Student’s local top-up higher education choices

ABSTRACT

Making decisions about education choices is challenging and difficult for students. Utilising the theory of reasoned action, we specify and estimate a conceptual framework that captures the cognitive process of decision making of students in choosing top-up higher degrees in Hong Kong. Top-up higher or bachelor’s degrees are top-up undergraduate programmes forming a progression route for sub-degree graduates to earn bachelor’s degrees. We argue that attitudes, subjective norms and perceived value influence a student’s top-up higher education choices. Our results show that family members, educators, job availability and security, social image and difficulty of curriculum play critical roles in influencing students’ decision. We also find differences between females and males, between business and non-business students and between Year 1 and Year 2 students in higher education choices. These findings underscore the importance of educational institutions developing effective policies for promoting top-up higher degree programmes by taking cognisance of gender, the field of study and year of study differences and for policy makers to understand the dynamics of higher education.

KEYWORDS:

• Attitudes
• subjective norms
• perceived value
• top-up bachelor degree programmes
• theory of reasoned action
• Hong Kong

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Frank W. Agbola is Associate Professor at the Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle, Australia. His work has appeared in several applied economics and tourism journals. Recent publications have featured in Economic Modelling, Applied Economics, Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research, Tourism Analysis, Journal of Vocational Education and Training, Journal of Asia Pacific Economy and International Review of Economics and Finance. His research interests are in applied economics, development economics and tourism economics and economics education.

Dr Calvin Cheng is Lecturer in Marketing at the School of Professional Education and Executive Development, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. Dr Cheng is a Member of the Hong Kong Institute of Marketing (HKIM) and Associate Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM). He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals and conferences. His research interests are in consumer behaviour, brand management, relationship marketing, strategic management, and teaching and learning in higher education.

ORCID

Frank W. Agbola http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4351-9553