The Role of Social Media in affecting Students' Choice of a Higher Education Institute

Ahmet Ertugan NEU Karen Howells NEU

Abstract

This research studied the role of social media on the factors that affect students intention to choose a higher education institute to pursuit their studies. A structured questionnaire provided the means to collect data from a sample of 200 university students from three universities. IBM Statistics 25 package facilitated the analysis of data collected. The analysis provided descriptive statistics, reliability tests on the goodness of data, mean responses, correlationsbetweenthevariables,andfinally,regressionanalysisleadingtotestingthehypotheses. Theresearch supported the notion that social media has a monitoring effect on the independent variables of personal motives, country image, institute image, and programme evaluation which affect the intention to choose a higher education institute.

Key words: social media, intention to choose a higher education institute, monitoring effect

Introduction

The recent developments on the Internet and social media allow consumers to access equitable information on what they intend to purchase. Dellarocas (2006) argues that online customer reviews have become a way of marketing communications as customers increasingly regard online reviews as the first step in purchasing goods and services. Reading through online comments is beneficial to consumers as it increases their confidence in purchasing decisions (Lin, Wu, and Chen; 2013).

The development of social media also affects the choice that the organisations face between the social and traditional media in communicating with their customers. Universities and other higher education institutes face the same effect in choice. Halbesleben et al. (2003),

held that students were recognised as customers in the 1990s due to increasing competition amongst universities. The introduction of private universities has contributed to the intensifying competition between the public and private universities. Some researchers describe marketing in Higher Education as an epidemic (Natale & Doran, 2012). Others declined to recognise students as customers. The idea of marketing in universities escalated as the universities began facing the need to generate their funds in competition for students (Drummond, 2004).

Social media marketing requires specific marketing strategies that might be challenging. Universities need to identify online social networking sites to promote their services and provide information to their prospective students. The survey carried out by Gafni & Deri (2012), showed that 96 per cent of undergraduate students make use of Facebook, and 20 per cent of college students make use of Twitter. Universities must find the right social media channel to reach their potential students as it saves costs and time (Weinberg, 2009).

Social media has almost become a necessity for many people around the world today (Glen, 2013). It is a convenient way for students in assessing different universities around the world before making their choices to which to attend for further education (International Student Survey, 2017). If students rely more on online social networking sites to get information about the universities they intend to enrol, then it can be argued that social media has a significant influence on students' purchase intention.

Several factors influence students' online intention to choose a higher education institute. Some of those factors in the literature (Binh & Thanh, 2019) include personal motives, country image, institute image, programme evaluation, and their effect on students' intention to choose a Higher education institute. It would be interesting to study the moderating effect of social media on these factors as any significant augmentation will indicate the usefulness of social media in reaching students and influencing their choice of a higher education institute.

Literature review

Marketing is about creating customer value and satisfaction and thus managing existing customer relationships and winning new customers (Armstrong & Kotler, 2007). Higher education marketing came into existence in the mid-1980s as a derivative of the health care

marketing field (Hayes, 2007). Higher education marketing is the application of marketing techniques in promoting educational services.

Traditionally, marketing and considering students as customers were remote ideas to higher education. According to Anderson (2008), the usual attitude by academia against marketing was that it would reduce the value of academic standards.

As stated in the dictionary definition (Oxford University Press, 1999; Harper Collins, 2003) "a customer is a person who buys goods or services". Since students make payments in the form of school fees, some regard them as customers and referring to students as customers are not new. Crawford (1991) first made use of the term "customer" almost ten years before the UK started requesting that students pay upfront tuition fees. Halbesleben et al. (2003) argued that the concept of students as customers was formed in the early part of the 1990s when competition increased amongst universities. In countries like the USA, for many higher education institutions, a student was considered a fundamental customer (Wallace, 1999). Wallace (1999) also mentioned that the failure to see students as customers could lead to unprofessional attitudes and behaviours by some staff, for instance, a course instructor might feel entitled to coming to classes late.

