A step change in marketing communication education - the next urgent steps for research

ABSTRACT Our world, and our workplace, has undergone a disruptive step change. It has transformed the way universities operate, what industry demands, how we teach and the way our students learn. That is why this special issue, and particularly this paper, takes three important steps to bring insight and innovation to marketing communication education. In our first step, we examine the impact of COVID on student learning. This leads us to where we are now and a visualization the experiential world of students, using a customer experience framework. The next step is to use this framework to reinvent the Biggs 3P Model into an integrated learning experience, showing student innovation, acceptance and adaption to change. This takes us to Step 3 and our agenda for research.


Introduction
Since the start of the global COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019, our world has undergone a disruptive step change, the impact of which is yet to be fully realised.Marketing communication practitioners and researchers need to grapple with this 'new reality' and accommodate the changed and changing context in which we now exist with new business practices and perhaps new processes of theoretical and practical development, testing and verification.Prior to 2020, theory development and operational practices changed in a mostly incremental manner, accommodating environmental and societal changes, and technological advancements as they emerged.The disconnect between the pre-and post-COVID-19 world, while yet to become fully apparent, may herald an era characterised by new ways of doing and being.This may have a significantly disruptive impact on marketing communication practice and theory development.Especially, as practitioners are to some extent (we would think a large extent) influenced by the education that they receive and the contexts in which they receive their education.
This paper examines the historical evolution of marketing communication education in response to environmental, societal, and technological advancements that challenged old knowledge and practice, and gave rise to new ways of educating the next generation of thought leaders.We question the suitability of our current educational practices in the post COVID-19 world, in which technology-mediated interactions (zoom/skype/MS teams/social media etc) are ubiquitous.Students' expectations and experiences of education have been significantly disrupted over a short period of time, and the utility of the operational and theoretical knowledge that they gain through their education may no longer be sufficient to meet the demands of the changed world in which consumers, markets, operators and regulators have shifted not just expectations, but also practice.
The case study presented in the paper is illustrative of the pre-COVID 19 evolution of educational practice, accommodating students' expressed desire for online resources to complement their in-person experiences (see Kitchen and Tourky 2022a;Kitchen and Tourky 2022b).The case study illustrates the step change disruption of COVID 19, making face to face delivery impossible and online delivery essential for both students and institutions.This translates into the somewhat post COVID-19 situation that students and institutions now face; one in which the essential nature of online learning perhaps becomes a convenience.
In the paper, we assert that the situation facing educators is one where technology, previously viewed as augmenting the learning and teaching experience, has become a fundamental requirement of the offering.The historical 'core' experience, delivered through face-to-face interactions, offers ambivalence and uncertain utility in the current contexts faced by students, faculty, and institutions around the world.Indeed -as institutions responded and reacted to continued ongoing cycles of openings and closings in accordance with health directives which were largely outside of their control, institutional predictions for the future were still based on evolutions of previously successful models.Failure to recognise that a fundamental step change has occurred may lead institutions to fail to recognise the extent of change required to successfully respond to the changed desires of students, and the discipline and soft skills that they will need to become successful business and research leaders in a fundamentally different context to that in which current thought models evolved or were developed.
The paper proceeds in three steps.Step 1: what we knew before covid One fact that we have always known is that marketing communication education is a massively unresearched area.The Journal of Advertising, for example, has published less than 10 articles addressing marketing communication education in the last 50 years; and many of those were editorials.Certainly, there are specialist educational journals like the Journal of Advertising Education which has contributed to our understanding of advertising education for the last 25 years.There are also broader education journals, from which many of our learnings are derived, albeit from different contexts.This section brings together these sources to summarize what we knew about advertising education before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Perhaps the best place to start is with one of the most widely cited models of the educational process, the Biggs (1993) 3P (Presage-Process-Product) Model (see Figure 1).While anchored in the classroom, the model's first 'Presage' stage considers both the student context (prior knowledge, abilities and expectations), and the teaching context  (decisions around curriculum, methods and assessment).The second stage visualizes the process of learning.This process is defined by characteristics of the learners and lecturers and varies from class to class, and even online (Biggs 1993).Certainly, the habits and predispositions that the students bring with them, and the choices they make during their learning experience, directly affects the education process (Biggs 1988(Biggs , 1989(Biggs , 1993(Biggs , 2001)).The final stage: Product, reflects the learning outcomes, often built from organizational systems and imperatives, and measured through learning achievement and satisfaction (Biggs 1993;Tsiligiris and Hill 2019).The Biggs model has been adapted many times in many different learning contexts (Tsiligiris and Hill 2019), and recent research by Bowden et al. (2021) expands on the model, noting that student engagement can achieve learning outcomes such as transformative learning, student well-being, self-esteem, self-efficacy and even institutional reputation.

