Choice factors and information sources when selecting a university - A demographic analysis

Abstract

Purpose: The university administrators and experts would be beneficial in planning customized ideas and accessing to informative sources due to the breadth and depth of knowledge in prospective student’ factors of choice. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether that decision-making elements as well as the information’ point of supplies are significant, valid, and practical enough to serve the Vietnamese education system. Design: The conceptual model of current research is the adaptation of preliminary integrated generic higher education student-choice model by Demetris Vrontis and The higher education student-choice 3 dimension model (3DM) by S. El Nemar and D. Vrontis. The findings of this research would positively a springboard for following research in this area. By following the longitudinal study, quantitative techniques is used for the most of data, in particular the Vietnamese prospects. With 670 sample of responses, who are the 12th grade students, were collected and analysized to examine the proposed conceptual model. Findings: This survey was tested by conducting descriptive statistics analysis. Through descriptive statistics, it assists to emphasize the comparison in term of importance among factors of decision and information preferences for choosing university. As a results, after finishing descriptive analysis, this paper indicates intuitiveness of career prospects, quality of teaching, price sensitivity, and academic competence were among the most essential demision of choice factors that affect student in choosing universities. Parents are no longer the key information source, and be replaced by many marketing-involvement of university in term of importance. Practical implication: Our research deliver deep understanding in terms of the pivotal choice factors and information sources, which makes contribution the new marketing approaches of further institutional intentions. It is necessary for previous studies which associated with institutional choice factor to be brought up-to-date. The extension of finding are illustrated through the conceptual models in order to assist for further studies. Originality/Value: Universities will more effectively tailor their social media material by recognizing the value of preference factors for prospective students. Keywords: Higher education intention, Institution-related characteristics, Student-related characteristics, Decision making process, Marketing.