Students Expectations of University Education

Bick-har Lam
K. P. Kwan
Introduction
My first priority is to acquire as much medical knowledge as I can. Secondly, as
I come from a boys school, I want to enlarge my social circle, especially in my
interaction with females. Thirdly, I want to develop my ability to think critically
and independently. I hope I can accept other peoples challenges and also
challenge others. I also want to develop my leadership skills. (MED)
Students enter University with a wide range of different motivations; and often students
have a variety of motivations and expectations along the lines of the above quote. This is
in line with research into students motives and expectations that has been carried out
elsewhere. The research tends to fall into two distinct strands, the first associated with
qualitative investigations of student learning, and the second concerned with the
economics of higher education and students perceptions of it as investment or
consumption. Generally, all of this has suggested that students come to university with
a mix of motives and expectations that can be categorised into four major areas, as
follows:
1.

A Human Capital or Instrumental Orientation: to get a job. According to this

perspective, students come to university in order to obtain a qualification, which
will get them a job. The experience of university per se is secondary to the
rewards that the award of a degree will (hopefully!) bring to students after
graduation.

2.

General benefits from becoming educated. Here the emphasis is more on the
intrinsic rewards that result from developing an understanding of specific subject
matter from becoming broadly educated. Students are at university to develop and
grow intellectually and also to develop general competence.

3.

Maturation and personal development. University is expected to be an arena for

students general personal development and a place where they can grow up in
a rewarding and enriching way.

4.

Competitive/Achieving. Students expectations are that they will work hard at

university - and succeed in the sense that they will achieve high grades - or at
1

least pass: this will enable them to move into rewarding careers and/or further
study.
The Hong Kong students who were interviewed generated all of these ideas, and usually
students had a mixture of motives that drew on all or most of these perspectives. Contrary
to the perceptions of a lot of university lecturers, students are not simply interested in
passing the exam and getting a degree. They have more general goals as well.
Below, these expectations and motivations are illustrated via students comments. For
the sake of clarity, their comments are grouped under the kind of broad headings; that
have been described above. In many cases though the remarks tend to cut across
boundaries and it is difficult to confine them neatly or exactly in a single compartment.
Note: the expectation of getting a job was more or less taken for granted and implicit
in students replies, rather than explicitly articulated in many cases. Just two
examples of explicit statements are given.
Students expectations of University Education
1. Job related expectations
I am really interested in this course. I want to gain as much knowledge as
possible that is related to the profession. I think that is my expectation. (MED)
What I want is to learn everything about the subject I major in. I expect more
training which will turn me into a professional in the field. (CS)
2. General educational benefits
I want to learn to be more analytical. (FA)
I chose this course not because I want to become a lawyer. Instead, what I want
is to learn how to think critically and rationally. There are a lot of things
happening in the society, which I need to know about. If I dont, Ill lag behind.
Thus, I use this method (studying in university) to force myself to have a wider
exposure to different things. I hope to become a more all-rounded person.
(LAW)
Apart from the things in the books, I also want to learn to have a critical mind. I
try to see things from different angles in order to make myself not so narrowminded. (CS)
At university, even when your lecturer tells you something, you have to be able
to judge whether it is correct or not. And you need to train yourself to be able to
tell why the answer is correct or not correct. This is the most important thing to
learn at university. (ENC)

I want to study in university mainly because of academic reasons. I want to

learn more and update my knowledge. (ABCT)
3. Maturation and personal development
Interpersonal Skills
I do not intend to simply attend classes and sit for the exam at university. I also
want to make more friends and get in contact with people from a variety of
backgrounds. This will broaden my horizon. This is what I expect from my
university education. (ENC)
I think that at university we need to learn how to deal with inter-personal
relationship and how to manage your personal matters, for example, how to
organise yourself to complete the tasks. We need to be able to work
systematically before we can manage other people. Otherwise, other people may
not listen to you. (HTM)
The thing that I like to learn most is the ability to work with others. I think cooperation is very important, especially, when you go out to work. At university,
you dont just learn knowledge from books, but also other things such as
interpersonal communication, how to plan your time for study and leisure, etc.
(BUSS)
I want to learn how to interact or communicate with others. The interpersonal
relationship in university is quite different from that in the secondary schools. At
university, students come from very different backgrounds. And when somebody
approaches us we cannot hide away. We need to interact with them. (LAW)
I want to learn more about the social aspects, such as organisation skills and
communication skills. I want to gain experiences in those areas in my university
education. (ABCT)
I want to develop my time management skill. Life at the university is very free
we have less than 20 hours of lecture and plenty of leisure time. We have to plan
how to spend our time lest we will waste them all. (LAW)
I think that my organisation and presentation skills are quite weak. I want to
improve my ability in these two aspects in my university education. (FA)
Personal Growth
I think the most important thing is to develop confidence in myself. We need it
for our future career. If you do not have confidence, other people will not have
trust in you. (ITC)

