Choosing Canadian graduate schools from afar: East Asian students’ perspectives

Abstract

This study seeks to explain why and how international graduate students from East Asia choose to come to Canada to pursue advanced education. A synthesis model is developed to explain their decision-making process, while a push-pull model is used to understand the strengths of and relationships among various factors that influence the choice of a country, institution, program, and city. The research sample comprised 140 students from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan who enrolled in graduate programs at two large Ontario universities. The research findings reveal the influence of Institutional Academic Pulling Factors, Institutional Administrative Pulling Factors, the Canadian Environment, the Economics of Canadian Education, and the ease of Visa/Immigration. The research shows a threestage process, guided first by the focus of the program (i.e., research-oriented vs. professional programs). Other factors-country, institution, and city-interplay simultaneously at the later two stages. 2006 international students. The main purpose of this study is to understand the process of deciding to undertake overseas graduate studies, and to develop a framework to explain the factors influencing international students' choice of a Canadian graduate school. Theoretical frameworkThe existing college choice literature gives little consideration to the unique characteristics of international graduate students. Typically the literature groups them with other graduate students or with undergraduate international students. Therefore, there was a need to develop a more comprehensive model to explain international graduate students' choice and decision-making process, building on existing ''conceptual'' (or structural/attribute, or causal) frameworks of college choice models and theories on factors or variables influencing students' choice of undergraduate and/or graduate programs. An extensive review of previous studies was conducted to build the Synthesis Model for this study. Three domains of literature were reviewed-covering undergraduate students, graduate students, and international students-as well as studies on college choice factors, such as location characteristics, economics of international graduate education, and education/ immigration/mobility. The synthesis modelBased on the previous literature, a Synthesis Model was developed in an attempt to explain how international graduate students decide to pursue overseas study, choose a host country and a host institution. This synthesis model incorporates the combined process models and important factors. Its process is based on Hossler, Braxton, and Coopersmith's (1989) and Neice and Braun's (1977) three-phase model, andMazzarol andSoutar's (2002) ''push-pull'' model. Its concept is rooted in econometric models, marketing models, and information-processing models. It also borrows the fundamentals from the sociological models and social capital theory at an early stage, and then moves on to the ''creative capital'' theory. Figure 1 shows the concept, process, and v...

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