Title:
Information
Sources and the University Selection Process: An Empirical Study
Abstract: The selection
criteria and the institution
choice become more complex nowadays, marked by massive information
available
to the student. Given such, there will be a greater need for people to
understand
the perceived importance of the various information sources that
facilitate
the university choice process in today’s setting. For example,
Abrahamson
(2000) has demonstrated that there is an increasing trend of high
school
students rely on the Web for information about colleges/universities.
Hence,
the main objective of the study is to determine the main sources of
information
that students mostly use during the university selection stage.
Furthermore,
the research finds the gap between the perceived importance and the
satisfaction
levels of each attributes. On average, students ranked “university
information
on a website”, “media advertisement”, and “participation in an
education
fair” as the top three most important factors that will influence their
choice
of university. On the other hand, the least important information
source
is “visit to campus”. It appears that most of the respondents are
dissatisfied
with the university staff’s conversation.
Authors: Ng
Tuan Hock and Ong Han Young