The shift to online learning
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to close classrooms, the shift to online education was well underway.According to Weigold (2020, 70), 'Whether you love it, hate it, or feel indifference, the data suggest that online has arrived'.He claimed that successful online advertising courses are built on strong institutional protocols, accelerate engagement and learning between students and faculty, and provide a platform for student success.
Focusing on advertising education, and perhaps the second stage of the Biggs' model, 'Process', Gangadharbatla (2020) offers a hybrid alternative.He asserts (Gangadharbatla 2020, 78), ' . . .online is just a means for delivery.It is more important for ad programs to provide an advertising education rooted strongly in clear learning objectives, measurable outcomes, and rigorous assessment irrespective of the delivery mechanism'.
Looking at online education more broadly, research generally concurs that faculty were satisfied with online teaching (Bolliger, Inan, and Wasilik 2014;Howe et al. 2018;McLawhon and Cutright 2012;Stickney et al. 2017).This stems largely from the educator's belief (79%) that online platforms make education -to some degree -more accessible.However, this accessibility does not always translate into effectiveness or even into a positive learning experience for students, a view shared by more than half of educators, who report beliefs that online courses are not the most effective way to learn (EDUCAUSE 2017;Kitchen 2021).
This view of online education was confirmed by recent research by Marasi et al. (2020), who reported that while educators were motivated to make education accessible to all, they equally felt that social interaction suffered in an online context, expressing concerns that students miss the opportunity to read non-verbal cues and to learn from each other, or via interaction with faculty members.Marasi et al (2020) also raised concerns that online learning shifts responsibility for learning away from educators and back onto students.
Perhaps because of this, students also express dissatisfaction with online learning (Harrington and Loffredo 2010;Kitchen and Tourky, 2022a).Analysing seven years of student evaluations -for example -Lowenthal, Bauer and Chen (2015) reported that students rated online courses lower than face-to-face courses.Preference for face-toface classes was attributed to a desire to learn through listening and a need to interpret the emotional reactions of their peers.Preference for online courses was driven by convenience, technology, and innovation (Harrington and Loffredo 2010).
The literature further suggests that digital technology is being used for practical classroom management, rather than meaningful learning.For example, a 2017 study by Henderson, Selwyn and Aston reported that students experienced a number of practical, functional benefits from digital technology.These included organizing and managing the logistics of studying (46.9%), engaging with study remotely (32.7%), time-saving (30.6%), reviewing, replaying and revising lecture material (27.9%), researching (27.9%), and supporting basic tasks like assignment writing and finding resources (26.4%) (Henderson, Selwyn, and Aston 2017).
Courses with high findability, where resources were easy to find, were rated as a better overall experience by students.In comparison, for courses where students report lower findability, they also report lower levels of self-efficacy and lower motivation to organise their resources, complete assessments and manage academic demands (Simunich, Robins, and Kelly 2015).Likewise, courses which incorporated students' favoured social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube were considered useful in sharing resources, connecting and improving communication, providing a space for students to share their feelings or learning reflections quickly and informally, thus enhancing their perception of learning efficacy and increasing engagement (Liu et al. 2016).
In summary, the extant literature reviewed in Stage 1 does summarise ouralbeit limited -understanding of marketing communication education and student learning prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.Academic research is replete with models of student learning in a face-to-face environment, but few have been endorsed in an online environment.While technology makes learning accessible and offers practical, functional benefits for the organization of learning resources, it can be safely agreed that the student and indeed teacher experience is generally less than optimum.
Step 2: what we know now COVID 19 health directives removed much of the choice around learning and teaching mode (online/on-campus) for both students and academics, in many cases shifting all learning online.We assemble what we know as a consequence of these directives through a case study and a synthesis of the limited university research undertaken during this period.

