Identification of Needs Influencing the Students’ Selection of University

Abstract: Recent changes in the educational sector have lead many universities to re-think their existing approaches in attracting students to their institutions. Attracting better students and increasing student enrolments is becoming more critical then ever. In the past, the needs of students were overlooked. Universities focused mainly on either administrators or the faculty’s perspective. Nevertheless, the customers’ needs are the driving force of every business and should be the most important consideration for universities as well. As competition among universities grows in intensity, a need for a better understanding of potential students is crucial. The analysis of various student segments and decision-making behaviour is the essence of educational marketing. This paper focuses on identification of needs of the students when selecting a university. Through the use of random interviews of students on campus a list of what students need from a university was collated. Two internet surveys were then constructed based on those needs and e-mailed to the students. The second survey was sent to increase the reliability of the responses and the question order was reversed as opposed to the first. By doing this it was hoped to eliminate “Questionnaire boredom” and maintain consistency with the responses. The students were then asked to rank the questions in order of importance. The data collected was then analysed with software programs so an assessment could be made of any possible outcomes. It was decided that further dissemination was needed as the results were extremely broad. Further dissemination compared the first and second survey to ascertain possible differences. From the initial 25 questions only the highest priorities were selected as relevant and the questions were further reduced to the top five responses and then later to the overall two top responses. Relevant theories were selected and others were discounted, the purpose of which was to maintain a marketing perspective and to provide guidance and direction to this study. After the final analysis of the data certain recommendations were then formulated in keeping with the theories that were proposed in this study. This study ascertained that it could not disprove a given theory nor could it create a new theory due to the lack of studies in the educational area and certain discrepancies that became apparent in this study. This thesis study did however achieve its objectives and answered its research questions. What are the most important needs of students when choosing university? Do these needs vary within different study programs at Växjö University? It was further determined from the research highlighted in this study that the university has the option of designing programs that are tailored to the specific needs of students and industry. This information would allow the university to either eliminate programs that are not well received and produce programs that are more in keeping with student and industry requirements. This fact also became apparent when comparing data from different programs. According to the statistical analysis, students of different study programs had different needs when selecting Växjö University. This data further confirms the validity of our research questions.