Social media marketing is now an effective means of connecting with customers. Dwivedi et al. (2015) described social media marketing as a conversation initiated by consumers on a product or service which spreads around setting off communication that exposes promotional information. It enables sharing and learning of experiences, thus benefitting all parties involved. Tuten and Solomon (2015) describe social media marketing as the use of social media facilities, channels, software, and technologies to generate, communicate supply, and interchange information that has value for the stakeholders of an organisation (Tuten and Solomon, 2015). Vinerean et al. (2013) and Forbes and Vespoli (2013) examined the importance of social media on how it affected online purchasing and held the view that social media has an impact on online shopping. Forbes and Vespoli (2013) stated that consumers consider customer reviews on social media before making purchases regardless of the level of prices. Many organisations use Social media marketing to connect and communicate with customers and potential consumers. Similarly, university officials also need to evaluate the risk and

opportunities attached to the use and application of social media in their marketing and recruitment processes (Choudaha, 2013). Higher education institutes need to be available and accessible to students as Mangold and Faulds (2009) concluded that social network sites had developed a bridge for businesses to reach out instantly and concurrently with customers.

Studies on the factors that affect students' intentions in choosing a higher education institute in the pursuit of their education generally include personal motives, family and peers, country image, institute's image, and reputation, and program evaluation (Aydn, 2015).

Personal motives are buyer's characteristics or personal factors that affect what a student considers when deciding on a higher education institute. Some of the personal motives that influence students' choice of a Higher education institute are the opinion of family, distance from home, and peers (Soutar and Turner, 2002). Students have desires which influence their decision- making process in choosing an institution to attend (Villella & Hu, 1990; Murphy, 1981; Hossler & Gallagher, 1987). The characteristics of students that influence them in enrolling at a particular institution are different from their product purchase decisions (Brooker & Noble, 1985).

A lot of research and studies have shown that there is a direct relationship between family influence and student choice of a Higher education institute (Haron et al., 2017). The role that the families play is understandable as they are the primary providers of funds needed to be able to pursue an education in a Higher education institute. Most international students go abroad to study due to their parents' wishes or just their desire to leave their native country (Andrade & Evans, 2009). Peers or friends also have a significant influence on students' choice of university and career path. Usually, parents and friends play a significant role; teachers and coaches also have a great influence on a student's life (Wildman and Torres, 2002).

Country Image is the way students perceive a country. Desbode (1990) suggests that a country's image is the perceptual image that a consumer has in his/ her mind arising from a country's political system, level of technological and economic development, and its culture. Similarly, Allred (1999) noted that the way a country is perceived depends on the country's political structure, economic condition, culture, labour conditions, and their stand on issues concerning the environment. According to Mazzarol and Soutar (2002), the opinions that affect

students to select a country arise from personal suggestions, recommendations, awareness, and information on the host country. Maringe (2006) mentions that the availability of part-time jobs, costs of living are also significant factors affecting the country's image for international students.

The literature portrays reputation as the evaluation of emotions, finances, social, attitudes, and culture of an organisation, including a variety of people in general (Heath & Vasquez, 2001). Reputation arises from the perceptions of the organisation's external stakeholders (Balmer & Greyser, 2002; Melewar et al., 2005; Hatch & Schultz, 1997). Isherwood (1991) discovered that the reputation of a university determines the choices students make when choosing a further education institute. Mazzarol and Soutar (2002) indicated that the factors affecting reputation usually include personal views, suggestions, and ideas the student has about the university. Many research studies (Hoyt and Brown, 2003; Briggs, 2006; Walsh and Beatty, 2007, Hillenbrand and Money, 2007) have indicated the reputation of a higher education institute in affecting the decision-making processes of students. Tavares, Justino, and Amaral (2008) clearly showed that some characteristics of universities have a significant influence on students' university choice. These factors include computer facilities, the comfort of a canteen, library standards, location, and availability of extra-curricular activities, the quality of teaching, the quality of scientific research, status, administrative support and accessibility of exchange programs with other universities abroad.

The availability of in-demand programs and courses is another critical factor that influences students' choice of universities as research. Yusof et al. (2008) it is depicted that the availability of programs required by students is the highest factor students consider while deciding to choose a higher education institution. Cubillo, Sanchez, and Cervino (2006) acknowledged in their decision-making model that the program evaluation strategy used by a university is a matter that most students desire to understand before choosing a university. Most students tend to choose programmes which will enable them to achieve their dreams and career goals. In the evaluation process, students look into certain factors like program recognition, program specialisation, and also cost and finance.

