Introduction

In today’s competitive job market, it is arguable that a bachelor’s degree/diploma weights little more than the value of a high school graduation twenty years ago. Increasingly more people are pursuing graduate studies to improve and expand their future career paths.
There are currently seventy-five graduate programs offered in Canada for students to choose from, according to information provided by Association of Universities and Colleges in Canada. In addition, choosing the right graduate school could not only enhance one’s qualification in terms of job application, but also provide the greatest enjoyment in studying.

At Simon Fraser University (SFU), students came from different parts of the world with a wide range of backgrounds. Hence, this research aims to study the key factors that SFU graduate students used in the selection process of a graduate program. The results promise insight into how graduate students evaluate and weight different selection criteria, as well as how the SFU Faculty of Graduate Studies can improve its communications in order to attract more students.

Literature Review

University Selection Criteria and Measurement Constructs

To ensure the construct validity of variables/factors influencing graduate institution selection, several articles of prior such research were reviewed. In an article by Grady Bruce who studied the results of the GMAC Global MBA Survey 2000, it was determined that the most important factor influencing school selection was “reputation,” followed by “school location”, “school ranking by a major publication”, “cost of tuition”, “campus visit” and “having a friend that attended the MBA program” (Bruce, 2001).

Also of interest to universities looking to woo students into their graduate programs are the factors influencing a student’s decision to pursue a graduate degree. Bruce finds that of those students responding to the GMAC survey, the most important factor was “development of management knowledge/technical skills”, followed by “increase in earning power” and the opportunity to improve themselves personally (Bruce, 2001). These factors tended not to differ much between graduates of more selective and less selective schools.

Since ranking is one of influencing factors, we also study publications that study school rankings, namely US New, Canadian Business and Business Weeks. In summary, variables used by these studies in school rankings were quality of a program’s faculty, student body, salary after graduation, quality of education, alumni satisfaction, and career advice.

Key Factors in choosing a graduate studying

In order to be able to design a better questionnaire for our survey first we need to define the potential key drivers in choosing SFU for a graduate study. Bertsch (2000) stated in his study that graduates prefer programs that provide opportunity to apply knowledge gained from classes to real life situations. These opportunities include presentation and written skill development, guest speakers by successful alumni, and special programs designed to develop students in their areas of interest.

In addition, in Baxter’s article “Choosing among professional and graduate schools”, he mentioned the factors a student should put into account while evaluating a school for his further education. Baxter’s suggested process of decision-making is as follow:

1. Specify the factors that affect your choice
2. Set up a table with a column for each school/program and a row for each factor.
3. Determine each program's score for each factor
4. Go to the school with the highest score.

His suggested road map can be a guideline for us in order to design our questionnaire such as defining potential key factors and asking the student to weight them based on their personal objectives.

Hypotheses

While descriptive in natures, this research was also intended to test the following alternate hypotheses:

HA1: There is a relationship between a student’s Graduate Discipline (Q04) and whether he had completed an undergraduate degree from SFU (Q02)
HA2: Mean Importance Ratings (Q08 to Q12) are significantly different between students who completed an Undergraduate Degree from SFU and those who did not (Q02)
HA3: Mean Importance Ratings (Q08 to Q12) are significantly different between students in different Graduate Programs (GradProg)
HA4: Mean Overall Impression Ratings of SFU vs. Next Alternative (Q13) is significantly different from the Neutral Value of 5
HA5: Mean Overall Impression Ratings of SFU vs. Next Alternative (Q13) is significantly different between students who completed an Undergraduate Degree from SFU and those who did not (Q02)
HA6: Mean Overall Impression Ratings of SFU vs. Next Alternative (Q13) is significantly different between students in different Graduate Programs (GradProg)

Methodology

Research Design

To find significant relationships between different key criteria and the selection of SFU to pursue graduate work, a descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted of graduate students currently registered at SFU. Given the nature of the research and respondent group in terms of accessibility and expected response behaviours, a web-based survey was deemed the best data collection technique for the research study.

Sample

The population for this study included graduate students partaking in a Simon Fraser graduate program. At the time of this research, there were a total of 2,228 full-time or part-time graduate students across the Faculties of Applied Sciences, Arts, Education, Science, and in the daytime MBA program. Within this population, the sample frame included all graduate students registered in their respective graduate student email lists. While it is safe to assume that not all graduate students will have registered in these email lists, it is uncertain what sample frame size exactly is.

