default exit path – failure.

Giving students a ‘voice’ seems to have its benefits. John Clare, Education Editor of the Sunday Telegraph (June 6, 2003) writes:

‘Pupils 'thrive when allowed to choose what they learn . . . allowing secondary school children to take charge of their learning . . . produces better results, improved behaviour and more enjoyment for teachers and pupils, the Royal Society for the Arts said yesterday. The RSA published the results of a study of six comprehensives that are piloting a ‘radical’ way of preparing young people ‘for the new and uncertain world they will find themselves living in, rather than for a world which is passing’.

Conclusion

Academics, teachers and education administrators have had a disproportionate say in what happens in education. But our schools, as currently designed, are not ready for self-directed and independent learners. Many will resist and destroy the burgeoning talents of our young people unless we rethink the social fabric that is school.

The metaphor of ‘learners as customers’ takes us some way to building a new framework but only if we take a sophisticated, collaborative view of customers as co-creators of what we want school and learning to become. School innovation also needs to include students, their parents and other citizens who have a stake in the outcome and something to contribute.

In these studies we have used some of the cultural tools that excite and engage young people – the multimedia and digital technologies that they routinely use in their home lives - that contain the scaffolds to help them collectively discover the best way and support them on their journey through life.

This approach, which serves both as entertainment and a means of co-creating a better future, goes some way towards helping teachers, parents and students and others articulate what they would like education to become, and do something about it.

There is a story about a tribe of very short people called the 'wadahelrwe'. They live in a huge swamp of two-metre high grass, with seemingly no boundaries, and bounce up and down on pogo sticks all day yelling out the name of the tribe. This is the problem that besets school education. If you don’t know where you are going, then how can you get there?

It is only when you can catch a glimpse beyond the boundaries of your own swamp that it is possible to escape. In this paper, the workshops with the students and the teachers were conducted with a tool (i.e., a team learning system) that provided such a glimpse of the possibilities. Both the teachers and the students were then able to articulate what an alternative world might be and innovate ways to leave the swamp – drain it, fly out of it on wings or perhaps burn it down.

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NOTE: This paper was published in the iNet Online Conference with the kind permission of ICET (International Conference on Educational Technology), which retains copyright of the paper. The paper was presented at the ICET Conference 2004 (9-10 September 2004), in Singapore . See website: www.icet.com.sg for further information.

Mr John Findlay, University of Wollongong, Dr Robert Fitzgerald (Post Doctoral Researcher, Division of Communication and Education), University of Canberra and Mr Russell Hobby, Hay Group (UK).

The online discussion on this General Paper is now closed.