4.7 DATA COLLECTION & ANALYSIS
4.7.1 Archival Research
Archival Research was used to collect information that was already available about how enrolled students that joined the university in January 2014 & September 2014 found out about the course/university. This method was employed as part of the data collection process because some of the data that was already available in the university could be used to answer the first research question about the interpersonal sources from which prospective students obtain the information required to make decisions about which university to choose. The researcher obtained a list of the students that enrolled at the university in January & September 2014 and examined the application forms completed by them to collect the information that they provided about how they found out about their courses and the university. The information was collected from the answer that the students had provided to a question on the application form that asked how they found out about the course/university. The researcher obtained the answers provided to the questions by 178 out of the 236 African students (75%) that enrolled at the university in January & September 2014. The researcher was unable to locate the application forms for some of the rest of the applicants and the others did not provide an answer to the question on where they found out about the course.
The answer provided by each student was entered on the list of enrolled students obtained by the researcher and transferred onto a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that enabled the researcher to obtain a summary of the data collected. The Microsoft Excel
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software was then used to generate a pie chart and bar chart that summarised the data for presentation in the findings section of the thesis.
4.7.2 Survey Questionnaire
A questionnaire containing eleven questions (See Appendix 1) was designed and printed double sided on A4 paper by the researcher in order to collect the data required to achieve the research objectives. The questionnaire was administered through group distribution at the four welcome events organised for African students that joined the university in January 2014 and September 2014. The completed questionnaires were checked, numbered and coded by the researcher in preparation for analysis. The data from the questionnaires were entered into an SPSS Version 20 file created by the researcher and checked for errors. The researcher then used descriptive analysis on SPSS to transform the data into different forms so that they can be easily interpreted and understood when reported in the presentation of findings section.
4.7.3 In-depth Interviews
Sixteen face – to – face in-depth interviews were conducted with African students that enrolled at the university in September 2014 in order to get a good understanding of the roles played by different interpersonal sources during the decision – making process and the ways in which the different groups of interpersonal sources influenced their decision to join the university. The researcher used stratified sampling by dividing the African students into different nationalities and taking a random sample from each nationality. The researcher emailed the selected students to invite them to participate in the study. The researcher received responses from eighteen respondents and was able to conduct interviews with sixteen of them. The interviews were transcribed by the researcher and the responses were grouped under six main headings. Content analysis was used to identify the main themes that emerged from the responses given by each respondent under the different headings.
4.8 Conclusion
The researcher undertook primary research to gain additional insights into the use of interpersonal sources by prospective international students of African origin in the evaluation of alternatives stage of the decision-making process for UK higher education. Although the review of existing literature provided general information on the decision-
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making process for UK higher education, it did not provide the specific information required to address the research questions. The intention of the researcher is not only to improve understanding of the subject area but to link this understanding to the deployment of appropriate marketing communication strategies by institutions that are recruiting students from these markets.
The use of a mixed method design provides completeness, explanation, credibility, illustration and enables the researcher to effectively address the different research questions. The combination of qualitative and quantitative findings also enables the researcher to forge an overall or negotiated account of the findings that is not possible through the application of a single method. Archival research through the analysis of the application forms of the African students enrolled at the university enabled the researcher to use data that was already available to provide some insights for the study. Due to the normal constraints of time and cost a survey seemed the most appropriate tool that would enable the researcher to gather data on the characteristics of the sample and their opinion on the topic. The administration of the survey at the Welcome Events for African students enabled the researcher to get a response from one out of every three African students that joined the university in 2014.
Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted with members of the population in order to gather the data required to provide answers to the final research question about the ways in which interpersonal sources influence students’ decisions at the evaluation of alternatives stage. The research tool was selected because of its ability to provide the rich data required to generate the information required to effectively address the research question. The table below shows that both tools have been used successfully by researchers in the past to effectively gather the data required to develop understanding of various issues in the subject area:
Study Focus / Respondents Research Tools
Moogan (2011) UK Higher education: first year university students
In-depth interviews & self – completion questionnaires Moogan & Baron (2003) UK Higher education:
students at FE colleges
Self – completion questionnaires Brown et al (2009) UK Higher education: first
year university students
Focus groups Moogan et al (1999) UK Higher education: sixth
form pupils
Group interviews / discussions & self – completion
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Dawes & Brown (2003) UK Higher education: first year university students
Self – completion questionnaire Manthorpe et al (2010) UK Higher education:
applicants for social work programmes
Online survey, group discussion & interviews and focus groups
Briggs & Wilson (2007) UK Higher education: first year university students
Self – completion questionnaire Donaldson & McNicholas
(2004)
UK postgraduate market: first year postgraduate students
Qualitative interviews and self – completion questionnaires Maringe (2006) UK Higher education: sixth
form pupils
Self – completion questionnaire Dawes & Brown (2003) UK Higher Education: first
year university students
Interviews and survey Binsardi & Ekwulugo UK Higher Education:
international students
Survey, in-depth interviews and archival research
Table 4.8: Research tools used by other researchers in the subject area
The quantitative data gathered through the survey was analysed with SPSS Version 20 and the different types of data generated are presented. The qualitative data gathered through the in-depth interviews was analysed using content analysis and data generated is also presented along with other findings.
Bryman & Bell (2011) identified the most prominent criteria for the evaluation of business and management research as reliability, replicability and validity. The extent to which the study fulfils these requirements will determine the perception of the quality of the research outcomes by all stakeholders. Reliability relates to whether the data collection techniques and analytical procedures employed in the study would produce consistent findings if they were repeated on another occasion or if they were replicated by another researcher. This is a challenging issue to address, especially in the light of threats like participant or researcher errors and bias.
Validity relates to the integrity of the conclusions that are generated by the study. Internal validity addresses the question of whether a conclusion that incorporates a relationship between two or more variables actually holds water (Bryman & Bell, 2011). External validity relates to the question of whether the results of the study can be generalized beyond the specific research context. In addressing the issue of internal validity, the researcher ensured that the research design includes a sufficient number of perspectives as reflected by previous studies in the subject area. Although, it is difficult to guarantee the reliability of the study, the researcher has provided sufficient detail
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about the research design to provide the best opportunity for others to conduct similar studies in future. Every effort has been made to eliminate or reduce participant or researcher errors & bias.
Whilst the sample is not sufficiently diverse to allow inferences beyond the UK higher education sector, the results of the study can be reasonably generalised to other post – 92 UK universities recruiting the same calibre of students from the main African countries represented by the respondents.
The next chapter will present the main findings from the implementation of the research plan. It will outline the information gathered through archival research, survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews.
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5 PRESENTATION OF FINDINGS
In this chapter, the main findings from the research study will be outlined and explained.
5.1 Introduction
The main purpose of the study is to explore the use of interpersonal sources (teachers, career advisers, friends & relatives, agents, university reps, etc.) in the evaluation of alternatives stage of the decision-making process for prospective UK international higher education students from Africa.
The main research questions are:
1. What are the interpersonal sources from which prospective international students obtain the information required to make decisions on which university to choose?
2. How important is information obtained from interpersonal sources in the decision-making process?
3. Which interpersonal sources are most influential at the evaluation of alternatives stage of the decision-making process?
4. In what ways do interpersonal sources influence the decision of prospective international students at the evaluation of alternatives stage of the decision- making process?
As the information required to answer the research questions was gathered through the use of archival research, survey questionnaire and in-depth interviews, it is important to establish the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative research data and how they will be used in the study.
Although drawing upon data across the quantitative / qualitative spectrum can occur at all stages of the research process, the quantitative & qualitative data for this study were collected & analysed separately; with both strands being mixed at the interpretation stage. The quantitative data from the archival research and survey questionnaires are used to address the first two research questions. Quantitative data from the survey questionnaire is used to address the third research question. The answers presented by the researcher to these research questions are based purely on the quantitative data. The qualitative data from the in-depth interviews is used to provide answers to the fourth
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research question which identifies the ways in which the different interpersonal sources influence the decisions of prospective international students. Excerpts from answers provided by respondents to the open-ended question in the survey questionnaire are used to support the responses provided by interviewees. Thus the qualitative data is used to provide explanations on why and how the main interpersonal sources influence the decisions of African students at the evaluation of alternatives stage of the decision- making process.