A total of 359 students responded to the initial email invitation and partook in the online survey. The response rate is therefore better than 16% (359/<2,228). From this sample, 58 records were removed from the final data set. Reasons for removal included: incomplete responses (41) or multiple responses (2), failure to provide an email address for verification (14), or suspicious responses (1). The final sample size used for analysis was 301.

Unit of Analysis

The unit of analysis is the individual graduate student enrolled in SFU. Additionally, where the investigative question requires that individual students be aggregated by their respective disciplines/concentrations, the unit of analysis becomes the specific graduate program.

Instrument

Overall the online survey was structured around five major sections. First, the respondent was asked to provide some basic background information pertaining to his academic background (e.g., undergraduate and graduate discipline). The respondent was then asked about his information gathering process and of the number of institutions/programs other than SFU that he had seriously considered or applied to. Third, a series of selection criteria was presented to the respondent, and asked to provide an importance rating (7-point Likert-type scale) for each. The selection criteria were organized around reputation, admissions, monetary, program, and institutional factors. Next, those respondents who had previously indicated that they had seriously considered or applied to one or more other graduate programs were asked to provide the name of their ‘second choice’ institution had not selected SFU. These respondents were then asked to compare their overall impressions of SFU vis-à-vis their next alternative across in terms of the five selection criteria factors mentioned above. Finally, some basic demographic information on each respondent was collected, including: gender, age, marital status, children, citizenship status, area of residence, and years of work experience.

Procedure

The survey with graduate students at Simon Fraser University will be conducted online, which means graduate students are asked to fill out a web-based questionnaire. This technique has both benefits and shortcomings. Benefits include convenience, ease of use, reduction of data entry errors as responses get automatically inputted into a SPSS data file (complete with variable and value labels), real-time viewing of incoming data, flexible analysis and reporting capabilities, as well as being more cost and time-effective. On the downside, conducting online surveys could cause some sampling errors, which are further discussed in the “Sources of Error” section below.

A pre-test of the survey instrument was conducted with a small sample of MBA students (7). Feedback generally was positive and at most involved very minor cosmetic recommendations. The initial email invitation was sent to all the graduate student email lists explaining the nature of the research. Additionally, the message contained a URL link that takes the respondent directly to the survey website. A $50 honorarium (in the form of a gift certificate for the university bookstore) was used to encourage and remunerate participation. A survey closing date was specify to communicate the urgency of their response.

Four days after the initial email invitation was sent out, a follow-up reminder notice was distributed to 1) thank those who had already respondent, 2) notify respondents that survey findings will be made available for those interested, and 3) elicit participation from those who had yet to respond. This follow-up notice was sent to all email lists with the exception of the MBA group, which was engaged in a heavy work week and the researcher did not feel the reminder would be very effective. Instead, the reminder message to the MBAs was sent out four days later, or a total eight days after the reminder notice. In total, the survey was active for ten days.

Results

Data Analyses and Results

Among the 301 participants, 60% are female and 40% are male. The average age of these respondents is 29.8 years with a standard deviation of 7.35 years. The average years of work experience is 4.64 years with a standard deviation of 6.07 years. 60% of these respondents are single. 83% of them have no children. 76% are Canadian citizens, 19% are international students, and 5% are landed immigrants. 41% of them have undergraduate degree in Science, 37% in Arts, and the rest have degrees in either Business Administration (8.6%), Computer Sciences (3.0%), Engineering (3.3%), General Studies (0.3%) or Other (6.6%). In addition, 26% of all participants received their undergraduate degree from SFU.

Prior to selecting the graduate school, 46% of all participants lived in the Greater Vancouver, 24% lived outside of B.C. but within Canada and 21% lived outside of Canada. Currently, 39% of all participants are studying in the Science Graduate Program and 31% in the Arts Graduate Program. The most common way these participants used to collect information about SFU was online search (75%), followed by brochures (38%), calendar (34%), family referral (32%) and employer referral (28%).

Twenty-six percent of the respondents had applied only to a SFU Graduate Program, while 23% considered one other school, and 24% considered two others besides SFU. For those who applied to one or more schools, 52% were also accepted by these other schools. Nevertheless, they chose SFU as their graduate schools.

Overall, respondents’ importance ratings on various issues on school selection criteria are as the following. In the area of Reputation, reputation of the institution is considered important to 57% of respondents; reputation of the Graduate program is important to 64% of respondents and reputation of the faculty and/or instructors is important to 70% of respondents. Moreover, tuition cost is rated important by 38% of respondents, while 30% of the rest only considered this issue as “somewhat important.” Also, the availability of financial aids, such as award and scholarship, is important to 48% of respondents. The availability of Teaching/Research assistantships is important to 59% of respondents. With regards to issues associated with graduate programs, the availability of specializations is important to 74% of respondents, while the structure of program is important to 55% of respondents. The location of institution is important to 49% of respondents.