Case study: the learner experience before, during the switch and 6 months online
Applying a well-practiced marketing framework of customer experience, this exploratory contextual analysis of the student experience facilitated a deeper understanding of the learning journey and the outcomes for students (Yin 2018).
The focus of this case study is a graduate course at the Queensland University of Technology, an Australian university with more than 50,000 students.Well-known for its close links with industry, the university is the highest ranked young university in Australia and the 14 th worldwide.The Business Faculty has a 'triple crown' of accreditations from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and the Association of MBAs (AMBA).
In a workshop, IMC students explored the idea of customer experience (CX) by analysing the experiential world of customers (Schmitt 1999).To do this, they examined CX as a multi-dimensional construct -looking at how customers think, feel, behave, sense and their social relatedness (Lemon and Verhoef 2016;Schmitt, Brakus, and Zarantonello 2015;Verhoef et al. 2009).Across three semesters, preand post -COVID 19 restrictions, from 2019 to 2020, student cohorts were asked to examine their own experience of learning in the IMC unit.This represents the students' experiences of the unit before COVID-19 restrictions (2019); student experience when the unit switched to totally online at the start of COVID −19 restrictions, and in the following semester when students had already been learning online for about six months.Their learning experience is described, in their words, in Table 1.
The results show a definite shift from students innovating and creating their own learning experience, through students accepting the new situation imposed upon them by COVID-19 restrictions, to students adapting and becoming proficient at interacting in their online learning experience.
Before COVID-19 restrictions, students could choose to either come to class on campus or zoom in from home.During the initial switch to online learning only, students lamented this lack of choice, resenting being forced to study online.After one semester of online-only learning, students report having adapted and become more technically proficient, although they still missed the face-to-face interaction.Interacting online was felt to be very different to socializing on campus.'We can no longer have chats after class in the lobby'.Students reported feeling 'lonely' and 'easily distracted', finding it 'hard to focus'.
With no whole of university student satisfaction surveys being administered during COVID-19 restricted operations in 2020, informal student feedback was sought through Zoom polls and platforms like GoSoapbox.When asked the question 'What is important in your online learning experience?', the vast majority of the students (81%) opted for being able to look at the content whenever they like.Further, 75% of students acknowledged the importance of having high quality learning content like videos and infographics.A large proportion of students (63%) considered interacting with classmates in workshops as being essential to online learning, and 63% liked having a live lecturer to whom they could ask questions.Only 38% felt it was desirable to watch tutorial recordings, and a small minority (13%) opted to binge watch and learn.After a full semester of online learning, students report wanting to continue to learn online (14%), to sometimes come to class, sometimes zoom in (36%) and -for half of the students -to always come to the campus classroom (50%).

