This research focuses on the development and validation of the Student Consumerism in Higher Education Scale (SCHE), a multidimensional measure that captures how market-oriented assumptions shape students’ expectations, evaluations, and interpretations of value in higher education, addressing current fragmentation among measures by integrating micro-level service expectations with macro-level economic, institutional, and promotional pressures. Using established scale-development procedures (DeVellis & Thorpe, 2021; Hinkin, 1998), two studies were conducted with undergraduate business students from two institutions. For Study 1, items from literature and contemporary higher-education discourse were developed and tested with an exploratory factor analysis. Study 2 assessed factor structure, reliability, convergent and discriminant validity, higher-order dimensionality, and measurement invariance with confirmatory factor analysis. Results supported a stable four-factor, 17-item structure: (1) Service/Provision Expectations, (2) Degree–Employment ROI Pessimism, (3) University-as-Business/Customer Mindset, and (4) Marketing/Rankings Pressure. The instrument demonstrated acceptable reliability, strong factorial validity, and a coherent higher-order consumerism factor. Measurement invariance across seven demographic subgroups supports meaningful latent-mean comparisons.
The SCHE is the first validated measure to integrate interpersonal expectations, economic anxieties, corporate logic, and sensitivity to promotional influences into a unified hierarchical construct. It identifies two unmeasured dimensions, return-on-investment pessimism and marketing/rankings pressure, distinguishing attitudinal beliefs from entitlement, satisfaction, climate perceptions, and behavioral outcomes. The SCHE helps institutions diagnose which consumerist beliefs drive expectations for service, employability, and institutional competitiveness, informing communication, advising, and academic-policy decisions.

Authors:
Lisa Chen, Quincy University, United States
Steven Brown, Georgia Gwinnett College, United States
John Marinan, Georgia Gwinnett College, United States
Marvin Bontrager, Georgia Gwinnett College, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Chen is an assistant professor of Business at Quincy University in United State and an on-line part-time tutor at SOAS, University of London. Her current research focuses on AI and Management education in the group activity.

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