Respondents were also asked to compare SFU to their next choice of graduate school. All respondents rated SFU better than their second option of school, especially on monetary factors and program benefits. Refer to Appendix E for these and other results from our study.

Statistical Analyses and Results

To compare the relationship between a student’s Graduate Discipline and whether he had completed an undergraduate degree from SFU, we ran a Chi-Square test. The Pearson Chi-Square (c²=9.393) showed that there is no significant association between the variables.

Next we evaluated the relationships between students who have an undergraduate degree from SFU and also between students across graduate programs for all importance rated items. We conducted a two-way, multivariate ANOVA to analyze both the individual relationships as well as the interaction effects. Importance rated items that were significantly different between graduate disciplines were: rating of the institution (c=3.93®5.52) and of the graduate program (c=3.83®5.68) by a major publication; meeting the minimum entrance exam (c=2.75®5.64) and work experience requirements (c=2.87®5.28); accessibility of student visa (c=2.25®4.00); availability of teaching assistantships (c=4.48®6.00) and other employment opportunities (c=3.14®5.75); cost of living (c=4.05®6.00); length and flexibility of graduate program (c=4.00®5.80); and availability of recreational opportunities (c=2.91®4.47).

Importance rated items that were significantly different between those who had completed their undergraduate degree at SFU and those who did not were: reputation of faculty (X=6.01 vs. 5.75) and location of the institution (X=5.79 vs. 4.65), respectively.

Importance rated items that showed significant interaction effects between graduate program and those who had completed their undergraduate degree at SFU and those who did not were: reputation of faculty and meeting the minimum entrance exam requirements. Specifically, importance ratings for reputation of faculty were highest among computer science (X=7.00) and science (X=7.00) graduate students who had completed their undergraduate degree at SFU. Conversely, they were lowest among computer science (X=4.90) graduates who did not receive their undergraduate degree at SFU.

To test the overall impressions of SFU versus the students’ next alternative, one-sample t-tests were conducted against a critical value of five (neutral). Most factors (admissions requirements, monetary factors, program benefits, and institutional benefits) were found to be significantly different from a neutral point, with the exception of reputation items.

To test differences in overall impressions between students who completed their undergraduate degree at SFU and those who did not, we conducted independent sample t-tests. The only significant difference between ratings by the two groups was found for overall impressions of institutional benefits.

We then tested the difference between the means of overall reputation impressions and overall impressions of monetary factors using a paired sample t-test. A significant difference was indeed found between the means.

Next a multiple linear regression was run to test the importance ratings of all selection criteria against the dependent variable years of work experience. The results show that more than 30% (R2=.307) of the variance in work experience was explained by these factors. Specifically, the factors that were significant include: tuition costs (X=.210); availability of teaching/research assistantships (X=-.152); post-graduate salary expectations (X=-.149); flexibility of graduate program (X=.333); location of institution (X=.183); and availability of recreational opportunities (X=-.187).

Lastly, a factor analysis was performed on importance rated items. After a number of trials, those items under the institutional factors heading (Q12) were removed to improve loading. As a result, six factors were identified with coefficients greater than .50 for each item. Only accessibility of student visa did not load into any of the six factors.

Hypothesis Tests

HA1 was not supported by our result. There is no relationship between graduate discipline and whether the student had completed an undergraduate degree from SFU.

HA2 was supported. There were significant differences in the importance rating of some selection criteria between students who completed an Undergraduate Degree from SFU and those who did not

HA3 was supported. There were significant differences in the mean importance ratings of some selection criteria between students in different Graduate Programs.

HA4 was supported with the exception of the overall impression ratings of reputation.

HA5 was not supported with the exception of overall impressions of institutional benefits. The means were significantly different between those who had an undergraduate degree from SFU than those who did not for this factor.

HA6 was supported. There were significant differences in the mean overall impression ratings of reputation and monetary factors. However, the other factors did not show significant differences.

