Does university ranking matter? Choosing a university in the digital era

Does university ranking matter? Choosing a university in the digital era

• Wut, Tai Ming The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Xu, Jing (Bill) The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
• Lee, Stephanie Wing The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Education Sciences, 12(4), 229- , 2022

MDPI AG

2022

• S School Environment & Facilities, Organization
  • SI School Effectiveness & Improvement

Conjoint Analysis Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) Reputation Peer Influence University Choice

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

• View Full Text 全文連結

Each year, final year high school students choose the university that they would prefer to attend. Past studies have found that family, friends, course availability, university reputation, distances from home, and job prospects were factors affecting students’ choice of university. However, the relative weight of these factors might have changed in the digital era; also, electronic word of mouth was ignored in the past. The purpose of this study was to identify the important factors affecting students’ university choice. We distributed a questionnaire which was completed by 472 Form 6 secondary school students in Hong Kong. Conjoint analysis was used to simulate a real situation and what human beings would do: human being usually make up their mind using a few criteria at the same time. The contribution of the study is that it reveals that electronic word of mouth is the most influential factor, followed by peer influence and university reputation, in choosing a university. Copyright © 2022 MDPI AG.

• English

Journal Articles

• 22277102

• 10.3390/educsci12040229

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/en/bibs/7c54c5d9

2023-04-11