Do higher education institutes communicate trust well?

Abstract

The relationship between trust and information sources for new purchasers of higher education is discussed. A range of sources is evaluated by potential entrants into UK higher education, and indicates that universities tend to be regarded as the most trustworthy when information is directly associated with them and social networks, and friends and student-derived sources the least, along with KeyInformation Set (KIS) data. Keywords: higher education; communication, trust INTRODUCTIONMarketing in higher education has grown from information in a prospectus or year book into a range of communicative and relationship communication practices designed to attract students in the same way as consumers to cars, iPads and foreign holidays. The tangible benefits of fun and the economic promise of a university education have dominated higher education communications. Universities have promoted education, offering hedonistic gratification and routes to careers. to position education as their product or service as yet one more thing to be consumed (Lawlor, 2007). Furthermore, Klassen (2000) reports that in the USA the marketing of higher education institutional values and priorities is usually symbolised by the message 'that students will not need to change in order to be successful ' (2001: 21). In Europe state-controlled universities have introduced student fees and engaged in institutional marketing to distinguish themselves at a time when higher education provision has become available to increasing numbers of students. This seems beneficial and what one would expect from institutions that have internal trust and are trusted by the public (although questioned by Tierney, 2006, andStensaker & Harvey, 2011). Yet, in meeting this demand and securing their own financial futures as competition intensifies, institutions are 'engaging in professional marketing activities ' (Veloutsou, Paton & Lewis, 2005: 279) rather than, perhaps, enriching the educational and the common good. These activities run the risk of displaying overwhelming consumerism (Naidoo & Jamieson, 2005).The impact of these changes is summarised by Hassan, who observes: the commercialization of the university is primarily an economic and political process of transformation that has little if anything to do with education, knowledge production and the well-being of either staff or students. What is more, these changes are all being refracted through the prism of neo-liberal ideology. (2003: 77) DO HEIS COMMUNICATE TRUST WELL?2 With consumerism changing students into customers (Molesworth, Scullion & Nixon, 2010;Woodall, Hiller & Resnick, 2014) and tutors into service providers (Guzmán-Valenzuela & Barnett, 2013), with ever-more vulnerable and naïve students being encouraged to enrol, competition rather than sector collaboration has become the higher education market's ethos. One consequence of such a change is that trust in the common good, once assumed of higher education (Giroux and Giroux, 2004;Carvalho and de Oliveira Mota, 2010) has been shake...

The homogenisation of prospectuses over the period of massification in the UK

“…The particular policies of choice and competition give particular advantages to the middle class, while not appearing to do so, in the way that selection policies did in a previous policy era. (Ball, 2003, p. 26) It is known that despite the established element of slight distrust found of such documents (Gibbs & Dean, 2015), they remain in frequent use by students, and now the marketing of courses is becoming more complex and more widely available through social media and websites (McNeill, 2012;Simões & Soares, 2010) and mobile marketing (Zinn & Johansson, 2015).…”

“…The key theme is the linking of the degree to business and industry, but the fact that students are paying increased, marketised fees does not appear in these documents to be a significant event. Although the discursive practices within the prospectuses increase their focus on graduate employment and employability and professionalised their marketing (Gibbs & Dean, 2015), they did not become explicitly competitive in their prospectuses.…”

Integrity in higher education marketing and misleading claims in the university prospectus: what happened next…and is it enough?

“…Interesting responses to the paper came from Gibbs (2014) and Gibbs and Aftab (2015). Gibbs has published a substantial body of work looking at questions of ethics and trust as they arise in the marketing of higher education (Gibbs, 2001(Gibbs, , 2002, 2007, 2012 He has argued that there is an inherent contradiction in the notion of 'university marketing, ' in that universities are expected to develop critical thinking while advertising seeks to manipulate rather than inform.…”

“…Nevertheless, having reports of your misleading marketing appear in the national press and the BBC can only raise public concerns about the integrity of universities. As Gibbs and Aftab (2015) argue, misleading marketing is a serious breach of trust in the relationship between institution and student.…”

Decision Support System for Selecting Cooperation Forms between a Higher Educational Institution and a Potential Student

“…Every University is interested in attracting best potential students motivated to study their educational programmes [1]. To reach this goal Universities hold a wide range of activities aimed at cooperation between a higher educational institution and potential students.…”