Discussion

Interpretation of Results

Since HA1 is not supported, we can conclude that no SFU Graduate Program has a significantly greater proportion of students with an undergraduate degree from SFU.
In respect to HA2, generally, those who had completed an undergraduate degree at SFU rated the reputation of faculty as more important than those who did not. It appears that positive experiences these students had had with their professors influenced their importance rating for faculty reputation. Also, those who had completed an undergraduate degree at SFU rated the location of institution as more important than those who did not. Therefore, it is likely that these graduate students had conveniently located housing already in place, and perhaps were not interested in relocated

In respect to HA3, there are significant differences in importance ratings between students in different graduate disciplines. For example, business graduate students place greater importance on the institution’s rating by a major publication than other faculties. Therefore, it appears that different selection criteria are used to select different graduate programs.
Since HA4 is supported, it can be concluded that SFU rates significantly higher than the students’ next alternative in terms of admissions, monetary, program, and institutional factors/benefits. These factors appear to be driving the selection of SFU as a graduate school more than the reputation of SFU, as this was the only factor where it did not rate significantly greater than the alternative.

Since HA5 is not largely supported, it appears that one’s overall impressions of SFU are not impacted by whether one had received his undergraduate degree from SFU. However, this is not the case for institutional benefits. It appears that those who had completed their undergraduate degree from SFU more readily recognized the benefits of the institution.
Since HA6 is supported with respect to overall impression ratings of reputation and monetary factors. Specifically, computer science graduates perceived SFU as having a better reputation (X=5.385) than engineering graduates (X=2.00). Therefore, reputation is not necessarily a broad-based factor, but instead is dependent upon the faculty one plans to enter. In terms of monetary factors, business graduates perceive SFU as much better (X=7.00) than science graduates (X=5.45) perceive SFU. The lower tuition for the business faculty is likely the cause of this higher impression rating.

Limitations

The current study is not without limitations. First, the restricted nature of the sample limits the generalization of the study findings to other populations. Our sample pool contained only SFU students who were listed in the SFU email system, instead of sampling all graduate students in the North America. Thus our findings should not be generalized to all SFU graduate students, nor to students in other graduate institutions. Second, due to the nature of our survey method, which was a web-based survey, respondents could potentially participate in the survey more than once. While there were dual mechanisms in place to detect ‘ballot-stuffing’ activities (i.e., duplicate email and IP address identification), such measures do not provide complete assurance.

While our overall results were encouraging, the most substantial shortcoming was due to questionnaire structure and format. We asked students to first rate the level of importance on different factors and then evaluate SFU in comparison to their ‘second choice’ alternative. Therefore, we were not able to do a thorough comparison on students’ evaluation of SFU and their expectations from SFU.

Finally, a monetary incentive was used to increase the response rate. The nature of the incentive may have introduced a self-selection bias. For example, those who were attracted to the incentive might be more inclined to participate in our survey than others. Although we were aware that monetary incentive itself might cause some errors, we decided to pursue it as a means of obtaining a higher response rate.

Managerial Summary

Based on our findings and analysis, the following managerial applications are recommended to the SFU Graduate Studies office.

First of all, the result shows that 76% of students are Canadians. Since one of the goals in graduate studies is to extend the scope of knowledge, we recommend SFU to promote its graduate programs to international students who will add worldwide experiences and perspectives into the classroom. One of the possible ways to facilitate this goal would be to enhance its website – a global communications medium. Making information more readily available online would be the most efficient way to promote SFU internationally, since it would be safe to presume most candidates could have access to the Internet.

Institutionally, SFU should improve on the following areas in order to compete with other schools throughout Canada and US. First, SFU should emphasize the reputation of the institution, its graduate programs, and its faculty/instructors. This can be achieved perhaps by promoting publications written by SFU faculty. Also, SFU can work with well-known international and multinational corporations to establish a reputation outside of academia. By all means, a long-term career development is what most of graduate students aim for by taking graduate studies. Hence, it is logical and reasonable for SFU to establish rapport with corporations for students’ future career advancements.

Secondly, most students suggested that they chose SFU because it has a wide variety of specializations. A broad range of specialization also makes a school more attractive to students. Hence, SFU should continue its superior design of program structure and curricula and find new, innovative ways and areas to improve on it.

Thirdly, SFU should provide more housing and monetary assistant programs for graduate students who often have families to support. Better housing options can allow graduate students to relocate to British Columbia with reduced inconvenience. Also, increasing teaching/research assistantship opportunities provide students a steady financial resource to cover tuition and living expense at the same time. One of the more interesting results derived from our study is that students considered SFU is the most affordable graduate school among the schools they have considered. Thus it is a significant indication that tuition cost is one of the primary factors why SFU is able to attract more students.