‘Open Days are growing in influence and divergent needs on the day are becoming increasingly tricky to meet. In a more competitive market, Open Days present more strategic risk, than ever before.’ (YouthSight, 2015). Introduction:
Descriptive Statistics of our Research
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Research determines that university choice is one of the most crucial decisions that someone will make. It also highlights that there are many influential factors into this choice. This research will be specifically targeted towards students at the University of Chichester and the factors that were most influential to them. A survey was created and sent directly to students in this target audience, within this survey a number of questions were asked to try and depict which factors were more influential than others, and how different people’s experience of the University differed.
Questionnaire Responses: 51 ...
Gender: Male: 14 (28%)
Female: 36 (72%)
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Age Range: 18-26
Median Age: 18-20
Modal Age: 18-20
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Firm Choice Applicants: 37 (74%)
Insurance Choice Applicants: 11 (22%)
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Third Choice Applicants: 0
Forth Choice Applicants: 0
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Fifth Choice Applicants: 0
Other: 2 (4%)
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Clearing Applicants: 4 (7.8%)
The Aim of this Research:
Non Clearing Applicants: 47 (92.2%)
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The aim of this research is to investigate factors as to why students have chosen the University of Chichester
Course Department: Business School: 34 (68%)
Music: 6 (12%)
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Institute of Sport: 6 (12%) History & Politics: 1 (2%)
Childhood Studies: 1 (2%)
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Research Objectives:
How Applicants heard about the University of Chichester ...
For our research we have chosen three research objectives, these are: 1 - In order to achieve this aim we will identify the impact of open days on university choice 2 - In order to achieve this aim we will establish how influential existing statistics are, such as university league tables on university choice 3 - In order to achieve this aim we will analyse the extent to which location affects university choice A venn diagram has been created to illustrate these, which you are able to see in the centre of the poster.
Open Day: 9 (17.6%)
UCAS: 17 (33.3%)
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NUS: 0
Online: 10 (19.6%)
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League Tables: 3 (5.9%)
Word Of Mouth Recommendations: 9 (17.6%)
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Other: 3 (5.9%)
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Literature Review: …
There are a number of reports such as the NUS student experience report in 2008, what factors affect a student's choice of a university for higher education and the Oxford Brooks ‘which course’ survey in 2004, which highlight the main areas in factors that influence a student’s decision We also found an international journey online ‘International journal of business and social science’ from Malaysia, which allowed us to gain an understanding of differences and similarities on university choice abroad The report ‘Factors influencing the college choice decisions of graduate students’ of 1995 and looking at previous guardian league tables between 2016 and 2000, describes the most influential factors of University choice from up to 20 years ago, which has allowed us to ask questions to gain information on whether any of these factors have changed or remained as they were. There are also websites such as rand.org, the higher education statistics agency and youthsight.com that contain the concluding factors of their individual surveys, from which we pulled crucial information to try and see if these surveys have any relevance to the University of Chichester.
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Open Days
‘The Times’ University Guide, published in September, showed that 84% of Students in their third year were satisfied with the quality of our teaching.’ (University of Chichester, 2015)
League Tables
The survey asked the respondents what time of day they attended their Open Day at the University of Chichester. From this pie chart it is obvious that the majority of students attended at midday (From 11:30am). This could be for a number of reasons, however from most people’s explanations it is clear that this is apparent because they either attended a Brighton open day on the same day or had to travel a lengthy distance. This indicates that students aren’t willing to spend the whole day visiting a university and therefore the organisation of talks and timetabling needs to reflect this. Subject talks may find it beneficial to repeat themselves in a morning and an afternoon slot to ensure that no student is missing out. This data helps to support what was read during a literature review, as a report by YouthSight Attended more commented on how Open Days are in increasing than 1 Open Day demand and therefore more attention to detail in the same day, I needs to be paid to ensure students are actively engaged as this will boost the Universities rating for also saw Brighton the student (YouthSight, 2015).
