Gratitude in higher education: evidence and outcomes.

Conference: Academy of Marketing,

Dates: 5-8 July 2016

Journal: Proceedings of the Academy of Marketing

Abstract:

Gratitude is a comparatively new addition to relationship marketing’s armory. This exploratory qualitative study takes a relational approach to higher education and examines the evidence of gratitude amongst academics and students. It finds that students relate to ideas of gratitude within their experiences of higher education and Howell’s (2012) notion of the cycle of gratitude resonates strongly. Academics have more varied perspectives on gratitude’s place within HE: from its absolute rejection as a relevant lens; through acceptance of ideas associated with gratitude as relevant to HE, but preferring alternative (sharing, loop, dialogic) articulations of these ideas; to clear support of gratitude as a valuable way of thinking about relational exchanges within HE.

The study suggests and defines a gratitude construct ‘gratitude-based desire to reciprocate’ and identifies five potential outcomes of gratitude within students’ experiences of higher education: engagement; happiness; intention to emit positive word-of-mouth; verbal expressions of gratitude; and uncertainty. A conceptual framework emerges from this work, to be operationalized and tested in a future quantitative study. The evidence of gratitude reinforces the importance of student interactions with academics as part of the student experience, and may contribute to HEIs’ preparation for the TEF.

Source: Manual