UNIVERSITY ATTRACTIVENESS AND COVID-19 INFLUENCE: A FOCUS ON INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING AND MANAGEMENT STUDENTS IN PORTUGUESE UNIVERSITIES
M Steinaecker
ESTIEM
Berlin, Portugal
M Serodio
ESTIEM
Porto, Portugal
Conference Key Areas: Attractiveness of engineering education, Improving higher engineering education through researching engineering education
Keywords: Industrial engineering and management, University attractiveness, Engineering students’ university choice, Covid-19 impact
ABSTRACT
The Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) degree merges engineering and managerial concepts, and has reaffirmed itself as an attractive degree for students in the Portuguese university landscape. This paper aims to investigate the attractiveness factors of 5 Universities in Portugal, according to their IEM students at those mentioned universities and how these compare between pre- and post-pandemic times. This analysis was done through two quantitative surveys shared among students of the ESTIEM network (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management), in 2021 and 2024. The universities under analysis were Porto, Minho, Aveiro, Coimbra and Lisbon (IST). Responses showed that the most relevant factor for choosing universities is its prestige, followed by the city the university is located in, with over half the students inquired pointing to these two factors. Corporate-related factors such as the university’s recognition by companies and the employment rate of the degree were highlighted as very relevant too. Differences were also found between the universities studied from Lisbon and Porto giving a bigger importance to prestige, while Aveiro’s, Coimbra’s and Minho’s students prioritise the city of the campus. The results from 2021 and 2024 have coincident findings, pointing to the conclusion that the Covid-19 pandemic did not play a significant role when it comes to shifting Portuguese IEM students' attractiveness perspective. These findings not only allow universities to have an overview of their main potential selling points and what students deem as critical factors, but they also indicate that pre-Covid-19 studies’ conclusions are likely still relevant, as there are no critical differences seen between responses from 2021 and 2024.
INTRODUCTION
Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) is a university degree that encompasses both a strong engineering basis and relevant management concepts. The degree has established itself as one of the preferred options of Portuguese high school students, gaining an increased visibility in the country since its introduction around 30 years ago. This was particularly evident in the last 7 years, where engineering degrees have become the top choice for students, having the highest entrance grades. In fact, Industrial Engineering and Management is a clear example of this, with the degree from the University of Porto in the top 4 since 2016, which in the academic year 2023/2024 held the fourth place, with an entrance grade of 18 55 out of 201
These consistent results can be tied to the high employability of IEM graduates in Portugal, associated also with the diversity of careers and fields that an industrial engineer can partake in. Once graduated, the students can work in fields ranging from supply chain management, quality control, operations optimization, management, marketing, strategy, among others.
The numerus clausus, number of the students who applied, and number of students who enrolled in each university and degree as their first option are summarised in Table 1, for five of the top Portuguese universities, with data from 2023.1
Table 1. Numerus clausus, number of applicants and number of students that selected first option for each University
University Aveiro
Several factors contribute to a student's choice of university, and IEM being a degree with a consistent high demand, before, during and after Covid-19, it is interesting to explore further factors that make it attractive to students, and if these factors could have shifted due to the pandemic. This knowledge is highly valuable for the universities, who can work towards improving these factors and communicating them more efficiently to prospective students. It is also critical for them to understand if these factors changed during the pandemic, so that they can update their knowledge. Such an impactful event, tied to the digitalisation that it brought, could potentially have a strong influence on students' choices. Therefore, this paper aims to address not only the attractiveness factors for students, but also how they compare to the most relevant factors pointed by students before Covid-19.
For this, a quantitative study was conducted by ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management), a student organisation that operates at a European level, connecting Industrial Engineering students with each other, as well as with academics and professionals in the field. This study is tied to previous research
1 Data from the Direção-Geral de Estatísticas da Educação e Ciência (DGEEC) - General Center for Statistics of Education and Science.
conducted in 2021, to allow for a comparison between a pre- and post-pandemic scenario
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
With the transformation of higher education to a highly competitive and globalised environment, and especially now in post Covid times, there is a high interest in researching the choices that potential engineering and IEM students make regarding their university, and if these have changed over the Covid-19 pandemic.