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The survey asked the respondents approximately how long did they stay at the University of Chichester Open Day. From this pie chart it is clear that the majority spent between 1 hour and 1 hour and 59 minutes. This could also link to the fact that many of the students who attended were visiting more than one university in a day and were therefore limited on time. This would also mean that these students would be more interested in the campus tour, a subject talk and to meet some of the academic staff instead of listening to a member of senior management as they simply wouldn’t have the time. This therefore is again more data to prove YouthSight’s point, that ‘Open Days are growing in influence and divergent needs on the day are becoming increasingly tricky to meet.’ (YouthSight, 2015). The point they’re trying to make is that the structure of an open day needs to be re-thought to ensure that it is up-to-date and in keeping with the needs that need to be met for prospective students. Every university needs to stand out as unique and somewhere that the student could see their self, some where that provides that competitive edge, such as incorporating interactive workshops as opposed to talks, to allow the student to leave with something to show for their time at the open day, to help them remember a certain university. This SPSS output shows a Pearson Correlation between how the student respondents ranked Subject Talks against Senior Management Talks. For this correlation the result is significant and so therefore the Null Hypothesis is rejected. There is a significant difference between Subject Talks and Senior Management Talks. Students prefer to attend a subject talk over a senior management talk.
P<0.05
Whilst conducting a Literature Review, there were many articles and journals found that suggested Location was a huge influential factor into a students choice of University. Rand.org suggested that most students preferred to study in an English institution within their home region and a survey by Oxford Brookes University in 2004 indicated that students who had the support of their parents were more likely to attend university and complete their entire degree.
This SPSS output shows a Chi Squared test, which ‘Some 'local' students choose to experience the best of both worlds. They choose a breaks down the university 30 miles or less from home, live on campus in first year (experiencing respondents into Male and Female and whether they university life to the full, making friends and networks) and then have the option were influenced by the of moving back home in subsequent years. This is increasingly common. Courses distance from their family home. involving a year abroad are available to all students whether they have lived at The location of the This output shows that more females were influenced by the distance, however there University is why I home or moved away.’ (Thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk, 2015) . were more females who completed the survey. It also shows that more females weren’t chose to come to influenced, however when it is broken down into the percentage differences, there was a greater percentage difference for the females at 50% compared with 16.7% for the Chichester. The survey asked the respondents where they considered their nearest term time town males. The survey asked the respondents if they were influenced by and county to be. This means that this would be where they live during the academic year the distance from their family home. As this pie chart opposite whilst attending lectures. As is clear from the pie chart, the majority of students live in clearly shows the majority of students answered yes. West Sussex. This set of data as been turned into an info graphic below to show a better As a sub question within the survey, the respondents were also visual of where some students are commuting from. All of the responses we had for this asked, if they answered yes, why this was? The majority of this question were from students who live in the South East and so therefore help to support 71% of respondents answered that this was because they Rand.org who conducted a research project and discovered that students primary wanted to be close to home. With 39% answering that this was preference was to study within their home region, which in the case of the University of most important. 42% of these same respondents also answered Chichester would be the South East. that wanting to move far away was the least influential factor This pie chart shows that very few of the students that answered the survey travel from into their University choice. very far to the university, therefore highlighting that location is a huge factor in the This therefore supports a claim made in a research project by attractiveness of a university. Students prefer to be close to their place of study whether Rand, that students primary this means they move into University accommodation or choose the university closest to preference was to study in an their family home, being as close as possible is a matter of convenience. This too was n=51 English Institution within highlighted in Rand.org’s research project alongside the issues that students faced if they Being able to see their home region, of which moved a long way from home, or were commuting to University through London. n=51 my family easily the University of Chichester Throughout the Literature Review it was prominent that Location had a was important. falls in the South East large influence on a students University choice. The survey asked the (Rand.org, 2014). respondents where they considered their term time home town and county. Taking into consideration that this survey was only targeted at The survey asked the respondents if they were the first member of their family students at the University of Chichester, it is therefore assumed that the to attend university. This supports that students are not influenced by their towns and counties entered are where the students commute from, for parents life choices as was stated in an Oxford Brookes survey in 2004 (BROOKES their lectures. eJOURNAL OF LEARNING AND TEACHING, 2004). This is because there is no As you can see the largest proportional symbol is over West Sussex, significant hypothesis between students attending university who’s parents did meaning that most students live on or in privately rented accommodation attend university and those who’s didn’t. As numbers for those who answered around campus or in family homes within the University’s county. yes and numbers for those who answered no are particularly similar. From this it can be analysed that most students prefer to not be too far This was then followed by a question that asked whether this was an influencing from campus, whether this is living at home or in University factor into their decision to come to the University of Chichester. To which, 29% accommodation. answered that it was and 71% answered that it wasn’t. This further highlights that students who now attend university weren’t affected by whether their parents attended university or not. This could be for a number of reasons that References: might include: their decision was made regardless of whether they were the first … family member to attend university or they wanted to go because all their BROOKES eJOURNAL OF LEARNING AND TEACHING, (2004). Which University? Which Course? Undergraduate Students' Reflections on the friends were or even because their school pushed in to increase their numbers n=50 Factors that Influenced their Choices.. [online] Available at: http://bejlt.brookes.ac.uk/paper/which-university-which-course-undergraduateof students moving on into further education.
