The Student as a Practitioner: An Activity Theory Approach for Student Participation in Higher Education in Colombia

Abstract

Economic and politic pressures to create a system of mass higher education have brought forms of managerial control to university life with a shift of values (Barry et al. 2001; Sosteric et al. 1998). Faculty members worry about student ineffective participation (Flacks and Thomas 1998) and discomfort for pressures of considering students as customers under the premise that the “customer is always right” (Scott 1999). On the other hand, students expect high grades in return for paying tuition and going to lectures (Delucci & Korgen 2002) and lite entertainment and easily, accessible and serene learning experience (Edmudnson 1997).The omnipresent conviction about economic value as the foremost objective of higher education has brought disengagement and student consumerism (Delucci & Korgen 2002; Delucci 2000; Halliday et al. 2008). These generalities apply to Higher Education (HE) institutions in Colombia. The research puzzle in context is what motivates students’ observed behavior in service encounters within the Colombian HE experience? We address and answer this question by putting the momentary interaction into the context of activity theory (Vygotsky 1978, Engeström, 1999) and seeing the whole university and its students within the Aldersonian perspective of the whole marketing system (Alderson, 1965) to explore the impact of firm’s strategy on student’s participation.