How students select their colleges—a study by Pravin Chavan, Masuma Mehta

Colleges

How students make college selection decisions

This post shares some thoughts from a study—Uncovering Students’ Higher Education Institutions Selection: An Investigation Using Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis. The paper was published by Pravin Chavan, Global Business School and Research Centre, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pune, and Masuma Mehta, School of Management, Avantika University, Ujjain (link to the study).

Knowing how students decide what they want to study and in what institute helps the universities and smaller institutes to market and sell their programs effectively. Most often, this is a complicated decision for the students and they are influenced by a variety of factors—external, internal, environmental, and social.

In this study, the authors have defined a few factors to measure the students’ criteria for selecting their career options after finishing their school. For each factor, you can see an example statement from one of the participants in the study.

  • Academic Infrastructure: “I have taken this program at this Institute because it has a wonderful lab, the latest research amenities, library infrastructure”
  • Enrollment Value Optimization: “This Institute is the best fit for me regarding quality of education, reputation, and cost.”
  • External Influence: “I have opted for this Institute because my parents wanted me to study this ‘specific program.'”
  • Internal influence: “I’ve been admitted to this Institute since I wish to pursue higher studies with this stream of knowledge only.”
  • Pedagogical factors: “I have chosen this Institute as the pedagogical (academic/instructive) tools and techniques are very comprehensive.”
  • Choice based: “I have selected this institute as it is ahead in adopting the National Education Policy (NEP) guidelines towards a holistic education.”

Here is a reference from the study paper published by JHEPALS.

It shows that students’ decision making models are multi-dimensional, and they are influenced by many factors.

Steering serves as an extension to explore the students think about their career more deeply—their hidden aspirations, dreams, and life goals. Parth wrote a letter to his brother on why he wants to study architecture after finishing his school. When you use steering, you can connect your thoughts in a single visual.

See an example report that sets up the right clarity, confidence, and a structure in the student’s decision and how well it supports the family dynamics for the students’ career path.

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