Executive summary

La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. The university has a number of smaller campuses in different countries including Vietnam. The aim of this research concentrated on Latrobe campus in Hanoi University.

Latrobe University is now in a position where it has to compete with other international universities joining the education market in term of quality and other important elements. The main goal of this research is to investigate the relative importance of the choice factors, as well as the usefulness of different sources of information collected from Latrobe University’s students at Hanoi University campus in order to provide our target market more value than ours competitors.

Our research followed a two-stage research design. The first stage included an extensive literature review of secondary data on university landscape globally and locally, the marketing of university and the consumer decision-making process students go through when selecting a university. The second stage was descriptive research choice which was conducted to investigate the objective that previously mentioned.

The data collection instrument is questionnaire. When designing the questionnaire we considered the topic, the type of respondent, interviewing environment and length of the interview to ensure that respondents will give their cooperation

Using descriptive analysis, Chi – square test and t-test to solve problems, at the end, we was interpreted the hypotheses results and gave the final summary as well as the limitation of this survey.

Table of Contents

List of figure

Figure 1: Gender of respondents         12

Figure 2: Age of respondents         13

Figure 3: The average income in respondents’ family         14

List of table

Table 1: Response rate         11

Table 2: The importance of different university characteristics (choice factors)         15

Table 3: Usefulness of information sources         16

Table 4: Image of Latrobe University*other variables        18

     Table 4.1: Image of Latrobe University * University location (Hanu campus).....................................18

     Table 4.2: Image of Latrobe University * Attractiveness of Hanu campus............................................19

    Table 4.3: Image of Latrobe University * Campus safety and security        19

    Table 4.4: Image of Latrobe University * Quality of teaching         19

    Table 4.5: Image of Latrobe University * Fee         20

    Table 4.6: Image of Latrobe University * Academic facilities         20

    Table 4.7: Image of Latrobe University * Social life on campus         20

    Table 4.8: Image of Latrobe University * International links         21

    Table 4.9: Image of Latrobe University * Relationship          21

Table 5: Independent samples test 1 result         22

Table 6: Group Statistic         23

Table 7: Independent samples test 2 result        24

Introduction

La Trobe University is a multi-campus university in Victoria, Australia. It was established in 1964 as Victoria’s third university by an Act of Parliament (Gregory, John S. (1989). "Qui Cherche, Trouvre: the first twenty-five years". Building La Trobe University: Reflections on the First 25 Years. Bundoora (Victoria): La Trobe University Press, p3. ISBN 1 86324 003 9). The main campus of La Trobe is located in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora; two other major campuses are located in the Victorian city of Bendigo and the NSW-Victorian border centre of Albury-Wodonga. The university has a number of smaller campuses in different countries such as China, India, and Indonesia as well as in Vietnam.

La Trobe campus in Vietnam (Hanoi & HoChiMinh city) offers undergraduate and postgraduate courses across in such programs:

  •  Doctor of Education
  •  Master of Applied Linguistics
  •  Diploma in Business Administration
  •  Master of Business Administration
  •  Bachelor of Business

The aim of this research concentrated on Latrobe campus in Hanoi University with two majors includes: Diploma in Business Administration and Bachelor of Business. For the purpose of this study, the focus is on the consumer decision-making process of students, specifically choice factor importance and information source usefulness, when selecting to participate in Latrobe University.

There are several steps involve in the research process which are discussed below. Those steps to conduct in this research by explaining the research problem, objectives, hypotheses, research design, sampling plan, data collection methods, questionnaire design, as well as the gathering and processing of the date. It helps to provide information to understand the environment, identify problems and opportunities, and evaluate a marketing strategy to reach existing and potential customer, in this case are students. Thus the aim of this survey is to improve marketing decision-making of Latrobe University.

Identify the problem

Vietnam’s educational landscapes as well as the global arena has become increasingly significantly. Competition is much stronger than before, with more international university joining the education market such as: Raffles International College, Griggs University, Sunderland University, and Troy University etc.

Universities are now in a position where they have to compete with each other in quality and other important elements. To survive in this competitive environment, Latrobe University must have an advantage, which means that we must provide our target market with more value than ours competitors. In order to provide superior value to students, what we need to do is to anticipate and react to student’s needs, thus, understanding students’ behaviour. Furthermore, it is necessary to pay attention to the factors students consider when they have to make a decision on which university they enrol at.

Determine the research objective

After identifying the research problem, we need to develop research objectives. A marketing research objective can be defined as the specific information needed to solve a marketing research problem. Objectives may be spelled out in terms of a hypothesis or being formed as questions or statements. Look closer to emphasize the need for university education to identify the choice factors and various information sources used by students, in order to understand they better. The main goal of this research is therefore to investigate the relative importance of the choice factors, as well as the usefulness of different sources of information collected from Latrobe University’s students at Hanoi University campus. The primary research objectives are:

  • Determine the relative importance of each of the 10 identified choice factors that students used to select Latrobe University.
  • Investigate the usefulness source of information
  • Determine whether there is relationship between image of Latrobe University and the nine other factors.
  • Determine whether there are gender differences regarding the importance students attach to choice factors when selecting Latrobe University.
  • Determine if students that have lower family’s average income make more use of WOM as a source of information than students have higher family’s average income.

The research design

A formal research design was used to test the stated hypotheses. Our research followed a two-stage research design. The first stage included an extensive literature review of secondary data on university landscape globally and locally, the marketing of university and the consumer decision-making process students go through when selecting a university. The literature review contains research reports, internet search and textbooks.

The second stage was descriptive research choice which was conducted to investigate the objective that previously mentioned. Students were questioned and their response collected by means of a structured questionnaire. The researcher was only able to report the importance of the choice factors in the university selection process and other related issue.

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Descriptive research was used, as the purpose was determine the relative importance of each choice factor and the usefulness of various sources of information. According to Alvin C.Burns and Ronald F. Bush, descriptive research desirable when we wish to project a study’s findings to a large popular if the study’s sample is representative. The study aimed to provide a description (in terms of convenience sample) of the following: socio-demographic information contains brief profile of first year students in term of gender, age, etc; behavioural information consist of the decision-making process specifically the choice factors and information sources influencing university selection ...

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