Students undergo a difficult decision process when facing the choice of degree and university. Han (2014) reported that it ultimately results from a combination of interconnected factors, such as demography or institutional characteristics. Perna (2006) addressed this multitude of factors through a four-attribute conceptual model that grouped several influences of students’ choices. These attributes were habitus, school and community context, higher education context and social-economic context. Habitus encompasses demographic characteristics and social and cultural capital, while school and community context englobe the availability of resources, type of resources, structural supports, as well as barriers. As for higher education context, the focus was on institutional characteristics, location, marketing and recruitment. Several studies highlight the prestige and recognition of the university as one of the main influences of high school graduates’ choice regarding their university (Cyrenne and Grant 2008; Do and Le 2020; Briggs 2006). Other research also points to the city the university is located in, and the distance from the student’s hometown as being relevant factors (Baharun et al. 2011; Briggs 2006). On the other side, information availability by the university and research reputation were considered factors with low relevance (Briggs 2006).
Narrowing it to Engineering, Alpay (2013) provided research on the attractiveness of general engineering degrees in the UK with high school graduates. Special emphasis was put on the attractiveness traits of flexibility in engineering specialisation, combined degree options and exposure to non-technical courses. These were deemed as very attractive factors for students that were already considering an engineering degree before, as well as those who were not pondering it so far.
Regarding potential changes in the attractiveness factors for university students since previous years, Nanath et al. (2022) shows that the perspectives of students’ decisionmaking criteria have indeed changed and there is a new perspective for university selection. The critical factors affecting a university choice in the digital era are the cost of education (such as tuition fees), the quality of student life at a university, the presence of e-learning and the opportunities in terms of employment and earnings. Indeed, Ramalhete et al. (2020) highlights that the transition to an e-learning model in Portuguese universities was made possible by the use of new information and communication technologies that come with advantages. One of the main benefits for this new teaching methodology is the absence of commuting times, followed by the development of students’ autonomy and therefore has potential to transform teaching and learning contexts in the future, and making factors such as distance to the university less relevant.
Looking specifically at changes coming from the pre-pandemic students to the ones that made the choice to enroll in the university during and after that time, this research
will be based on the factors previously presented by Serodio et al. (2021). In that quantitative study, an analysis of factors that influence Industrial Engineering and Management students’ choice of university in Portugal was presented, dating from the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, with students that enrolled before this period. The most important factors concluded were the prestige of the university and the city of the institutions, followed by job market opportunities that students expect to access after their graduation.
3 METHODOLOGY
To identify the most important attributes for Industrial Engineering and Management students in Portugal and how these preferences were affected by the pandemic, a comparative analysis was made between two quantitative studies, based on online surveys to students.
The survey was filled two times, the first time in March of 2021, when it was created, in full pandemic times, and one time during March 2024 in a post pandemic scenario. In order to ensure the answers from both years were comparable, new items were not added in 2024 as options for the relevant factors.
The data was collected through the student associations that are members of ESTIEM (European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management), with the student’s permission and taking into consideration the general data protection regulation, with all data being handled anonymously. Five relevant Portuguese Universities with IEM degrees were selected for this study: Universities of Aveiro, Coimbra, Lisbon, Minho and Porto. It was ensured all answers collected within the survey are from engineering students in the Industrial Engineering and Management degree.
While in the first survey in 2021, the target group were both bachelors and masters’ students, the second survey in 2024 was only sent to bachelor IEM students, all from the above-mentioned five universities. This study will compare only the results from Bachelor students, as the aim is to be able to distinguish between pre- and postCovid-19 university applicants.
