Globalization And Internationalization

There has been a drastic increase in the process used in researching into the factors that play a role in the choices made by students as to which Universities they will like to study outside their home countries and this factors and are influenced by the globalization and the competitive nature of University Education. (Soutar & Turner, 2002; Petruzzellis & Romanazzi, 2010). Due to this competitive nature of the University Education, it has become more like a business entity and a field where marketing was not existing has now become remarkably one of the sectors that has marketise their activities.

Many have argued that Globalization and Internationalization are two different ideas. Scott (2000) argued that internationalization and globalization

Among the many who applied consumer behaviour theory to education was Chapman (1986) by suggesting that students and their parents should go through a few stages and eventually select an institution or subject of study. These stages include pre-search behavior, search behavior, application stage, choice decision and registration. The first stage. Pre-search behavior is when students at their early stages of thinking about what they would like to be in future. In search behavior stage, students’ shortlist the potential desirable study destination, institutes and courses. Then they submit their application to selected institutions in their application stage. Choice decision occurs when students accept an offer, depending on the number of offers received. Finally, during the registration stage, students reflect the right decision to register with the course, there is possibility that it is a wrong decision and turn down offer (Chapman, 1986; Factors influencing International students, Suh Li Phang ISSN: 651-4769, pg.

Students as consumers in this study have to be considered in their way of decision making. Many researchers have research into the consumer decision-making. Among them include Gabbot and Hogg (1994), Kotler (2003, 200-211), Mullins et al. (2005, 109 – 127), Chapman (1986) as mentioned earlier is one of the first who applied consumer behavior theory of education. With regards to Chapman’s model we see that the choice of students is influenced by a set of characteristics in combination with external factors or influences playing a major role.

Moogan (2003) also researched into the decision-making process of students. His focus was on the first three stages of the commonly used five stage model of consumer buying process. Moogan’s research was a large scale survey of 674 British students who were planning on entering into higher education within the next 12