From student to customer: what changes in postgraduate feedback

By Student Voice AI

Updated Mar 05, 2026

At Student Voice AI, we help universities act on student voice in ways that are measurable and humane, especially when it comes from open-text comments that explain the story behind a score. A 2025 open access paper in Higher Education by Weiyan Xiong looks at a question many UK teams recognise: in marketised, fee-funded postgraduate programmes, do students experience themselves primarily as learners, customers, or both?

Context and research question

The UK has lived with marketisation for decades, but the pressure points are sharper in areas like taught postgraduate provision, where fees are higher, cohorts are more international, and expectations can be more explicitly transactional. When universities collect feedback through module evaluations, complaints routes, and student representation systems, the underlying identity students bring to the relationship matters. It shapes what they notice, what they believe is “fair”, and whether they trust formal feedback channels.

Xiong’s study focuses on mainland Chinese students studying on Hong Kong’s self-financed taught postgraduate programmes. It asks two linked questions: what do students say about their learning experiences and satisfaction, and how do they identify themselves during those experiences, as students, as customers, or as both? The paper also connects student voice to reflexivity, meaning how students interpret their situation and decide what action, if any, they will take.

Key findings

The first finding is that most respondents were broadly satisfied, but satisfaction was anchored in qualification and value. In the survey, around 65% reported being satisfied and a further 23% very satisfied, with fewer than 7% dissatisfied. Students’ motivations were strongly instrumental: over 71% agreed that pursuing a higher degree was a primary motivation, and around 78% chose programmes aligned to future career goals.

Second, student identity dominated, but a meaningful minority adopted a customer identity. In the survey, 82.5% identified primarily as students, focused on completing assignments and meeting graduation criteria. 14.5% identified as customers, explicitly weighing tuition fees against the quality of educational “services”.

Third, the shift towards “customer” was not automatic. It tended to emerge either through social cues (teachers or peers making the customer framing salient) or through negative experiences that triggered “value for money” comparisons. That is a useful reminder for institutions: it is often the combination of expectations plus experience, not fees alone, that produces a customer mindset.

Fourth, dissatisfaction did not automatically flow into formal evaluation routes. When asked how they responded to dissatisfaction, the most common behaviours were informal or low-risk: 35.6% shared complaints privately with friends, 26.4% complained indirectly to teachers, and 23.6% sought help from classmates. Only 19.5% relied on formal feedback channels such as teaching evaluation surveys, and interviewees questioned whether those surveys would lead to change.

"I don’t think it will make much difference." (TPS11)

Finally, even with generally positive satisfaction, a sizeable minority reported doubt. Over half agreed that their experience justified the tuition fees, but 34.0% expressed doubts about their decision to study on the programme. For student experience and quality teams, that is a familiar pattern: the headline satisfaction story can co-exist with fragile value perceptions that show up more clearly in free-text.

Practical implications

For UK higher education teams, the practical lesson is not to adopt a “student as customer” narrative, but to recognise it as a feedback signal with operational consequences.

First, treat value-for-money talk as diagnostic. When students frame themselves as customers, their comments often become more focused on service reliability, responsiveness, and fairness. That is a strong reason to analyse open-text systematically, so teams can separate routine friction (timetables, communications, assessment turnaround) from deeper programme design issues.

Second, design feedback routes for psychological safety. If students believe formal channels do not work, or feel risky, they will default to private complaints and peer networks. Mid-module open-text prompts, clear escalation options, and visible “you said, we did” tracking can make formal routes feel credible, especially for international cohorts who may be unfamiliar with how to raise concerns.

Third, close the loop at the level students care about. The study highlights how quickly “customer” framing can be activated by negative course experiences. In practice, this makes timely, specific follow-through essential: what changed, where, and why. Generic reassurance is rarely enough to rebuild trust.

Finally, this is an area where Student Voice Analytics can genuinely help: customer framing tends to be visible in language. If you are collecting free-text at scale, text analytics can track themes like value for money, teaching quality, course choice constraints, and support responsiveness across programmes, then help teams benchmark where expectations are diverging and act before dissatisfaction hardens.

FAQ

Q: How can UK universities spot when students are shifting into a “customer” mindset in feedback?

A: Look for language that treats education as a purchased service, such as explicit fee-to-quality comparisons, references to “getting what I paid for”, and demands for service standards. Add one open-text prompt to existing surveys that asks what felt like “good value” and what did not, then analyse the themes and how they vary by cohort.

Q: What should we be cautious about when applying this study to the UK context?

A: The cohort and policy environment differ, and international student expectations are shaped by many factors beyond fees. Treat the findings as evidence about mechanisms, then validate locally by comparing open-text themes and channel usage (evaluations, reps, complaints) across your own postgraduate cohorts.

Q: Does a customer mindset make student voice less useful for improvement?

A: Not necessarily, but it can make feedback more transactional and less trusting. The practical task is to keep feedback systems credible: respond visibly, protect psychological safety, and involve students in sense-making where possible. When students believe change is possible, their feedback is more likely to be specific, constructive, and actionable.

References

[Paper Source]: Weiyan Xiong "Student or customer? Mainland Chinese students’ self-identification and reflexivity in Hong Kong’s self-financed taught postgraduate programmes" DOI: 10.1007/s10734-025-01435-x

Request a walkthrough

Book a free Student Voice Analytics demo

See all-comment coverage, sector benchmarks, and reporting designed for OfS quality and NSS requirements.

All-comment coverage with HE-tuned taxonomy and sentiment.
Versioned outputs with TEF-ready reporting.
Benchmarks and BI-ready exports for boards and Senate.

Prefer email? info@studentvoice.ai

UK-hosted · No public LLM APIs · Same-day turnaround