Comparison with a national study on higher education
While many individual institutions did not conduct student satisfaction surveys during COVID, some national bodies did.In Australia, students from all 41 universities participated in the Higher Education Student Experience Survey (Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching, 2021).This national, annual survey measures five aspects of the student Since the Australian national survey was first conducted in 2012, nationally student satisfaction with their educational experience has consistently rated between 78% and 80%.In 2020, this fell to 69%.This was particularly evident in Learner Engagement, dropping from 60% in 2019 to 44% in 2020.Opportunities for interaction with other students was rated at 36% in 2020 (down from 56% in 2019) and quality of learning resources at 76% in 2020 (down from 84% in 2019).Interestingly, participation in discussions online or face-to-face remain largely unchanged from 59% in 2019 to 60% in 2020.
The institution at the focus of the case study achieved a response rate of 48.3% in the national survey and reported similar trends and statistics to other institutions.Learner engagement fell 20% from 65% in 2019 to 45% in 2020.Satisfaction with learning resources was 79% in 2020 (down from 89% in 2019), teaching quality 75% (down from 83% in 2019), skills development 78% (down from 83% in 2019) and student support 71% (down from 75% in 2019).Students' reported quality of the overall educational experience fell from 82% in 2019 to 66% in 2020.
While these statistics provide a robust picture of the student experience across Australia, both the UK's National Student Survey (NSS) and the United States and Canada National Survey of Student Experience (NSSE) collected the majority of their survey responses before COVID-19 noting its substantial impact upon teaching arrangements (Quality Indicators of Learning and Teaching, 2021, 22).However, additional questions were added to explore 'Coping with COVID-19' in the NSSE 2021 survey.The data indicate that most students (73%) felt that faculty had provided substantial support during COVID-19 restrictions, although this was slightly less for online students (71%).There was also evidence of a substantial shift to 60% remote instruction in the US (NSSE 2021).It feels impersonal when we're used to face-to-face interaction.
Rarely bounce ideas off each other, as we are all typing at the same time.
What would have been casual, comfortable discussion becomes more programmed and controlled in breakout rooms.
We can no longer have chats after class in the lobby.
Drawing upon both the experiential and survey data, a modified version of the Biggs 3P model is proposed and visualized in Figure 2. Using a CXM framework, this model identifies the student touchpoints in their learning journey, including teaching, social and brand touchpoints.It adds a third presage entity of 'university' to the revised student and teaching context.Further, the process of learning focused activities is expanded to include the application and practice of learning materials in an interactive classroom, acknowledging that learning is both knowledge-based and experiential.The resulting learning outcomes combine academic research with the findings from this experiential study to identify the important achievements of university education.
In summary, from pre-COVID-19 to 6 months post COVID-19 restrictions reshaping the learning environment, students both accepted and adapted.That does not mean they are necessarily satisfied.Nor does it provide evidence that learning approaches are working well or the impact of 'not-another-recorded lecture' on student engagement.In Step 2 (exploring what we know now) it seems that schools did what they could, and quickly.Rigorous research to evaluate and illustrate ways to improve or reimagine this unavoidable step change in marketing communication education at this time remains elusive.

Step 3: what we have to find out
There is no need to conduct a survey to see if COVID-19 has affected marketing communication education.We have all personally witnessed the impact through our experiences of student engagement and satisfaction.Equally, we have also felt the impact in our own engagement with teaching and evidenced through the Great Resignation (2021-23).Is teaching as enjoyable as it was pre-COVID-19?The Great Resignation would suggest not.In Step 3, we explore how marketing practice and theory might be used to rebrand and rebuild the excitement of learning and teaching.
Clearly, returning to the way things were pre-COVID-19 is not feasible.Neither can we continue to 'Band-Aid' a system that no longer works, and maybe never worked that well.Moving forward demands a better way to create an integrated learning experience, one that builds student skills and satisfaction, and which meets the current and future needs of a dynamic, robust marketing communication industry.Successfully doing this is necessary to ensure the survival of marketing communication programs in an educational policy environment that increasingly demands university cost-cutting (Inside Higher Education 2021; New York Times 2020; The; Guardian 2020).

Apply what we teach to improve how we teach it
Given the intent of marketing communication is to capture attention, build interest and empower positive protagonists, applying knowledge derived from disciplinary research to our educational practice seems a potentially fruitful strategy to ensure survival.So we ask IMC informed questions of our teaching practice-are we researching our teaching?Are we analyzing our teaching strategy?Are we being creative in the learning content we curate or the way we present it?What about the timing and scheduling of classes?Are we connecting through the right platforms?Do we measure our impact and seek to constantly improve?Could we apply the content that we teach to the problem of teaching the content better?And, to what extent is the University/School supportive in asking these same questions?
One way to apply our research informed disciplinary understanding to the learning environment is to use marketing communication frameworks.In this case study, for example, we used a customer experience framework (Schmitt 1999) to explore students' learning experiences as a multi-dimensional construct -looking at how students think, feel, behave, sense, and their social relatedness.This could be iterated in new ways; in addition to exploring students' learning experiences, further research could apply the same framework to explore educators teaching experiences.This is important as we need to learn from, and invest in, our best educators, and avoid the Great Resignation, which saw 4 million Americans quit their jobs in July 2021 (Cook 2021).
The CXM framework could also be used to re-design university curricula, to provide a more customer-centric focus.Using Schmitt's 1999 five steps to manage the customer experience, a more responsive and appropriate learning environment could be created.If the five steps framework exemplifies marketing communication practice, then perhaps we should not just be teaching it, but also adopting it to manage the student experience.
Of course, there are many other frameworks that could be added to this list.Basic planning techniques like understanding target audiences better, appreciating that there is no homogeneous standard audience, rather there are different kinds of learners with different needs and motivation.Creating personas of learners and using these to develop student insights, which could subsequently inform a more relevant and powerful learning strategy.Sound familiar?
We could apply well-practiced research frameworks to build a better learning experience.The Approach-Avoidance framework could help understanding of what, in the new learning environment, encourages students to approach learning content or classroom interaction and what encourages students to avoid it.Similarly, learning content could be delivered programmatically, presenting personalized learning content to engage students.Maybe even follow them around online to encourage them to do the readings for a workshop or remind them when their assignment is due.Research could explore how new technology developments work for marketing practice and for marketing communication education.

