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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2005. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, xii, 260 p.; also includes graphics. Includes bibliographical references (p. 175-195). Available online via OhioLINK's ETD Center

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / William F. Blankenau / This dissertation investigates two essential features of the US economy. First, it explores how news about future productivity changes business cycle fluctuations. Using the a representative agent model, it shows that implementation labor in workplace organization could be an important channel through which news about the fundamentals can realistically generate US business cycle fluctuations. Further this idea is extended using the perspective of sunspot fluctuations. In particular, the model can lead to multiple equilibria under specific parameterizations. Second, a general equilibrium model has been developed with heterogeneous agents to explain the wage polarization feature of the US labor market, particularly how the price of an important technology is connected to lifetime earnings of agents and affects their college decisions. The following summarizes the three chapters of my dissertation. The first chapter which I co-authored with Dr. Blankenau, argues that purchasing investment goods does not directly increase the productive capacity of a business. Changes in the business through the installation of capital, worker training, and workplace reorganization are often required. These changes themselves are not easily automated. Change requires workers. We build a model where investment requires a complementary labor input. This mechanism is embedded in a representative agent model with capacity utilization, adjustment costs, and separable preferences. We show that this environment can yield positive co-movement between consumption, investment, and labor hours when the economy experiences a news shock about future productivity, thus providing an additional channel through which news shocks can generate key business cycle features. The second chapter is an extension of the first chapter. I investigate the indeterminacy in a representative agent model with implementation labor and increasing returns in production. First, my analysis shows that a representative agent with implementation labor can exhibit increasing returns to scale. Then I show that self-fulfilling beliefs of agents lead to business cycle fluctuations in which multiple equilibria can arise under specific parameterizations. Specifically, implementation labor in the production of capital is the highly important, necessary condition for the self-fulling equilibrium outcome. The third chapter, which is also a joint work with Dr. Blankenau, discusses the wage polarization feature of the US labor market. We build a general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents, showing how wage polarization can emerge when the price of computer capital falls. Consequently, we find the share of the population with a college degree decreases. Our findings are consistent with recent empirical data that show a U-shaped wage growth pattern in the US as well as a slower growth rate of college-educated workers despite the high returns of investing in education. In the model, we assume that each agent is born with a portfolio of skills. Specifically, each agent can provide manual labor, routine labor, and abstract labor and must decide how much of each to provide. An agent can increase efficiency in all types of labor by attending college. All three types of labor are valued in the labor market at an endogenously determined wage rate. Computer capital is a substitute for routine labor. As its price falls and its quantity increases, agents with a relative aptitude for routine labor no longer find it advantageous to attend college. Since routinization of tasks harms middle-income agents, the model has government policy implications for observed wage polarization.

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Thesis (MTech (Public Relations Management))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / Several studies have been done showing that universities across the world are using social media platforms, to a lesser or greater degree, in their marketing communication strategies; however, the success of this recruitment method is relatively untested. In order to determine the effectiveness of social media marketing communication on potential university students’ selection of a university, first-year students from the University of Johannesburg were studied. Through a quantitative descriptive research study using a non-probability sampling technique and online electronic questionnaire, it was found that potential university students fall mainly within the Generation Z category (14 – 22 years old). Ninety-eight percent of the respondents in this study indicated that they used social media on a regular basis, however only 37.4% used social media in their choice of a university. More than half (58.3%) of the respondents visited university social media platforms prior to applying in order to look for information about the university, with 33% indicating that they visited these platforms to experience the culture of the university. The study has found that potential students do indeed visit multiple university social media platforms to compare university offerings, but that these platforms are currently not in the top five information sources that they consult in their university search process. Facebook is the most consulted social media platform for this purpose, taking the sixth place on the list of information sources consulted. This makes social media a definite contender in the blend of marketing communication tools a university can use to influence a potential student’s choice of study destination. The findings about these Generation Z potential university students, their use of social media, and their information requirements when researching higher education institutions, can provide valuable insights for university marketers and communicators.