The survey asked the respondents if they had looked at the University of Chichester’s website before applying to university. As the pie chart shows the majority of students did, this could be for a number of reasons, such as; wanting to learn more about the university, what the university has to offer or look at some of the statistics that are available on the website. The Universities website is extremely hard to navigate and many of the respondents commented on this through their ratings of certain aspects about the website. Ease of navigation and Ability to find what you’re looking for were the two particular aspects that scored quite poorly, where the overall appearance scored quite highly, as to the eye is quite attractive with a lot of bright colours and moving animation at the top of the home page. The ease of return to the home page also scored very highly, because there is a button at that remains in place at the top of the page throughout the website, making it easy to find and use.
The survey asked the respondents if they had looked at any league tables before apply to university, did the University of Chichester’s placing affect where they applied. As this chart represents the majority of students answered yes, meaning these students were influenced by the type of grades past students received and satisfaction these students took from their studies and their experience. As can be seen from looking through the league tables Chichester’s placing has increased throughout the years, however still remains near the middle of the table. This is quite an appealing position for the university as it highlights to prospective students that the universities sole focus isn’t I didn't want to be just academic studies and results, they’re also somewhere, where equally concerned with ensuring student are satisfied and comfortable away from home the sole focus was and in a new environment. This view was also academic reflected in the responses the survey received from its respondents.
The survey asked the respondents to rank how important some specific areas of an open day were to their university choice. From the bar chart above it is clear that the most important areas to the majority of the respondents are subject talks and meeting and engaging with members of staff. Areas that scored poorly and were deemed by the survey respondents as the least important or to have no affect on their experience were the senior management talks and the signage around campus. These are the descriptive frequencies created using SPSS to support the results shown above. These show exact figures of the survey answers. These specific factors were detailed by YouthSight in a report on the importance of Open Days (YouthSight, 2015). They highlighted that ‘Welcome should be a high priority’ which can seen to be true, as the majority of respondents answered with ‘Slightly Important’ or ‘Most Important’. Which would indicate students want to feel welcomed over receiving talks from Senior Management.
Whilst conducting a Literature Review, there were many articles and journals found that suggested Open Days were becoming more of an influential factor than ever before into a students choice of University. HE Research by YouthSight conducted a survey that suggested clearing students were most likely to drop out of university within their first term and highlighted that this was probably because they were unaware of what to expected as they hadn’t visited the university prior to their degree and so therefore more attention to detail is needed at Open Days including prior advertisement to students that may be unsure.
Location
Important that the graduates have a good chance of a job
The survey asked the respondents if they looked at the University of Chichester’s results on a league table before applying to the university. As the pie chart to the left is showing, almost half of the students did, and half didn’t. Many students are directed to league tables before applying to university during their A Level or BTEC studies, alongside their application to university through UCAS. However many students find league tables quite confusing to read and understand according to an NUS student experience report (National Union of Students, 2015). Over the past few years the league table layouts by the Guardian have improved and are more tailored for the reading of students and younger adults. This therefore enhances their usability, effectiveness and usefulness, as their target audience are able to use read them and easily understand what they’re trying to portray (Osborn and Franklin, 2015). The report conducted by the NUS also stated that students who weren’t Russell Group University candidates were not overly interest in universities that high scores for Entry Tariffs and so this survey went on to try and prove just that.