The conclusions reached in the study will reflect what was learnt from the combination of results from both the quantitative and qualitative strands with the former providing `hard evidence’ and the latter providing explanations.
5.1.1 Archival Research
This involved the collection of information about how applicants found out about the university. The researcher analysed the application forms completed by the African students enrolled at the university in January & September 2014 intakes to collect the information that they provided about how they found out about their courses and the university. The information was collected from the answer that the students had provided to a question in Section 10 of the application form which states: “Please tell us where you found out about this course?” The corresponding question on the online application form states: “Please tell us where you learned of this course”. The researcher was able to get access to the applications forms completed by most of the students. The researcher obtained the answers provided to the questions by 178 out of the 236 African students (75%). The researcher was unable to locate the application forms for some of the rest of the applicants and the others did not provide an answer to the question on where they found out about the course. A full breakdown of the nationalities of the students is shown below:
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Nationality No. of Students
Nigerian 121 Kenyan 11 Zimbabwean 9 Libyan 6 Zambian 6 Egyptian 5 Mauritian 4 Ghanaian 2 Ugandan 2 Tanzanian 2 Ivorian 2 Cameroonian 1 Botswanan 1 Beninese 1 Ethiopian 1 Sierra Leonean 1 Angolan 1 Swazi 1 Sudanese 1 TOTAL 178
Table 5.1: Archival research nationalities of African students A diagrammatic representation of their nationalities is shown below:
Figure 5.1: Archival research nationalities of African students
68% of the applicants are Nigerians, 6% are Kenyans, 5% are Zimbabweans, 3% are Libyans, 3% are Zambians, 3% are Egyptians, 2% are Mauritians and the remaining 9% are from 12 other African countries.
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5.1.2 Survey
The questionnaires distributed to some of the African students that joined the university in January & September 2014 was completed by 80 students. The 80 usable questionnaires represent 34% of the 236 African students that joined the university in January & September 2014. A full breakdown of the nationalities of the students is shown below:
Nationality No. of Students
Nigerian 60 Kenyan 3 Zimbabwean 3 Zambian 2 Mauritian 2 Ghanaian 1 Ugandan 3 Tanzanian 2 Cameroonian 1 Algerian 1 Sierra Leonean 1 Not Stated 1 TOTAL 80
Table 5.2: Questionnaire survey nationalities of African students A diagrammatic representation of their nationalities is shown below:
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75% of the respondents are Nigerians, 4% are Kenyans, 4% are Zimbabweans, 4% are Ugandans and the remaining 13% are from 7 other African countries.
The group includes 36 males (45%) and 44 females (55%) as shown by the diagram below:
Figure 5.3: Gender breakdown of respondents
The group includes 12 students aged 17 – 21 (15%), 23 students aged 22 – 25 (29%), 32 students aged 26 – 35 (40%) and 10 students aged over 36 (13%) as shown by the diagram below. Three students did not provide an answer to the question on age group.
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Figure 5.4: Age groups of respondents
The group includes 44 Postgraduate students (55%) and 36 Undergraduate students (45%) as shown by the diagram below:
Figure 5.5: Breakdown of respondents by course level
5.1.3 In–depth Interviews
The researcher conducted in–depth interviews with sixteen African students that enrolled at the university in September 2014 in order to gather the data required to
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provide answers to the final research question about the ways in which interpersonal sources influence students’ decisions. The table below provides some demographic information about the interviewees:
Number Sex Nationality Level Age
1 Male Nigerian Bachelors 22
2 Female Nigerian Bachelors 35
3 Male Zimbabwean Bachelors 19
4 Female Kenyan Bachelors 24
5 Male Nigerian Masters 29
6 Male Nigerian Bachelors 29
7 Female Kenya Bachelors 22
8 Male Nigerian Masters 25
9 Male Nigerian Bachelors 28
10 Male Nigerian Masters 37
11 Male Nigerian Bachelors 23
12 Female Mauritian Bachelors 20
13 Female Ghanaian Bachelors 29
14 Female Nigerian Bachelors 28
15 Female Nigerian Masters 24
16 Male Zambian Masters 28
Table 5.3: Demographic data for in-depth interview participants