<p> </p> <p>     The purpose of this study was to explore the rural schooling experience of ten high school students attending a small high school located in a rural county in Indiana regarding college and postsecondary aspirations. Specifically, do they have a positive, negative, or neutral view of college? Who or what is influencing their perceptions, values, and beliefs regarding college? Also, this study focused on rural Indiana, providing a Middle America “rural focus” because it is not prevalent in the literature. This qualitative single case study used a sociocultural framework and utilized information gathered from student personal essays, and semi-structured focus group interviews, which provided insights into how rural students perceive college. In addition to the student perspectives, the high school principal and college and career guidance counselor were also interviewed to provide context regarding the culture of the school, community, family involvement, and socioeconomic metrics and how these factors influence the educational and occupational aspirations of students at the site school. Each interview was recorded, transcribed, and coded for data analysis. The data were analyzed using open coding as articulated by Given (2008) as well as the eight-step focus coding process articulated by Tesch (1990) to identify emergent themes. Six themes emerged as providing perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs regarding college as well as the sociocultural and habitus influences concerning educational and occupational aspirations: (1) schooling experience; (2) juxtaposition of postsecondary education; (3) college is expensive; (4) guidance counselor- too many hats and limited resources; (5) influences of educational and occupational aspirations; (6) athletics – more than an extracurricular activity. Results showed the significance of the secondary schooling experience and the juxtaposition of postsecondary education, specifically concerning skilled trade occupations, especially for male students. The cost of college was discerning for the students as well as the burden of paying for college. Attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs differed based on perceived academic ability and gender. This study offers insights into the cultural role of the family, school, and community regarding postsecondary aspirations and how to increase postsecondary matriculation rate of rural youth. </p>

The thesis aims at improving the process of choosing a university by designing an experimental educational course composed of activities focused on self-knowledge and working with information. The theoretical part includes an overview of the existing research about higher education school choice. To create suitable activities, it was necessary to know the importance of choice factors, prospective students' needs and the facts about current sources of information. The thesis also presents the current state of career consulting and courses focused on a similar subject. The empirical part describes the content of the online educational workshop and its implementation including students' evaluation. The verification of the course's benefits was secured by interviews with the students and by evaluation of their learning outcomes from the activities. Furthermore, the thesis contains a description of the research limits caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and a recommendation for future improvements and methodical use. Key words: Higher education choice, career consulting, prospective student, decision-making, designing methodology

Abstract This research develops and tests an application of the latest version of the expectancy-value model—the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB), to a new context, that of higher education overseas enrolment choice. The study argues that TPB is well suited for modelling and predicting international students’ university choice processes. Choosing a university in a foreign country is probably more difficult than making a domestic choice. While there has been some literature on undergraduate domestic university choice, scant attention has been directed at the understanding of international students’ choice of universities. Past studies have looked mainly at factors that influence choice of programmes and destinations with little emphasis on the students’ cognitive processes. Furthermore, these past models, intended to help predict student choice, have been limited to economics-based, pragmatic or statistical frameworks. Now, more than ever, this gap in the literature needs to be filled. International education is currently worth more than $4 billion a year. More and more universities today are increasingly dependent on overseas full fee paying student revenue, sometimes to an enormous and alarming extent. This competition and globalisation of higher education is forcing universities to better understand how students choose. A simple understanding of international student choice behaviour is not enough when so many universities are competing for vital revenues and market share. The Theory of Planned Behaviour, as a rigorous and comprehensive choice-model, well supported by hundreds of published studies, is proposed as a way forward to help better predict, segment and profile international students’ university choices. This research attempts to answer the following three main research questions: 1. How do international students choose overseas universities? 2. How do international students’ choice processes differ by culture? 3. Can TPB be applied in an international student choice context and can it usefully be applied for cross-cultural segmentation? Underpinning the development of the conceptual model presented are two research themes. The first of these themes investigates the choice processes of international students with respect to three main cognitive factors: attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control. The second theme of this research investigates the differences in choice processes between students from different national cultures with respect to attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived control and behavioural intentions. It examines how the relationship between these constructs can help determine appropriate segments of international students. Collectively, these research themes lead to a new model for the choice process international students engage in when selecting an overseas university. The study conducted in this thesis involved a two-stage design. The first, qualitative, stage consisted of a pilot study (Study 1). The primary purpose of the pilot study, using semi-structured questionnaires, was to elicit the attributes to be addressed by the quantitative part of the research (Study 2). The second, quantitative, stage consisted of a questionnaire survey. A total sample of 500 potential international students from four countries (Norway, China, Thailand and India) was collected. Careful translation and cross-cultural measurement validity processes were followed. The findings provide insights into the three research questions proposed. Firstly, results indicate that choice for a potential international student is a complex, highly involved, cognitive and individualistic process. Findings also underscore the important influence of sources of information on students when choosing an overseas university. Additionally, this study concludes, for the first time in this research area, that information sources indirectly influence changes to students’ intention through attitude or subjective norms, whereas prior research has skipped the detailed process and looked only at the direct influence of information sources on intention. Results of analyses on structural models show that attitude is the best indicator in predicting students’ intentions to choose an overseas university, while perceived behavioural control contributes little toward predicting students’ intention for the TPB model. However, perceived behavioural control showed a positive relationship with intentions for the total group. The more control a student feels he/she has, the more likely the formation of intentions to attend an overseas university. Secondly, the results of post hoc tests for multiple comparisons between groups showed differences between all cultural groups. This result meant that regardless of culture, differences in process or criteria weights can be found and so it is important to use a segmentation approach. The findings show that when marketers analyse the international student market as a whole, which is by grouping all the different country data together, this could result in serious “aggregation error,” i.e., when grouped data results are misleading because the groups are heterogeneous. Instead, the data must first be disaggregated by country and then by behavioural attributes, such as attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. In terms of measurement reliability and the structural fit of each model with the data, the results were positive. Finally, the present research confirms the usefulness of TPB as a choice model in the context of understanding international students’ decision making process. The use of a rigorous cognitive model such as this offers insight to educational marketers on segmentation and positioning. Additionally, this research demonstrates that the choice process is complex and that the diversity of the choice process requires attention. If universities wish to continue to attract and retain international students, they must understand students’ attitudes, normative beliefs, and control beliefs as well as the factors that influence their choice.