Similarly, the results of a research conducted in England that involved 20,000 participants (Connor, Pearson, and Jagger, 1996; Connor, Burton, Pearson and Regan, 1999)

noted that the subject of interest being available is the most vital factor while deciding on a university to enrol in, accompanied by school fees and other costs. The importance of the type, quality, and availability of different academic programs and also of reputable teachers were the factors mentioned by Hsieh (2006) as influencing students' decision to enrol in a university for education.

Pavlou (2003) argues that online purchase intention is the situation where a consumer intends to get involved in an online transaction. Social media websites have a reliable tool to motivate customers emotionally to gravitate towards purchasing behaviour (Goldsmith RE & Lafferty BA, 2002). The development of social media websites over the years has impacted positively on brand awareness increase. According to Blackwell et al., (2001), internal information, brand awareness, pre-purchase experience, and external information got from websites can increase the purchase intention of customers and also repurchase possibilities.

Statement of purpose

This study aimed to find out the moderating effect of social media on the factors that influence students' intention to choose a higher education institute online to pursue their studies. The main question of this study was: "Does social media has a moderating effect on the factors that influence students' intention to choose a Higher education institute? It concentrates on the moderating effect of Social Media on factors including personal motives, country image, institute' image, and programme evaluation which affect students' intention in choosing a higher education institute in the pursuit of their education.

"Figure 1" illustrates the conceptual model that has organised this study; it shows the dependent variable, moderating variable and independent variables as labelled.

Personal motives

Country image Institute image

Intention to choose a Higher education institute

Dependent variable

Programme

evaluation

Independent variables

Social media

Moderating variable

Hypotheses

Figure 1: The study model

The hypotheses derived from the study model are listed below

H1

Social media has a moderating effect on personal motives affecting students' intention to choose a Higher Education Institute.

H2

Social media has a moderating effect on the country image, affecting students' intention to choose a Higher Education Institute.

H3

Social media has a moderating effect on institute image, affecting students' intention to choose a Higher Education Institute.

H4

Social media has a moderating effect on programme evaluation, affecting students' intention to choose a Higher Education Institute.

Method Participants

The participants were students from three main higher education institutes in Northern Cyprus. According to the national education authorities, there are almost 102 thousand international students from 114 countries studying at the nine universities of Northern Cyprus (TRNC Education Ministry, 2018). The population comprised students from Cyprus, Turkey, Africa, The Middle East, Ex-Soviet countries, and Central Asia, which provided an opportunity for a sample of a large variety of international students.

The sample included 200 students selected from three universities using a non- probability, convenience sampling technique. Convenience sampling makes it easier to collect data with results that provide a rough opinion on the population. Participants indicated their attitudes on the factors affecting their intention to choose a higher education institute. Many researchers regard a sample size between 30 and less than 500 as adequate (Roscoe, 1975, in Sekaran, 2000) who further argues that the sample size should be several times larger than the variables involved (10 times or more) in multivariate research and multiple regression analysis.

Measures

A structured questionnaire expedited in collecting data aimed at describing the relationships between the variables making up the conceptual model of this study.

The questionnaire had two sections. Section 1 consisted of the personal details of the participants on their gender, age, degree status, and from where they came. Section 2 consisted of 31 attitude statements categorised into six concepts representing the variables affecting students' intention to choose a higher education institute including the effect of social media on the intention to choose a higher education institute. The attitude statements were measured on a 5-Point Likert Scale as 1-strongly disagree; 2-disagree; 3-neither agree nor disagree; 4-agree and 5-strongly agree.

A pilot survey tested the questionnaire on 20 participants before the final design. A pilot survey helps to refine the attitude statements measured to the understanding of the respondents (Kothari, 2004). The attitude statements originated from the work of authors listed in "Table 1". The attitudes statements on social media arose from the original work of this study.

Attitude statements

Personal motives

I prefer a higher education institute that will enhance

my career prospects.

I prefer a higher education institute that will enhance

my future earnings prospects. I prefer a higher education institute that will help me to gain a higher status.

