Choice Factors When Vietnamese High School Students Consider Universities: A Mixed Method Approach

Abstract

Higher education around the world and especially in Vietnam is becoming increasingly competitive. Universities apply marketing strategies to student recruitment and get to know their students and prospective students more closely, just as businesses learn about consumer attitudes and behavior. Therefore, studying students’ behavior of choosing a university is necessary, but most research about this topic has been conducted by a single approach. In order to examine the choice factors such as characteristics of institutions and information sources students consider when selecting universities, this research applies a mixed method approach, including both quantitative and qualitative data. Data were collected from questionnaire surveys with 670 responses from final-year high school students, and from 20 interviews with freshmen university students. Findings indicate the rankings of characteristics of institutions and information sources and the qualitative analysis explained how students consider them during their decision-making process. The research results provide important findings to help universities understand more about the factors that students are interested in and search for during the decision-making process.

Keywords

• university choice
• choice factors
• characteristics of institutions
• information sources
• higher education marketing
• Vietnam