Understanding university choice decisions of Turkish students

Abstract

This study is designed to provide insights as to how different elements of university characteristics, campus visit, information sources, and students‟ personal characteristics influence their university behaviors directly and indirectly through their effects on university related attitudes. Proposed relationships are tested with data collected from 421 respondents through structured questionnaires. This study enriches the university choice literature by investigating the effects of various university choice factors on both attitudinal and behavioral responses and proposes that students’ attitude toward university mediates the relationship between university characteristics, information sources, students characteristics and student’s preference for a university. As expected it is found that while controlling other factors there is a positive relationship between students’ attitudes toward university and preference for a university. Results provide evidence that some factors have a significant effect only on students’ attitudinal responses, while some have a significant effect on behavioral responses. On the other hand, results demonstrate that advices from significant persons have a positive effect on both students’ attitudinal and behavioral responses. Unexpectedly, campus visit does not act as a moderator in the relationship between university perceptions and attitude toward university.