I prefer a higher education institute that will help me

to achieve my educational goals

I prefer a higher education institute recommended by

my family and friends.

Country Image

I prefer to study in a country culturally closer to mine.

I prefer to study in a country with an academic

reputation.

I prefer to study in a country where the cost of living is reasonable..

I prefer a country where the immigration procedures

are not demanding.

I prefer to study in a country where there are job opportunities for students.

I prefer to study in a country which has a safe and

secured environment.

I prefer to study in a country with a good university

and studying environment.

Adapted from

Harris and Halpin,2002

Sia, 2011

McCune, Hounsell, Christies,

Cree and Tett, 2010

Sia, 2011

University image

I prefer a higher education institute with academic reputation.

I prefer a higher education institute with a good ranking position.

I prefer a higher education institute with a good campus atmosphere.

I prefer a higher education institute with a good library and study area facilities.

I prefer a higher education institute with good sport and social facilities.

Programme evaluation

I prefer degree programmes with international recognition.

I prefer degree programmes with suitability and specialization.

I prefer degree programmes with recognition by future employers.

I prefer degree programmes with competitive costs in fees.

I prefer degree programmes with available financial support for students.

Intention to choose a higher education institute.

It provides the best offer on the subject I want to study.

The location is relatively easy to travel and reach.

It has a good academic reputation.

It is the only institution offering the subject that I want.

It is the only institution offering me a place on the subject that I want to study.

The effect of Social media on choosing higher education institute.

Through using social media, I can get an unofficial student view of a university.

I can receive enrolment offers through social media, for example, on Facebook.

I can get valuable insight information to a university through social media.

It is easier to make a well-informed, life-changing decision on social media.

Briggs, 2006

Soutar& Turner, 2002

Sia, 2011

Tan-Kuick and Ng, 2011 Menon, 1998

Li and Bernoff (2008)

Table 1 Attitude statements adapted from the literature

Design

This study is regarded as descriptive in nature and correlational in type since it clearly describes its objectives, variables, and makes predictions (Kothari, 2004). Being a field study in a natural setting and using a survey method, interference with the variables was at a minimum. The previously described questionnaire provided the means to collect data from a sample of 200 participating students from three different universities, approaching each participant individually at one point in time, making the study cross-sectional. The logic of the study was quantitative and deductive since researchers can readily replicate this type of approach for future verifications (Kumar, 2011).

Statistical analysis

IBM Statistics 25 package facilitated the analysis of data collected. The analysis provided descriptive statistics, reliability tests on the goodness of data, mean responses, correlations between the variables, and finally, regression analysis leading to testing the hypotheses.

Cronbach's Alpha reliability test was applied to test the reliability of the measuring instrument, questionnaire, for the scores overpopulation and time (Gall, Borg & Gall, 1996). The researchers used the content validity concept to measure the participants' attitudes and therefore, the construct of interest (Wong, Ong, and Kuek, 2012).

Expert academicians in the field of marketing with knowledge and experience in scientific research confirmed the content validity of the measuring instrument.

Results

The participating students completed all the 200 structured questionnaires, and the realisation rate was 100 per cent. The Cronbach's Alpha tests on the attitude statements were all above 0.60 as in Table 2 which are regarded as satisfactory in social sciences (Sekaran, 2013).

Attitude statements

Personal motives Country image

N of items

5 7

Cronbachs Alpha

.653 .702

University image 5 .788 Program evaluation 5 .752 Intention to choose a higher education institute 5 .705

Social media

4 .761 "Table 2" Cronbach's Alpha Tests

Gender frequencies of the participants showed that out of the 200 participants, there were 115 (57.5%) male and 85 female (42.5%) respondents. About 70% of the respondents represented those between the ages of 18 and 23. Most of the respondents were undergraduate students with a frequency of 72.5%. Most of the respondents were from Africa (51%) with the Cypriot students (11%) representing the least frequency.