Use marketing communication theory to underpin marketing communication education
The case study in this paper is a clear example of Self-Determination Theory, as it highlights student's motivation behind their choices of learning experiences.Research could uncover whether students feel they have the autonomy to make choices in their educational journey, the competence to demonstrate the required behaviours, and the relatedness to feel connected to their peers and empowered to act on their choices.Much research commences with theory and/or frameworks; data are gathered, analysed and interpreted, with findings applied to build our understanding.However, in educational practice, theory is often an considered something for students to learn, rather than academics to practice.Research exploring the congruence of disciplinary theory and educational practice may prove beneficial in providing a framework for the development of new learning structures and resources.

Don't just rely on student evaluations for data
There is a lot of academic research to suggest that student evaluations provide flawed data (Esarey and Valdes 2020).No matter how important they may be in ensuring ongoing academic appointment, there are other means to collect less flawed and arguably more valuable data on education.
One potential method to consider could be Collective Intelligence, which empowers collaboration and shared insights and understandings to explore an important issue.Having a marketing communication industry think tank in place, data can be collected quickly.Similarly, a Collective Intelligence methodology could be applied to a group of students who are being asked to think collaboratively and differently about an interesting educational opportunity.The quality of the output could far exceed traditional student evaluation data.
This could be supplemented with fast, smartphone-friendly tools like Go-Soapbox or even Zoom polls to provide an instant, more comprehensive consensus on student thinking.Once curated, the data can be compared across semesters or subjects or learning issues.
Analytics have shaped and proven the efficiency of digital marketing, yet are rarely applied to evaluate learning resources and understand learner behaviour.Online learning management systems generally do not have the intrinsic ease of Google Analytics to track student behaviour online, although they certainly could.Further research could explore motivations to build measurable learning management systems to provide instant, usable and reportable learner analytics, as well as the obstructions to educator demand and understanding of learning analytics.

Conclusion and the next steps
At the end of Step 3, there remains more questions than answers.This demands, and hopefully motivates and inspires, much-needed future research into marketing communication education.This is important because the focus of marketing communication research is almost exclusively on theory and organisational practice.Unless we derive research informed knowledge to refine and optimise teaching marketing communication in the post-COVID-19 era, unless we reinvent our educational practices and pedagogy to engage students and increase satisfaction, then we will not inspire the next generation of researchers or practitioners.
Research is needed in every aspect of marketing communication.As we emerge from this technological step change, we need to research marketing communication education and draw from the disciplinary knowledge that we teach, to build a better way of teaching.To offer an engaging, effective student learning experience that delivers industry-ready graduates, satisfying both our students and industry stakeholders.
We also need to consider the consequences of not researching marketing communication education.Marketing Communication majors may become minors, as universities look for cost efficiencies.Blurring disciplinary boundaries may see Advertising and Public Relations reconceptualized as part of a broader Marketing program.Or packaged as online, revenue-raising certifications from national advertising associations or media publishers.
The first, what we knew before COVID-19 pandemic, investigates the research around marketing communication education and its reshaping by technology prior to COVID 19.Step 2 explores what we know now, based on a case study and the limited research on marketing communication education during the COVID-19 pandemic.The final step is what we urgently need to find out, delivering a research agenda for marketing communication education suitable for a post COVID-19 pandemic world.

Table 1 .
The student experience before and during COVID.
(Continued)experience, including Skills Development, Learner Engagement, Teaching Quality, Student Support, and Learning Resources.The survey was conducted in July-August and September-October 2020 yielding 295,473 valid responses or a 44.1% response rate (up from 42.6% in 2019).