What factors influence the choice of a UK undergraduate degree programme by Malaysian students?

Historically, Malaysia has been a strong recruitment market for UK Higher Education institutions, but the number of Malaysian students attending UK universities has decreased by 30% over the past five years. Several studies of the decision-making process of international students have been conducted, however these focused on other nationality groups and were carried out post enrolment at university. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that influence Malaysian students' decisions when choosing an undergraduate degree program in the UK. It sought to fill the gap in understanding of their decision-making and any effects the COVID-19 pandemic had on this.

The study used an abductive approach, with an initial conceptual model built from existing research which was then tested and refined during the research phase using thematic analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews. The interviews were conducted with 13 Malaysian students during their decision-making period before they attended university.

It was found that the Malaysian students decision-making model consisted of two stages, an initial stage of the ‘Decision to Study Abroad’, followed by a second stage that includes the interdependent decisions of ‘Choice of host country’, ‘Selection of institution’ and ‘Selection of programme’. The second stage decisions are taken in no set order, with the initial choice of programme, institution or country, having the potential of significantly impacting the others and this contrasts to previous studies. The importance of the choice of programme in the Malaysian students’ decision-making was identified, together with the factors influencing each decision stage, using the ‘push-pull’ model, developed initially by Mazzarol and Soutar(2002), combined with the theory of consumption values (Sheth, Newman and Gross, 1991).

My work makes several contributions to knowledge. It identified that the initial decision to study abroad is taken separately, often much earlier or even implicitly, to the other decisions for my subject group. It confirmed the importance of ‘Selection of programme’ within the decision-making process and found that the students may enter the second decision-making stage at any one of the three choices of country, programme or institution. Finally, it showed that the COVID-19 pandemic had little effect on their decision-making in choosing the UK as a study destination.

In practice the results of the study can be used by education providers to make decisions about continued investment in recruiting Malaysian students to attend UK Institutions. It will aid in the development of targeted marketing strategies to recruit Malaysian students to attend a UK undergraduate degree programme.

While my study's size and focus limits the generalisability of its findings to specific decision making factors in other student populations, the observed dynamic in the decision-making process may have implications for the approach to recruiting international students to the UK more widely.