In the current study, 209 answers were collected. From 2021’s study, we used 214 of the 255 answers completely filled, corresponding to a selection of only Bachelor students. The distribution between female and male respondents was approximately 60% and 40%, respectively, in both years. The percentage of answers from each of the five Universities analysed is displayed in Table 2
Table 2. Distribution of responses per surveyed university
respondents (Bachelor students) per survey run
The survey questions investigate IEM students’ first choice of university. Participants of the survey were asked about the university they selected as first choice, and were able to give multiple answers and indicate other possibilities besides the already presented, to make sure all options were considered. This was then compared to their
current university to understand the degree of mismatch between preferred and current universities. The survey also focused on the factors that influenced their decision, asking students what were the features that lead them to put that university as their first choice for bachelors, in a closed multiple selection question, with a total of 16 answer possibilities The definition of the options had as basis the revised literature. Finally, students were also questioned on whether they would change their university if they could, to which one they would have preferred to go, and if they would consider now taking their degree abroad.
The data collected was analysed and compared to the data collected in the previous survey. The influencing factors for first choice were through percentages, having each percentage calculated through the number of times that factor was pinpointed as relevant in the total number of survey responses for the five main universities. The answers were also subsequently separated by location, in order to obtain the top 5 factors indicated for each university.
4 RESULTS
The first choice of university was analysed on the perspective of influencing factors associated with universities’ characteristics, related to its location, teaching, interaction with the corporate landscape of the country, among others. Figure 1 shows the general results obtained in both questionnaires. For 2021, 207 out of the 214 answers were used for this analysis, as four students stated they would have liked to study in University Nova Lisbon (FCT/UNL) and three in Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), universities not considered in the study, similarly to one student in 2024 who also chose this last university as first choice.
Fig. 1. Distribution of influences of student’s first choice factors for 2021 and 2024
From the overall results it is possible to see that the first four influencing factors are the same between the two analyses, even though the percentage of people that selected them was lower in 2024. The prestige of the university is once more the most influential factor, followed by the city the university is located in. These results are in
line with the literature, being mentioned by several previous studies performed in different countries. Furthermore, recognition by companies and employability rate are also to be highlighted, as it was also described by Nanath et al. (2022), who underlined the importance of good employment in the area and potential earnings. These factors are in line with the Portuguese landscape where engineers, and particularly industrial engineers, have an extremely high employability rate and a wide range of career options available. Comparing 2021 to 2024, the percentage of people that selected recognition by companies and employability rate decreased and the employability rate ranked lower in 2024 than recognition by companies, being the inverse in 2021.
Overall, the least relevant factors of students’ choice are the easiness/difficulty of the university, not having a sufficient application grade to enter their most preferred option and the partner companies of the University.
When making a division per city, the conclusions are slightly different. The top 5 factors for each university can be seen in Figure 2.
Unlike the overall results, the city of the university is the main factor for Aveiro, Coimbra and Minho, being still in the main five factors for all universities. Students from Coimbra, Minho and Porto underline not only the city itself, but also the importance of it being close to their hometown.
For Lisbon and Porto, the most influential factors are the prestige of the university and the recognition by companies, in this order. Prestige is stated in the top factors for all universities except Aveiro. Students from Coimbra are the only ones selecting international recognition as a top factor.
Some factors that are not in the main five of the overall results are however part of the main five factors of some cities. For example, Scientific reputation is a chosen factor for only Aveiro and Lisbon, while Minho and Aveiro have their extra-curricular activities highlighted. Finally, only Aveiro students pinpoint the campus’ infrastructures as one of the main five factors.
Overall, the results from 2021 and 2024 point in the same direction, except for university of Minho, where there was a shift in the main factors in 2024, with prestige exchanging positions with city and proximity to hometown. As for Coimbra, in 2024 students give the same importance to company and international recognition, while in 2021 the second had more weight. Porto maintains the general trend, but having in 2024 the factors of company recognition, city and employability more balanced.