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The survey asked the respondents to rank how important some aspects were into their choice to come to the University of Chichester. This bar chart reflects these scores, the darker the colour the more important it is. You can see from this chart that the majority of respondents answered that the most important factor was the education that they would receive at the University of Chichester. These scores are not only a reflection on the preferences of the students already in attendance at Chichester, but also on the information provided by the University at Open Days, the appearance of the facilities and the engagement with staff. How are prospective students to know what the education is like at an individual university without these interactions with staff and students and being able to see for themselves first hand what the educational facilities provide. One respondent answered that it ‘felt like home’ Felt like emphasizing that attention to detail needs to be paid home when students first come to visit the university, so that they are able to picture themselves in attendance.
This SPSS output shows a Chi Squared test, which breaks down the respondents into Male and Female and whether they visited the University prior to their course. This output shows that firstly more females answered our survey which we already knew and that there were more females who didn’t visit the university prior to their course, as their percentage difference was 20% compared to the males who’s was 16.7%.
Whilst conducting a Literature Review, there were many articles and journals found that suggested students who looked at league tables before applying to university were more easily influenced on where to apply. A report from 1995 and reading through Guardian League between 2000 and 2016, the level of results has incredibly increased throughout the years, meaning students are able to understand a lot more of what to expect from certain universities. This SPSS output shows a Chi Squared test, which breaks down the respondents into Male and Female and whether they looked at league tables before applying to university. This output shows that more females looked at league tables before applying to university, however more females also didn’t look at league tables. However this can’t be read as relative because the survey had more female respondents. When this data is broken down the percentage difference shows a bigger percentage difference between females who didn’t look at league tables, which sits at 71% and males who didn’t look at league tables, which sits at 40%.
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Institute of Education: 2 (4%)
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To try and decipher how the students at the University of Chichester visited the university prior to the start of their course, if they visited, the survey asked them to be specific. By looking at the chart on the left it very quickly becomes clear that most students attended an open day, this was selected by 62%. Those who highlighted that they didn't visit the university prior to their visit were asked to explain why this was, many indicated that this was because it clashed with other open days, they applied for the university through clearing or the times of specified open and experience days didn’t suit them time wise. These results support YouthSight who stated ‘Open Days are growing in influence and divergent needs on the day are becoming increasingly tricky to meet. In a more competitive market, Open Days present more strategic risk, than ever before.’ (YouthSight, 2015). This therefore means that there needs to be more attention to detail paid to Open Days as they are proven to be the most influential factor into a students choice to attend a specific university. To follow this question the survey also asked the respondents to be more specific about what parts of the Open Day were more influential than others.
1400286, 1400229, 1400591, 1401329 Submission Deadline: 14th December 2015 Group 3 : Dynamic
The survey asked the respondents to rank on a scale of 1-10, how they felt the following headings performed on the University of Chichester’s website, were 1 was most effective and 10 was least effective. As is clear from this column chart, and to support what was stated above, the most effective part of the website was the ease of returning to the home page due to their being a button that remains in place along the top in the navigation menu. This chart also shows and supports that the ease of navigation is the aspect that scored the poorest, due to the menu along the top being quite small and the drop down menus being very un-descriptive.
The survey asked the respondents to rank on a scale of 1-10, what the most influential scores recorded on a university league table were, where 1 was the most influential and 10 was the least influential. As was clear from the survey results, the most influential scores to students at the University of Chichester were Student Satisfaction and Course Satisfaction. These results can also been seen broken down into descriptive frequencies by SPSS to the right. These figures show exact numbers for how the survey respondents ranked the two most influential factors, in their opinion, of a university league table. This therefore helps to support the NUS student experience report which stated that students who attend university at the mid-point of a league table, aren’t completely focused towards achieving the best grades possible, they also want to enjoy their experience and be studying a course that’s best suited towards them, as opposed to a course that will lead them into the best employment (National Union of Students, 2015). That said, the same NUS report also stated that students were greatly influenced by the Student to Staff ratio scores, as students preferred to work in smaller class sizes. This was highlighted by one of the respondents of the survey however the overall results do not reflect this conclusion made by the NUS. Infact Student to Staff Ratio Small classes actually scored among the lowest with the survey’s set of respondents. This could be for a number of reasons, including those who answered this survey are an extremely small fraction of the amount of appealed to students that attend the University, let alone those that attend university nationwide and the sample size me of this survey is a lot smaller than that of the one used to conduct the NUS student experience report (National Union of Students, 2015).
