Student or customer? Postgraduate perspectives on value and feedback

Updated Sep 07, 2026

Students can evaluate the value of a postgraduate programme while still identifying primarily as learners. Weiyan Xiong’s study explores this relationship among mainland Chinese students in Hong Kong’s self-financed taught postgraduate programmes.

What the study found

The mixed-methods study analysed 303 survey responses and 17 follow-up interviews. Of the survey respondents, 250 identified primarily as students and 44 as customers. Some reported changes in identity, including changes in both directions. Interviewees linked customer framing to experiences and interactions with teachers or peers.

Reported responses to dissatisfaction included private complaints to friends or classmates (32.01%), collective reporting to the programme office (29.70%), individual contact with the programme leader (21.78%), and formal feedback channels such as evaluation surveys (19.47%). These are responses in this sample, not UK participation benchmarks.

The purposive survey and voluntary interview sample supports contextual interpretation. It does not show that customer language predicts future dissatisfaction or that particular feedback reforms will rebuild trust.

Questions for postgraduate teams

As editorial suggestions, ask students how programme expectations compare with their experience and which routes they use when something goes wrong. Treat comments about fees as information to understand, rather than assigning a fixed identity to the person making them.

Review whether feedback routes are clear, usable and trusted. Combine accounts from different channels while preserving confidentiality, and explain what changed after concerns were raised. Assess any improvements locally rather than claiming that this study establishes their effects.

Reference

Weiyan Xiong. “Student or customer? Mainland Chinese students’ self-identification and reflexivity in Hong Kong’s self-financed taught postgraduate programmes.” Higher Education. DOI: 10.1007/s10734-025-01435-x.

Corrected 7 September 2026 against the full paper. Several percentages and descriptions of complaint routes were wrong and have been replaced. Claims about predicting dissatisfaction from language have been narrowed.