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In 2008, over 500,000 students were enrolled in New Zealand's tertiary education system. In order to improve tertiary education and provide for the needs of students, it is important to understand student attitudes and concerns regarding their tertiary education experiences. In an effort to gain greater knowledge of the tertiary sector from the student perspective, a series of focus group interviews were conducted with tertiary students from around the country. Participants were asked a number of questions regarding their experiences and their decision making processes. The key objectives of this project were: (1) to identify student choice and decision-making processes in tertiary education; (2) to reflect some student attitudes toward their current and past tertiary education experiences; and (3) to identify issues and concerns that may affect progress and successful completion within the tertiary education system.

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This paper was funded through the Community of Practice program, part of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) Building Researcher Capacity initiative. It is concerned with the question of how better to align student course choice with labour market demand for skills and the reasons for students selecting some courses over others. A small number of student case studies in the hospitality industry are presented as examples of why a career in hospitality does not appear to be as popular to students as a career in events management. These case studies are also used to develop a model for decision-making, which identifies the various stages of the decision-making process and the types of information and assistance that are required at each stage or combination of stages. The need for greater involvement of external stakeholders is identified as important in ensuring that students make an informed decision when choosing a career path. A model representing the ideal situation for student decision-making on career choice is proposed. Show less

This research offers insights into the options available to individuals as they navigate the vocational education and training (VET) market. Importantly, this study directly represents the voice of students, asking how their choices were made and whether their choice was sufficiently 'informed'. The student voice is contrasted with recent literature and data on measures of choice. Implications for policy and practice are explored, as are strategies for improving and broadening choice. The focus here is on examples from Victoria, the first state to initiate market reforms, by means of the Victorian Training Guarantee.

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Research has shown that university students often withdraw in their first year due to a change in career direction, enrolment in an unsuitable program of study or in a program not relevant to career goals. This paper describes work in progress to research the support needed by prospective students to help them determine what to study at university as it hypothesises that existing support services do not fully respond to the needs of prospective students in this regard. It will therefore explore the ways in which Year 12 students make decisions about what to study at university, and how universities, high schools and government organisations engage with prospective students. Knowledge gained from this study will enrich understanding of the prospective student experience and support the establishment of a framework for tertiary institutions to use to design student development strategies for prospective students.

Published abstract.

The project report is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 132.687. Show less

Educational studies as a discipline is now a feature in many British universities, but little research has been undertaken to explore what kinds of student choose the subject, how easily they access it or how they fare as undergraduate students. This article attempts to address this paucity of research by drawing on a selection of findings from a study undertaken with undergraduate students between 2004 and 2007. The study tracks the progress of a single cohort of students, some from vocational backgrounds and some from traditional academic backgrounds, on a full-time, three-year [Bachelor of Arts] BA Honours educational studies degree. The article initially provides a discussion relating to the historical place of educational studies as a subject for study at undergraduate level and suggests how this links to the British widening-participation agenda. This provides a context for the subsequent sections, which present a selection of findings from the three-year research project. The project was designed to explore the students' experiences by asking which of them were accepted to undertake the degree by admissions staff, how they fared on the degree and, critically, whether their pre-entry qualifications had an impact on their progress and success. This article provides some answers to these questions which suggest that admissions staff are more cautious in accepting vocational entry qualifications, but that the nature of these has little bearing on ultimate success on the degree. It concludes by suggesting how this knowledge might impact on information for potential applicants and on the selection of students in the future.

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The lack of appropriately qualified teachers in South Africa is growing rapidly and frequency of debates about the decline in teacher numbers in South Africa is increasing. In this study, the results of an investigation into possible factors that impact on the career choice of student teachers are reported. The reasons why first-year student teachers at the University of Pretoria chose teaching as a career were studied by using a non-experimental design (survey design; administering a non-standardised questionnaire). The results revealed inter alia that a number of factors influence the career choice of first-year student teachers. Trends that emerged from the current study include the following: many more women than men enter the teaching profession; relatively few students who speak an African language choose education as a field of study and the role of parents in helping their children to choose a career cannot be underestimated.

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This paper explores some specific outcomes resulting from the progressive implementation of national competition and new public management policies favouring increased user choice. Since the early-1990s vocational education and training strategies have consistently advocated for greater levels of student choice of provider in a contestable market. In addition to noting the significance of choice, the 1974 Kangan Review of TAFE [available in VOCEDplus at TD/LMR 85.637] also ensured that the post-school, non-university educational option was intimately linked to notions of access and equity in support of lifelong learning. The National Vocational Education and Training Provider Collection provides the data used to compare student and training package characteristics from different years selected because they mark key policy and program developments on the journey of implementation to the mature contestable training market in which over 4,000 providers compete. In particular the impact of increased student choice on measures of access and equity is identified through a trend analysis.

The specific characteristics include system-wide numbers of students and enrolments as well as the number of students by enrolment in the top 20 training packages, the various fields of education, level of relative remoteness/access to services, Indigenous status and level of relative socio-economic disadvantage. If the introduction of contestable markets has delivered the anticipated benefits in access, equity and choice that were projected in the various state and territory training entitlements/guarantees, it would be expected that the trends would show larger numbers of students from each equity group and region obtaining qualifications in a wider range of occupations. If not, the ability of the national training system to produce a nation of lifelong learners who experience equitable access by exercising a wide variety of choices is called into question; as is 25 years of bi-partisan public policy consistency.

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In this report, the author critically examines Australia’s experiment in uncapping undergraduate university enrolments. After just 18 months of operation, the new system is under threat. According to its critics it admits academically under-prepared students and consumes higher education funding that could be better used elsewhere. The author argues that the new system is achieving its goals. It is lifting the supply of graduates to Australia’s economy, increasing student choice, and improving access to higher education for disadvantaged groups. The report argues against recapping university places, proposing that it would make Australia’s higher education system less fair, less efficient, and less productive. Show less

Objective: A considerable amount of research identified socio-economic status and cognitive ability as robust predictors, the influence of student's ability to delay gratification (ADG) on their educational transition choice doesn't received researcher's attention. To address this gap, the present study examined the incremental power of students ADG in predicting the dichotomous choice i.e. the choice of general or vocational education after successful completion of compulsory schooling.

Methods: Amid [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 pandemic, cross sectional survey via an online mode was found feasible for the data collection process in our study. An online link of survey questionnaire was created in the Google forms and administered to (N=1024) grade 8 students in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. Multiple binary logistic regressions were conducted to predict the students' choice, and odds ratios and average marginal effects were reported for better interpretation of results.

Results: Our results showed that students tracking choice differed significantly with respect to their gender and locale (smaller effect), ADG (medium effect), and cognitive ability and socio-economic status (larger effect). The probability of choosing the track of vocational education (with general education track as a baseline category) increases as students ADG decreases, and vice versa. This association of student's ADG with the choice of vocational education track held same over and above the covariates - socioeconomic status, cognitive ability, gender and locale.

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The new English system of student finance seeks to resolve a higher education policy trilemma created by government's desire to switch more of the costs on to students, whilst seeking to promote both increased and widening participation. The rationale for this new funding system is based upon orthodox economic analysis which, the authors argue, rests upon inappropriate assumptions. Survey evidence from recent entrants is presented to support this critique and to question whether the current system can promote both informed student decision-making and widening participation.

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