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The survey asked the respondents if their parents helped or hindered their choice to attend university. As it is clear, many were helped or supported by their parents, one respondent even commented that their mum sharing her experiences of university and their dad listing his regrets in not going helped them to commit to attending university. These results therefore further support Oxford Brookes’ statement that by having the support and help of your parents or carers means that students are more likely to attend university as they’re less likely to experience stress or loneliness (BROOKES eJOURNAL OF LEARNING AND TEACHING, 2004). So therefore this links location to open days They highlighting a need for Open Days to focus supported my on providing more information for parents and carers, especially those who haven’t had decisions. a child attend university before, so they are aware of what to expect to offer the support their child needs.
Improvements for Next Time:
Conclusion:
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The research survey would need to be launched a little earlier as it would allow more time to gain even more responses and there would therefore increase the accuracy of the data. The types of questions asked would be more evenly spread with more interval and ratio questions as this would increase the variety of tests and level of analysis. There would also be fewer questions as by looking at the page respondents it’s clear that some people left the survey before completing and therefore their results aren’t available to be analysed and this is potentially because of the length of the survey. The way some questions are worded would need to be reconsidered as a few respondents seemed to have gotten confused and some questions have been repeated throughout the survey. There would also be a question asking the respondents their home town and county as opposed to their term time, as this would give a better understanding of how far students will travel to come to the University of Chichester.
To conclude, from this research project it has been emphasized with the use of a data collection survey, analysis and a literature review that the main influential factors into university choice are the attendance and effectiveness of Open Days, a students location to the university and the scores and placing of a university on a league table. The key findings from this research were that students preferred to meet and engage with members of staff as opposed to sit through a talk lead by a senior member of staff. They also preferred to live as close as possible to the university for ease of accessibility for lectures and were more likely to attend university in the first place if they had the help and support from their parents or carers. Finally students were also influenced by a universities position on a league table and the survey has shown that students were more interested in balanced scores as opposed to the scores being heavily academic.
students-reflections-on-the-factors-that-influenced-their-choices/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … Hesa.ac.uk, (2015). Home - HESA - Higher Education Statistics Agency. [online] Available at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … Kallio, R. (1995). Factors influencing the college choice decisions of graduate students. Research in Higher Education, 36(1), pp.109-124. … Maria, E. (2015). Higher Education Student Choice Influencing Factors. 1st ed. [ebook] Bucharest. Available at: http://ftp://ftp.repec.org/opt/ ReDIF/RePEc/hmm/v1i1/6/7.pdf [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … National Union of Students, (2015). NUS Student Experience Report. 1st ed. [ebook] Available at: http://www.nus.org.uk/PageFiles/4017/ NUS_StudentExperienceReport.pdf [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … Ming, J. (2010). Institutional Factors Influencing Students’ College Choice Decision in Malaysia: A Conceptual Framework. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 1(4). … Osborn, M. and Franklin, W. (2015). University league tables 2016. [online] the Guardian. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/education/ ng-interactive/2015/may/25/university-league-tables-2016 [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … Rand.org, (2014). Factors Influencing Students' Choice of University in England | RAND. [online] Available at: http://www.rand.org/randeurope/ research/projects/factors-influencing-university-choice.html [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … Shafique, O. (2015). What Factors Affect A Student’s Choice Of A University For Higher Education. 1st ed. [ebook] Available at: http:// www.academia.edu/3290473/What_Factors_Affect_A_Student_s_Choice_Of_A_University_For_Higher_Education [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. Thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk, (2015). The Location. [online] Available at: http://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/universities/ choosing-the-right-university/the-location/ [Accessed 13 Dec. 2015]. University of Chichester, (2015). University of Chichester. [online] Available at: http://www.chi.ac.uk/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015]. … YouthSight, (2015). HE Research Snippet 19 – Clearing students need your love - YouthSight. [online] Available at: http://www.youthsight.com/ he-research-snippet-19-clearing-students-need-your-love/ [Accessed 27 Nov. 2015].