An analysis of undergraduate students' intentions to emit word-of-mouth about their experiences of H.E.

Have you ever wondered what your students are saying about studying with you and your institution? This paper examines reports of undergraduate students’ intentions to generate word-of-mouth about their experiences of... [ view full abstract ]

Have you ever wondered what your students are saying about studying with you and your institution? This paper examines reports of undergraduate students’ intentions to generate word-of-mouth about their experiences of higher education. This empirical study examines the reports of 1129 undergraduate students studying at U.K. universities. It generates a scale with which to measure the constructs ‘intention to emit positive word-of-mouth’ and ‘intention to emit negative word-of-mouth’. The study finds support for the statements which measure positive word-of-mouth and strong rejection of the statements which measure negative word-of-mouth. Students report that they intend to speak positively and do not intend to speak negatively about their experiences of higher education. However there is some difference between students’ plans to speak negatively, compared to their reports of the likelihood that they might speak negatively. Analysis across participant characteristics finds that whilst gender, year of study and parental experience have little impact on reported intentions to speak positively or negatively, subject of study and institution demonstrate some influence on students’ responses to questions measuring word-of-mouth intentions. Implications of this study include that Universities might feel confident to develop an online review platform which could provide a flexible, dynamic alternative to the N.S.S.