It is important to note that while some factors such as the city, closeness to hometown and the grades of the students, several others are directly or indirectly changeable by the Universities. Universities can directly impact their infrastructures, factors related to teaching (teaching methodologies, course curriculum and how easy or hard it is to complete the degree) and opportunities for students (extracurricular activities and partner companies). The remaining factors - scientific reputation, recognition by companies, prestige, international recognition and employability rate – are not directly changeable, but are the result of the decisions and investments of the Universities
Besides the factors for first choice, the match between the first choice of the inquired students and the university they were currently attending was also analysed. The 2021 study concluded that 16% of students were not enrolled in their first choice, and that the University of Porto was the main first choice among them. Results from 2024 are coincident, with a 17% mismatch, and 36% of these students having preferred to study at the University of Porto.
Finally, students were also questioned on whether they would now change the University they chose, if they could. The conclusion for both years is that students are comfortable with their choices and would not change them after joining their university, as indicated by 71% of the 2024 study participants. However, 14% of students still indicated that they would like to change to University of Porto, and the remaining percentage would have preferred other universities, in the country or abroad, or were unsure if they would want to change.
This study poses some limitations, such as the fact that both times only IEM students from the above-mentioned universities were respondents, and therefore due to practical reasons, if a first-choice university was not one of those (which was permitted in the survey), the data was excluded from our analysis. Regarding the distribution of the data collected, the distribution between locations, with Aveiro having a bigger percentage of the students surveyed, could influence the overall results. Also, the timing of the two surveys generated that the student samples are not clean when it comes to the two groups being compared. The study done in 2021 had a minority of the students surveyed making the university choice in the summer of 2020. However, despite the date, the general expectation in the country was that there would not be a significant impact of the disease on the school year, since overall in the country restrictions were low (Jornal de Negócios 9 Nov. 2020), so the
answers were still considered. As for 2024, although the research objective was communicated to the IEM students completing the survey, there is no assurance that everyone considered this aspect when deciding whether or not to fill the survey. Lastly, the generalisation of this data conducted from IEM students in Portugal to other fields of study or other countries. Arguably, being the results in line with previous literature, it could be inferred that they can provide relevant insights.
5 CONCLUSIONS
This paper portrays an analysis of the attractiveness factors perceived by students when choosing their universities, and makes a comparison between the most relevant factors chosen by Bachelor students in 2021, with students that chose their university before the pandemic years, and students from 2024, which started their Bachelor in pandemic times.
The overall results for the first-choice attractiveness were aligned between the two studies, with the prestige of the University being the most influential one. The campus’s city was the second most voted factor, also for both years, followed by company recognition and employability rate. The scenario is different when looking into the universities individually, both in terms of the selected top factors and the shifts between the two years. This shows that the different students associate each place with distinct valuable assets, which is highly valuable information for these Universities. Moreover, it was concluded that most students (70%) were happy in their current university and would not change, but when questioned on studying abroad a relevant percentage (40%) would consider it.
The conclusions drawn from these studies provide an overview of the Portuguese landscape when it comes to attractiveness factors affecting IEM students, as well as allowing universities to understand the reasoning behind the students that selected them as first choice. This allows universities to have a better understanding of their potential selling points when attracting new recruits, and adapt recruitment and marketing strategies to this.
Plus, this study also indicates that there are no significant differences between the main factors impacting student’s choices before and after the pandemic, which indicates that other pre-pandemic studies conducted still provide valuable input and could be used by the corresponding universities with a certain degree of confidence.
Further research could, on the one hand, compare different research questions with 2021 data, such as the most relevant factors of student’s current universities, rather than on their first choice, or how influential different people and channels (parents, media, high school professors, etc.) are to a students' decisions. Also, new options could be added as factors for the first choice, to update the study according to new factors mentioned in the literature, namely related to e-learning. On the other hand, a larger study could also be conducted, collecting and comparing data between different countries to validate if the results can be generalised for European students and if there is a European alignment on what makes Universities attractive for IEM students.
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