UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ Phan Thi Kim Thoa FACTORS AFFECTING SATISFACTION FROM STUDENTS’ CHOICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION ID: 22120074 MASTER OF BUSINESS (Honours) SUPERVISOR: Dr. TRAN HA MINH QUAN Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2015 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Table of contents Table of contents .i List of figure. iii List of table .2 Statement of the problem. LITERATURE REVIEW, HYPOTHESE AND CONCEPTUAL MODEL .1 The concept of Higher education.2 Overview of students‟ choice .3 Satisfaction from Students‟ choice .2 Influence of significant people.3 Career opportunities after graduation .4 Higher education universities’ characteristics .5 Higher education universities’ efforts to communicate with prospect students.
14 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.6 Data analysis method. DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS .1 Sample descriptive statistics .2 Assessment and Refinement of measurement scale .1 Cronbach’s alpha test.2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) .3 Revised conceptual model. CONCLUSION, IMPLICATION, LITMITATION AND DIRECTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH. 50 ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Limitation and direction for future research.
59 APPRENDIX 1: INTERVIEW QUESTION. 60 APPRENDIX II: BẢNG CÂU HỎI KHẢO SÁT. 64 List of figure Figure 2.1: The conceptual research model .1: The revised research model .2: Test for homoscedasticity. 43 iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of table Table 3.1: Genders of respondents .2: Kind of higher education universities (HEUs) .3: Gender, Kind of higher education universities (HEUs) .5: Reliability testing results.6: KMO and Barlett‟s Test .7: Total Variance Explained .9: KMO and Barlett‟s Test .10: Total Variance Explained .11: Rotated Component Matrixa .12: Regroup measurement scale .13: Reliability testing results.14: KMO and Barlett‟s Test .15: Total Variance Explained .16: Rotated Component Matrix.
45 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I firstly would like to express my sincere gratitude to the ISB – International School of Business, ISB Research Committee and all the professors who help and support me during the course of this Master program. With respect and deep gratitude, I would like to thank my advisor Dr.Tran Ha Minh Quan for the continuous support for my research, for his patience, motivation, enthusiasm and immense knowledge. I also would like to give thank the ISB staff, for their warmth and support over the period of my study, research and writing this thesis. I thank all the participants, students from higher education universities in Ho Chi Minh City.
This study would not have possible without their cooperation. I also acknowledge the universities that allowed me to conduct the survey. Lastly, I would like to thank my family and my friends who always encourage and support me during the time of my research. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT There are more and more higher education universities in Viet Nam.
Therefore, the graduated high school students have more opportunities to continue their study in higher level. However, there are many students do not satisfy with their choice. The central problem investigated in this research is the factors affecting satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education. Based on the previous related research and study, the research try to exam the affect from five factors - students‟ characteristics, the influence of significant people, the career opportunities, the fixed characteristics of the higher education universities and efforts of the own universities to communicate with prospect students - to satisfaction of students‟ choice.
In doing this, the study has collected data from 257 students in Ho Chi Minh City. The research results show that there are six factors affecting satisfaction from students‟ choice (the career opportunities factor is divided into two factors: social occupational structure and career expectation). However, the data just supports five the hypotheses and confirm that five factors contribute significant meaning to the satisfaction from students‟ choice (except the efforts of the universities to communicate with prospect students). Keywords: higher education, satisfaction, students‟ choice, students‟ characteristics, influence of significant people, career expectation.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. INTRODUCTION The first chapter introduces the background of Vietnamese higher education as well as the status of satisfaction from students‟ choice. After that, this chapter also raises the management problem and the research objectives to explore the factors affecting satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education. Finally, the scope is proposed and the research structure is presented.1 Research background The Vietnamese higher education sector has growth rapidly as the results of the efforts from the Ministry of Education and Training.
This is the long-term goal of the government to make Vietnam as an excellent education center in Southeast-Asia. The growth of the higher education sector can be seen in many aspects, such as: the increase in higher education organizations, the increase in students‟ enrollment, the increase in the government‟s efforts and the increase in the output quality. With many policies of liberalization and democratization in the higher education sector introduced by the government, there are more and more higher education universities operating in Vietnam. According the statistic results from Ministry of Education and Training (2013), in recent years, the number of universities and colleges in Vietnam has increased continually: 403 in 2010, 414 in 2011, 419 in 2012 and 421 in 2013.
So, these universities are facing with a very difficult task to compete the other universities to attract students to choose their programs. The increase in the number of higher education organizations can help the high school students have more choice to select the university where they continue their study. However, a research from Supporting and Psychological Counseling Center of University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Hanoi shows that 75.6 percent of students did not satisfy with their choice in higher education universities (Duy Anh, 2013). LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Moreover, the research also presents that there were 32.4 percent of students wanted to re- choose higher education universities.
The satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education is very important. If the students satisfy with their choice in higher education, they will have more motivation in their study as well as their career in the future. This will help students can promote their full ability in work, improve their productivity and labor efficiency. In the other hand, if the students do not satisfy with their choice, they must spend more time and cost to re-study.
Therefore, it is very necessary to determine the factors affecting satisfaction from students‟ choice.2 Statement of the problem Nowadays, as the requirement of higher education has been increasing rapidly, there are more and more universities with many promotion schemes to increase brand awareness as well as attract more student to choose their programs. Therefore, these universities are facing with the fierce competition. To be successful in higher education sector, the most important task for these universities is to identify the factors that affect satisfaction from students‟ choice and have right strategies to take advantages from these factors to provide the best solution in education for students as well as increase the universities‟ reputations. Besides that, in the reality, there are many students who do not determine exactly their choice in higher education.
According an investigation result from Nguoi lao dong Newspaper (2005), more than 64 percent of students cannot identify their career objects when they choose higher education universities. From this article, there are more than 60 percent of students admit that they do not receive career orientation when registering to the university. Another research from Vietnam National University Hanoi also pointed that 65.4 percent of students cannot know about career objectives (Thanh Ha, 2013). So that, there are 75.6 percent of students do not satisfy with their choice in higher education universities.
Therefore, the aim of this research will determine the factors affect to satisfaction from students‟ choice. From this, it will help families, high schools and other education 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com organizations have the right methods to orientate career as well as create the best conditions for the high school students to choose higher education universities. With the potential growth of education sector and the competition from higher education universities to increase the satisfaction from students‟ choice and attract more students, the question raised by marketers is that what are key factors affect to satisfaction from students‟ choice. From many related theories and research from other nations and some investigation in Vietnamese context, they are five factors: students‟ characteristics, the influence of significant people, the career opportunities, the fixed characteristics of the higher education universities and efforts of the own universities to communicate with prospect students in satisfaction of students‟ choice.
Based on these studies, this research aims to exam these factors by measuring the relationship between them with the satisfaction from students‟ choice.3 Research objectives This research aims to give scholars as well as the managers of the higher education universities in Ho Chi Minh City an answer to the question: What factors affect satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education? This will find out the effect of students‟ characteristics, the influence of significant people, the career opportunities, the fixed characteristics of the higher education universities and efforts of the own universities to communicate with prospect students in satisfaction of students‟ choice on satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education. To archive the objective, this research will try to investigate: - Whether there is a relationship between students‟ characteristics and satisfaction from students‟ choice or not? If yes, this is the positive or negative correlation. - Whether there is a relationship between the influences of significant people and satisfaction from students‟ choice or not? If yes, this is the positive or negative correlation. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - Whether there is a relationship between the career opportunities after graduation and satisfaction from students‟ choice or not? If yes, this is the positive or negative correlation.
- Whether there is a relationship between higher education universities‟ fixed characteristics and satisfaction from students‟ choice or not? If yes, this is the positive or negative correlation. - Whether there is a relationship between higher education universities‟ efforts to communicate with prospect students and satisfaction from students‟ choice or not? If yes, this is the positive or negative correlation.4 Research significance The purpose of this research is to gain a better understanding of satisfaction from students‟ choice in higher education universities. This will investigate the importance of students‟ characteristics, the influence of significant people, the career opportunities, the fixed characteristics of the higher education universities and efforts of the own universities to communicate with prospect students in satisfaction of students‟ choice, thus it will help managers of the higher education universities‟ to further understand on how to improve the education services as well as attract more students and increase their reputations.5 Research scope The research focuses in students from higher education universities in Ho Chi Minh City. The period of distributing the questionare to the repondents lasted from August 2014 to early September 2014.6 Research structure The research consists of five parts.
Here below structure will be proposed for it: 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - Chapter I: Introduction. This chapter gives an overview about the introduction of the research. It mentions the research background, statement of the problem, research objectives, research significance, research scope as well as research structure. - Chapter II: Literature review, Hypotheses and Conceptual model.
This chapter reviews previous related theories and research, as well as offers the hypotheses and proposes the conceptual research model. - Chapter III: Research methodology. This chapter provides general method how the research is designed and implemented, data collection and data analysis method, as well as measurement scales. - Chapter IV: Data analysis and Findings.
This chapter translates primary data collected from surveys, analyzes data as well as discusses the result findings in connection with literature review.