Determinants of higher education choices and student satisfaction: the case of Poland

Abstract

The dynamic changes in tertiary education that were observed in Poland for the last 20 years transformed the Polish educational market and led to the immense expansion of educational institutions. The rapid increase in the number of students that continued until 2006 is however over and Polish universities have begun to compete for their clients. Increased competition along with the pessimistic forecasts for Poland with regard to demographic changes result in the growing demand for the knowledge on determinants of student educational choices and satisfaction. Although the amount of studies in this field is growing, Poland is still substantially underrepresented in the current research. The purpose of this article was to examine the underlying factors behind the choices that Polish students make while pursuing their tertiary education. The research method that combines focus groups' discussions and a survey study among 1,420 business major students helped us to identify the factors behind three phases of the decision making process: pursuing higher education; information search along with final choice of a university; and satisfaction from chosen studies. Our research implies that decision making with regard to tertiary education is multifaceted and longitudinal as it combines a different set of factors in each stage of the decision making process.

Changes in students’ choice determinants in Poland: a comparative study of tertiary business education between 2008 and 2013

“…In both research periods we conducted 15 focus groups with each group including ten participants recruited from public and nonpublic universities located in the Wielkopolska region. Focus groups that we moderated in 2008 helped us to collect information how Polish students make their university choices (Sojkin et al 2012), and focus groups that we conducted at the beginning of 2013 allowed us to identify several additional determinants, not mentioned by focus groups participants in 2008.…”

“…The quantitative study was carried out in April-June of 2008 and AprilMay 2013. In 2008 we built a questionnaire based on focus group discussions and a review of previous research findings about students educational choices (Sojkin et al 2012). Relevant literature in the field was used which was based on economic models (based on the idea of rational cost-benefit analysis), sociological models (related to aspirations, family conditions, school environment, etc.)…”

“…The questionnaire was distributed to students of business majors in 16 public and 24 private universities in the Wielkopolska region (the same for both researched periods). Quota sampling was used to choose the sample (for more detail please see Sojkin et al 2012). Sample characteristics are presented in Table 1.…”

“…Out of 460 universities 330 were non-public, although public universities educated 71 % of the total number of students. The growth in the number of universities was the result of a 500 % increase in the number of students-from 404,000 in 1990 to over 1,950,000 in 2005 (Sojkin et al 2012;Rozanski 2008;CSOP 2010), which allowed Poland to achieve one of the highest gross enrolment ratio (GER) in the OECD countries (54 %) (OECD 2009;Antonowicz and Gorlewski 2011).…”

The Conceptual Scheme for Managing University Stakeholders' Satisfaction

“…The tertiary education sector has to deal with changes in university funding (Dearden et al, 2012) as well as unfavourable demographic progress in the fi eld of European education -namely, that the number of students is decreasing. There have also been changes in the funding of universities (Sojkin et al, 2012).…”