This case study focuses on Ontario higher education policy and the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs). A sequence of policy shifts occurred during the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the new millennium. By 2002, the Government of Ontario had reviewed its position with regard to baccalaureate degree credentials being the exclusive domain of publicly supported universities. Governance arrangements for the CAATs had also changed. The new policy framework was set with two pieces of legislation, the Postsecondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000, and the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002. The purpose of this case study is to explain why these policy changes occurred. To facilitate inquiry, John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Model was used as a platform and lens to guide data collection and organize the findings. For Kingdon, policy is the outcome of a complex pre-decision process that requires the ‘coupling’ of the problem, policy, and political streams at the time of an open policy window. A qualitative approach was adopted, and primary and secondary documents covering the period 1990 to 2002 were collected. In addition, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with key policy actors and policy entrepreneurs.  The study found evidence to support the Multiple Streams Model's contention of streams of processes. However, with respect to this study, two types of policy problems were found flowing in the problem stream: macro-structural policy problems shaped conditions and the scope of options available with respect to policy goals and policy solutions; and micro-specific policy problems were localized, actor identified, constructed, and linked to specific interests. The study also found that historical institutional structures, and intermediate institutions, had a significant impact on policy development. The policy changes occurred as the result of two open policy windows, and in both instances, policy entrepreneurs were able to couple the policy streams to effect change. In view of the findings, a Structured Dynamics Model of Policy Development is offered as an explanation of the policy changes and for consideration in future inquiry.

This case study focuses on Ontario higher education policy and the Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (CAATs). A sequence of policy shifts occurred during the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the new millennium. By 2002, the Government of Ontario had reviewed its position with regard to baccalaureate degree credentials being the exclusive domain of publicly supported universities. Governance arrangements for the CAATs had also changed. The new policy framework was set with two pieces of legislation, the Postsecondary Education Choice and Excellence Act, 2000, and the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002. The purpose of this case study is to explain why these policy changes occurred. To facilitate inquiry, John W. Kingdon’s Multiple Streams Model was used as a platform and lens to guide data collection and organize the findings. For Kingdon, policy is the outcome of a complex pre-decision process that requires the ‘coupling’ of the problem, policy, and political streams at the time of an open policy window. A qualitative approach was adopted, and primary and secondary documents covering the period 1990 to 2002 were collected. In addition, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with key policy actors and policy entrepreneurs.  The study found evidence to support the Multiple Streams Model's contention of streams of processes. However, with respect to this study, two types of policy problems were found flowing in the problem stream: macro-structural policy problems shaped conditions and the scope of options available with respect to policy goals and policy solutions; and micro-specific policy problems were localized, actor identified, constructed, and linked to specific interests. The study also found that historical institutional structures, and intermediate institutions, had a significant impact on policy development. The policy changes occurred as the result of two open policy windows, and in both instances, policy entrepreneurs were able to couple the policy streams to effect change. In view of the findings, a Structured Dynamics Model of Policy Development is offered as an explanation of the policy changes and for consideration in future inquiry.