I want to have a better understanding of myself. I want to develop ability in

critical thinking so that I can be critical towards other peoples views and critical
towards myself. (MED)
I want to become more mature and less dependent on others. (BUSS)
To develop the ability to think independently, to get to know myself better and to
handle things in a more mature manner. Besides, university education should
enable us to look at an issue from different perspectives. (FA)
I think that the most important thing in business education or rather, in university
education, is to educate students into an upright person. (ITC)
It is a pity that there is no moral education at university. There is nothing in the
university to stimulate you to think about moral and ethical issues. (MED)
4. Competitive/Achieving
I only hope that I can complete my studies and get a pass in the exam. I have to
pass the exam because I need it to increase my ability to compete with others in
the job market. I want to get a good job in the future and hope to get promoted to
a higher level. (ENC)
I hope to get a First Class Honours in the degree exam. This will help me in my
further study. (ITC)
As indicated earlier, almost all students interviewed expressed a mixture of these
expectations and motives, and it is possible to see this mix as forming a consistent whole.
Students commonly see University as providing them with opportunities for personal
development that will lead them to become more mature and rounded people. They also
expect to develop general skills and competence, as well as an obvious knowledge and
expertise in a disciplinary or professional area. All of this they see as important in
helping them to get a job and launch on a successful career. It is interesting that
employers are in accord with students: employers wish for graduates with generic skills
in addition to substantive subject knowledge.
De-motivators and hindrances to students achieving their expectations
In a perfect world all students worthy expectations (assuming that they were clear
about these!) would be realised. Of course, in practice, this is not the case. That is not to
say that students are generally dissatisfied with what they found at university. Most
students are complimentary about much of what they encounter and feel that they
benefited from their time at university. Nevertheless, there are aspects of what they
encountered that are not so positive. The major sets of dissatisfiers that the students

meet can be categorised as follows. In each case, some typical quotes are given as
illustration.
1. Heavy workload
You have to learn so many things. You cannot focus on one subject only; you
have to spend some time on other subjects as well. So you cannot learn much. As
you have to do so many things, you can only learn them superficially. I think this
is an obstacle to my learning. (BUSS)
I feel that I am pressurised by homework. I have to give up being a committee
member of a student association. If I dont attend class, I cant understand the
subject matter. I also have to spend a lot of time doing laboratory work. And in
year three, I have to do projects. I could not manage them all. (ABCT)
I thought that I would have much free time at university to pursue my interest.
But the reality is just opposite. I am as busy as I was in my secondary school or
even busier. I think the major obstacle to medical students is the lack of time. If
we have more time, we can learn many other things. (MED)
2. Rigid/narrow curriculum
Sometimes, we feel quite bitter as weve missed many things. It is more
important for us to know more about things that are not related to the technical
areas, for example, interpersonal communications. (ENC)
I want to learn more things. But I cannot do that in our university except for
enrolling in the complementary studies courses. There are things that I am
personally interested in, but I dont have the chance to take those subjects. I cant
have lessons on those subjects. We learn only how to do a technical task when we
go out to work. I think it is very narrow. (LSGI)
Some doctors have developed a strange character. This is not surprising because
they are too busy in their study to participate in other social activities. All they
learn from university is about science and medicine. (MED)
It is interesting that these comments by students reflect the sentiments of academic staff
and curriculum designers. It is now fairly common to find moves to reduce curriculum
content in order to allow students to achieve a deeper understanding of more focused
areas and learn how to learn. In addition, there have been recent moves by some
universities to introduce General Education requirements into the curriculum in line
with other universities who have had that aspect in place for some time. These moves are
designed to introduce just that broadening or contextualising element that many
students ask for.

