Factors Affecting Students Choice of Higher Education Institution: A Malaysian Perspective

Abstract

Malaysia is currently having an increased competition among higher education institutions. The ambition of this research is to identify the relationship between the marketing mix model (7P) and students' choice of Private Higher Education Institutions (PHEIs) in Malaysia. Primary data have been obtained from students in selected higher education institutions in Malaysia. The target respondents have been selected by using quota sampling method under the non-probability sampling technique. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the target respondents from different PHEIs (UniKL, UTAR, TARUC and SEGi University) and 302 useful questionnaires were collected. All questions are measured using a 5-point Likert Scale. The result reveals that the marketing mix (product, place, price, promotion, people, process and physical evidence) has a significant influence on students' choice of PHEI. This research provides a better insight to help PHEIs to understand and develop best services to increase the students' enrolment. This research also demonstrates the importance of the marketing mix (7p) model in higher education institutions' perspective.Contribution/Originality: This study demonstrates the importance of the marketing mix (7p) in higher education institutions' perspective while studying students' choice of higher education institutions.

A Marketing Mix Perspective as Antecedents of Students’ Decisions: Evidence from Five Universities in Indonesia

“…Research conducted by Moorthy et al (2019), found that 3 out of 7 (IV) (Product, Promotion and People) had a significant effect on the choice of students of private tertiary institutions, program of study was a factor that students considered because it was important to have a program recognized by employers in the future.…”

Private HEI’s Characteristics and Marketing Impact on Students’ Enrollment Decisions

“…It poses a dilemma for Malaysia Education System: whether they could achieve the 2025 blueprint objective at the right time and could private HEIs ensure that the enrolment rate set by the Malaysia Education system is achieved by 2025. Various empirical studies researched determining the factors of different HEIs that influence students' decisions around Peninsular Malaysia (Buang et al, 2016;Husain et al, 2018;Ishak, 2016;Moorthy et al, 2019;Yaacob et al, 2020). However, the limitations of the previous study were narrowed to researching one selected HEI , which focused on University Kuala Lumpur (UniKL) first-semester students as their respondents; Yusuf et al (2017) selected University Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP) students solely as their respondent; while Harahap et al (2017) focused on one state which is Perak.…”