An investigation of undergraduate choice behaviour of a preferred program, discipline and university: a conceptual model

This thesis investigates the choice behaviour of first year undergraduate students through proposing and testing a conceptual model. The psychological constructs of personal values, motivation, selection criteria, demographic and socioeconomic factors introduced as underlying drivers provide invaluable insight into the pathways of influence and relationships between student types and their preference towards a particular degree program at a particular university. Questionnaires from 304 first year undergraduate students from the three academic portfolios of Business, Science, Engineering and Technology and Design and Social Context were analysed. A series of hypothesis were proposed within a causal methodology to facilitate the prediction of student types in terms of their significant drivers. The conceptual model was tested by a structural equation model (SEM) for the significance of the relationships between particular pairs of variables. Significant pathways amongst psychological constructs were initially proposed in a hierarchy model. To generalise the findings of analysis from the SEM analysis, multinomial linear regression (MLR) was used to conduct analysis on statistically significant effects amongst drivers of choice behaviour. A discrete student choice model determined the strength and significance of the hypothesised drivers facilitating the prediction of student types. The causal analysis supported the proposition that the significance of the psychological constructs to students across the three portfolios accounts for the variability driving choice behaviour. The empirical findings of this thesis contribute to an in-depth understanding of how fundamental constructs drive preferences and explain significant levels of variability in tertiary students’ choice behaviour. By developing a causal methodology for investigating the drivers of choice behaviour within a proposed conceptual framework, important and timely contributions resulted at both an academic and marketing level. At an academic level, this thesis demonstrated a hierarchical relationship amongst the proposed psychological constructs and identified significant predictor variables in helping to explain group membership. At a marketing implication level, the development of a discrete student choice model provides marketers with an invaluable insight into student profiles. Clearly, there is no long term gain for universities in attracting students better suited to other degree programs. Accordingly, in terms of designing marketing strategies, the contribution of this thesis facilitates an in-depth understanding of significant drivers influencing choice behaviour, which becomes considerably relevant in appealing to and retaining the students most suited to particular academic programs and universities

At risk policy and early intervention programmes for underperforming students: Ensuring success?

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine a University's at risk program and ask is the intervention strategy working? The program seeks to assist at risk students who may be experiencing difficulties transitioning, for example from school into university. The program also seeks to identify problems and suggest remediation strategies before attrition

Towards the Development of a Personal Values Importance Scale (PVIS)

Personal values have been shown to be effective predictors of behaviour across different contexts. Past research has identified the List of Values (LOV) typology can be grouped as either two or three dimensional arguing the context as an influencing factor. To date no attempt has been made to adapt the LOV scale to assess its influence on student's preferences. This paper develops a reliable and valid personal values importance scale (PVIS) using a two phase approach designed to capture the specific domains of the nine List of Values for application in the context of education

Predicting faculty membership - application of student choice Logit model

This study investigates the application of a student choice logit model to examine the role demographic, socioeconomic and psychological variables play in influencing undergraduate students' preferences towards choosing to study in particular disciplines. As a tool of analysis, logit regression has offered an innovative approach that allows the researcher to estimate the probability that a prospective student will apply to certain disciplines. The likelihood ratio of the model is highly significant (p =.000) suggesting choice behaviour can be effectively explained by a set of particular explanatory variables. The marketing application of the logit model in generating 'student types' and simulation analyses is discussed. These findings have implications for higher education institutions wishing to develop segmented marketing strategies to influence choice behaviour of prospective students

Housing the next generation of golden girls: Are they prepared?

The transition into retirement is an important life phase that presents significant challenges in respect to wellbeing, lifestyle and consumption choices. This research examines the consumption context of housing post-retirement in particular for the low-resourced cohort of single baby boomer women, using the Theory of Planned Behavior framework. Specifically, we examined how certainty in intentions drives preparation and planning for significant consumption decisions in retirement. Based on these dimensions of certainty and intention we developed a typology that illustrates how the components of TPB allows us to identify different segments of the market that require different strategies to get them to be proactive in planning and preparation for retirement. This typology presents significant implications for social policy and the financial services sector

Towards an understanding of the motivations to play games on smartphones

Smartphones are rapidly becoming ubiquitous personal items that continue to evolve and shape our consumption experiences through the applications (apps) used on them, almost half of which are games. The mobile game 'Angry Birds' has been downloaded over one billion times. These consumption patterns continue to define what is fast becoming an 'emerging ludic society' (Kallio, Mäyrä, & Kaipainen, 2011) and implications for marketers lie in the growing area of gamification (Deterding, Dixon, & Khaled, 2011). Video gaming is now a social norm (Kallio et al., 2011; Mäyrä, 2008). This research seeks to fill a gap in the consumer behaviour literature by providing a conceptual model to explain motivation as the antecedents of play on smartphones. Since the continuing cultural penetration of video games is inevitable, employing new theoretical models and empirically exploring these domains becomes ever more important in order to inform more effective health and education interventions as well as advancing the basic science of humans at play (Przybylski, Rigby, & Ryan, 2010)

State of inertia: psychological preparation of single Australian and UK baby boomer women for retirement housing change

The transition into retirement is an important life phase that presents significant challenges in respect to well-being, lifestyle, and consumption choices. This article examines the consumption context of housing after retirement, in particular for the low-resourced cohort of single baby boomer women. Utilizing an extended Theory of Planned Behavior model, we examine the relationship between intention and actual behavior, in this case financial advice seeking, as an important component of the psychological preparedness of single female baby boomer women. Our analysis showed both Australian and UK single baby boomer women display different behaviors in terms of seeking advice and their mental preparedness to adjust to a change in their living arrangements. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for policy and further research

The Cracked Glass Ceiling: Equal Work but Unequal Status

The achievement of gender equity in universities continues to warrant attention. Globally, universities have much work ahead of them if they are to redress the gender imbalance in senior positions and remuneration rates. To examine this issue, multiple sources of evidence were used to observe teaching and research workload of academic staff employed at mid-tier business faculties from two urban Australian universities which had more women employed in junior academic ranks. This article argues that although gender equity, in terms of workload, has improved, inequality, in terms of pay and status, still exists. Specifically, while workload differences between genders were largely not evident, fewer women were employed in senior ranks. These results suggest, despite policy reforms, that inequity continues to be a problem in the Australian higher education sector with implications for the recognition (and addressing) of inequity in the global higher education industry. In summary, higher education institutions, senior policy-makers and managers must be cognizant of balancing teaching workloads with opportunities and support systems for research-related activities and directing human resource efforts and promotion opportunities

A proposed conceptual model for investigating undergraduate student choice of programs and universities

Understanding how undergraduate students choose a particular degree program and Unviersity has significant implications for attracting and retaining students. A review of marketing and education literature on the topic identified several constructs, such as personal values, motivation, selection criteria, demographic and socioeconomic variables that might be related to this choice process. The purpose of this paper is to put these constructs together in a coherent manner and propose a conceptual model that traces the pathways of influences amongst these constructs. A causal methodology based on structural equation modelling is proposed. In tradition with the marketing approach, the paper proposes a segmentation scheme based on developing profiles of 'student types' in terms of factors that drive or influence their choice behaviour. A proactive market targeting market approach is proposed to address issues with student satisfaction with their proposed program or University and retention rates

''I'm not old enough!'' Why older single women are not engaging in retirement planning services

[Abstract not available