The one sample statistics tests carried out on the factors affecting the respondents' intention to choose a higher education institute indicated positive results on a 5-Point Likert Scale. On a scale where the mean score from 0.01 to 1.00 is (strongly disagree); to 2.00 is (disagree); from 2.01 until 3.00 is (neutral); 3.01 until 4:00 is (agree); mean score from 4.01 until 5.00 is (strongly agree): Personal motives (5 attitude statements) strongly agreed with an average response of 4.03; Country image (7 attitude statements) strongly agreed with an average mean response of 4.10; Institute image (5 attitude statements) strongly agreed with an average mean response of 4.28; Programme evaluation (5 attitude statements) strongly agreed with an average mean response of 4.12; Intention to choose a higher education institute (5 attitude statements) agreed with an average response of 3.61; Social media (5 attitude statements) agreed with an average mean response of 3.31.

A 2-tailed, Pearson Bivariate Correlation analysis showed correlations according to Schober and Christa (2018) as a conventional approach to interpreting Correlation Coefficient, which was: Personal motives and the intention to choose a higher education institute were weakly correlated, r=.315, p

Following the Correlations, a regression analysis was applied to data to test the hypotheses. The results were as in "Table 2" below:

Motives H1

F1

F2

Significance: The significance of 0.000 is less than 0.05 which means it is significant, so the results conclude that the use of social media has a monitoring effect on personal motives affecting students' intention to choose a Higher education institute.

Country image

H2 The use of social media has a monitoring effect on country

image affecting students intention to choose a Higher

education Institute.

Supported

The use of social media has a monitoring effect on personal motives affecting students intention to choose a Higher education Institute.

F (1, 198) = 21.852 p 0.001

F (2, 197) = 19.395 p 0.001

F1 Supported

F2

Significance: The significance of 0.000 is less than 0.05 which means it is significant, so the results conclude that the use of social media has a monitoring effect on country image affecting students' intention to choose a Higher education institute.

Institute image

H3 The use of social media has a monitoring effect on institute image affecting students intention to choose a Higher education Institute.

F1

F (1, 198) = 14.143 p 0.001

F (2, 197) = 17.431 p 0.001

F (1, 197) = 39.292 p 0.001

F2

Significance: The significance of 0.000 is less than 0.05 which means it is significant, so the results conclude that the use of social media has a monitoring effect on institute image affecting students' intention to choose a Higher education institute.

Programme evaluation

H4 The use of social media has a monitoring effect on programme evaluation affecting students intention to choose a Higher education Institute

F1

F2

Supported

F (2, 196) = 29.629 p 0.001

F (1, 198) = 43.072 p 0.001

F (2, 197) = 31.736 p 0.001

Significance: The significance of 0.000 is less than 0.05 which means it is significant, so the results conclude that the use of social media has a monitoring effect on programme evaluation affecting students' intention to choose a Higher education institute.

Table 2 Tests of the Hypotheses

The regression analysis results in Table 2 have supported the hypotheses of this research that the use of social media has a monitoring effect on the independent variables of personal motives, country image, institute image, and programme evaluation which affect the intention to choose a higher education institute.

Discussion

The findings supported the primary notion of this research that social media has a moderating role in affecting the factors that influence students choice of a higher education institute.

Similar research was limited in number about ten years ago but escalating in the last few years. One can easily observe the abundant number of articles written on the role of social media affecting consumer behaviour and factors affecting consumer choice recently.

There has been some research that disagrees with the findings of this study. Constantinides E. and Stagno Z C M, 2012 reported that students viewed social media as a less critical information channel affecting their choice of a university. However, such findings should not be surprising if they existed in or before 2012.

The year 2012 was the year when the popularity of social media and the use of Smartphones were beginning. Social Admissions report (2017) reported that 63 per cent of students used social media search for a college. The report also talks about social media channels used by the students in search for a college as 68 per cent YouTube, 67 per cent Instagram, 63 per cent Facebook and 42 per cent Snapchat. The interpretation of this is that the role of social media on the factors affecting the intention to choose a higher education institute is not only escalating, but this influence resulted in different social media channels.

The notion of this research needs to be supported further with the students who are not only currently studying at higher education institutes but with those students also who are in the process of choosing and applying for higher education.

Studying the role of social media as one channel of marketing communications will not yield useful results. Social media today is fragmented into competing communications channels, and the significance and the role of each for the marketing activities of the higher education institutes need to be studied.

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Journal article title: The Role of Social Media in affecting Students" Choice of a Higher Education Institute