On Getting What You've Paid for

It’s an old adage:   you get what you’ve paid for.    But it begs a whole bunch of questions.    What do you really want?    What are you really getting?    And what match, in your eyes, constitutes value for money?

On carpets that don’t clean themselves

Most of the time, we understand this.    We buy a particular vacuum cleaner because the advert says it will “clean your house better than any other cleaner”.    But we know it won’t clean the house by itself;   we know we have to take it out and push it about a bit, on a regular basis.    Hoovers in cupboards clean no carpets.

The Hoover (or whatever) enables and facilitates, but it doesn’t deliver without you.    How and where you do the pushing matters as well;   on your care, your thoroughness, your conscientiousness.    On your input.    A vacuum cleaner is an opportunity, not a solution.

On being learned to

The same is true of education.    No educational process can guarantee that learning will take place.    Some learners are lazy, some overambitious, some cut corners, and some, alas, are just thick.

It doesn’t matter how good the course is;   sometimes learning doesn’t happen.

You might think that should be self-evident.    It ain’t.    Learners come to education, particularly if they have to pay for it, with the expectation that the provider can do their learning for them or, at least, enable them to learn with as little effort on their part as possible.

I wus robbed

No sector of education illustrates this more graphically than universities.    In part, it’s because some of the learning at university is tough;   in part because those doing the learning are (relatively) unversed in commercial and other worldly realities;   and in part because what was once paid for by the state is, increasingly, having to be met from personal (or parental) funds.

So students come to courses with a sense of entitlement.    They want what they’ve paid for.    Trouble is, they think that what they’ve paid for is educational success.

"Many students", says Professor Marshall Grossman of the University of Maryland, "come with the conviction that they’ve worked hard and deserve a higher mark."

"I tell my classes that if they just do what they are supposed to do and meet the standard requirements, that they will earn a C," he said.    "That is the default grade.    They see the default grade as an A."

He’s not alone.    A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading.

As James Hogge, of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, says, "Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work.    There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’"

Ah, if only life were as simple as that.

And Private Pitfalls

For learners, the issue is to understand that learning is like anything else of value in life;   it needs effort, it needs ability, and it needs a bit of luck.    Sometimes it can be a challenge, a bit of a struggle.    And success is not guaranteed.

And for providers, managing learner expectations is the key.    But if the sector is market-driven, it is difficult.    Purchasers prefer certainties (my course will get you through the exam) to opportunities (my course will help you pass the exam, but really it’s up to you).

Scrupulosity may inhibit enrolment.    Whereas a lack of it may lead to false expectations, fuelling the growth in dissatisfied learners and subsequent complaints, both in number and in severity.    Neither will do the provider, or the learner, any good at all.

It also can lead to complicity in the less-than-conscientious provider.    The temptation is to let pupils pass regardless, especially if they’ve paid and have expectations which, however unreasonable, will lead to bother if they aren’t met.

True, you may still have a threshold, below which you deem failure to be unequivocal.    But how many providers can say, hand on heart, that that threshold is set regardless of financial considerations, or the expectations of learners?

And that takes us back to the old 10% rule, beloved of Ofsted inspectors and Roman Centurions alike.    Fail too many, and you appear over-zealous and punitive;   fail too few and you look lax and casual.    Decimation (ridding yourself of one in ten) is the usual compromise, even though it has nothing to do with the abilities of individuals, and everything to do with the managing of expectations.   

16th March, 2009
Sources: Quodlibs 329

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US quotes (retrieved 16-03-09)

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