3. Lack of interaction with staff or classmates

My major problem concerns communication with the lecturers. I expect that I
can have an equal and open discussion with them, but not every lecturer can do
that. (HTM)
Sometimes I feel that there is a large gap between the lecturers and the students.
I am not saying that they are not open. I think that there are too few channels. We
may take the initiative to approach them, but we sometimes cannot find them.
(LSGI)
I am disappointed at the relationship I have with my classmates. Although we are
in the same class, we hardly know each other and seldom talk to each other.
(ITC)
The teachers seldom have contact with us. We seldom meet each other after
class. Because of the large number of students, even if they meet us, they can
hardly recognise us. When I have problems, I go and ask my teachers. But it is not
easy to find them. (ENC)
4. Inadequate resources/opportunities
It is strange that there is no home place for us at university. We have no place
to gather or discuss things. We can only go to the library, or to find an empty
classroom. It is hard, and I do not have a sense of belonging to my class or my
course. (ITC)
We need to discuss and exchange ideas to solve problems, but there are few
places we can go for that. (LSGI)
The resources are meagre. The electives are not broad enough and sometimes
there may not be enough vacancies. I want to study introduction to Psychology,
but I dont have the chance to enrol in it as it was full. (CS)
The computers are inadequate. If we have to hand in our papers, we have to
compete for them. Facilities for learning and recreation are not enough either.
Even if we can identify certain books from the computer search, when we go to
the location to find them, we usually cannot find them because they have already
been checked out. (CS)
There is a problem of resource. Our course has been going on for two months but not all
the equipment we need is available. The course is coming to an end now, but we still
havent had the opportunity to use the equipment. I think thats quite bad, especially for
students graduating this year. (FA)

5. Students own problems

Some of the students are not really interested in learning. Some students dont
want to go to work so soon and thus, they enrol in the course to postpone that
decision. Their only concern is to pass the two years and get the certificate
quickly. (HTM)
I am going steady with a boyfriend and this takes up part of my time. I think I
need self-discipline and time management skills to overcome this. (LAW)
My main problem is lack of concentration. Although I want to do many things, I
am not very persistent. I may want to do this one-day, but lose my interest the
next day. Sometimes I really want to do something well, but I am worried that I
may end up doing it badly, so I just escape by not doing it. (FA)
Implications for Teachers
Generally, students come to university with worthy and honourable expectations and
motivations. Some of these they may achieve, while circumstances or the university that
they encounter may thwart their ambitions for others. Individual teachers can address
some of this: other aspects may need action that cuts across subjects, courses, and
faculties, and may involve a whole university perspective.

Treat students as individuals, and accept that different students may have different
valid expectations of their university experience.

Be realistic in what you expect students to achieve in their courses, and do not
expect them to complete unrealistic amounts of work.

Ensure that the curriculum is as flexible as possible: allowing students choice,

and the opportunity to study general interest subjects as well as those that are
specifically related to their major discipline.

Build in opportunities for students to interact with each other and get to know
each other.

So far as possible, ensure that you interact informally with your students and get
to know something about each other.

Try to ensure that there are adequate resources to enable students to cope with the
demands that are made on them during their studies.

Discuss, with students what your expectations of them are, and learn something
about what they hope to gain from their studies.

Help students to develop strategies for dealing with assignments and tasks
required by the course, in order to better manage their lives at university.

If you suspect that some students are disinterested or bored with their studies,
discuss the reasons for this with them.

If you suspect that students have serious problems of a personal nature, suggest
that they make use of counselling or other student support services.

Above all, move from a teaching to a learning focus: this means assisting
students to develop competences and attitudes that are required for success
in their professions and their lives as a whole.

Research shows that Hong Kong students on average spend about 40 hours per week in total on
all academic related activities. Assuming that they are taking six or seven subjects, this means
that they can spend about six hours per week on each subject: this includes formal classes, oncourse work, revision, tests, etc., everything.

TEHE Ref.: R1/t2b3

Lam B.H. and Kwan K. P. (1999) Students expectations of university education. In J. Jones and K.P.
Kwan, (Eds.) Evaluation of the Student Experience Project:Vol. 3., The Video Interview Project: Listening
to Our Students Talk, (pp. 11-20). City University of Hong Kong, Centre for the Enhancement of
Learning and Teaching.

Reprinted with permission from the first author.