Designing a Study about Enrollment Motives. AIR 1991 Annual Forum Paper.

This paper describes a quantitative method to investigate the enrollment motives of students, and reports on the application of the method at the University of Utrecht (The Netherlands). The paper discusses environmental, educational/organizational, and image factors influencing a student's choice of a particular university. A quantitative methodology is then proposed, which involves analyzing enrollment data in terms of total market share and relevant market share and determining a "recruitment index" for both the university as a whole and individual fields of study. Use of the methodology at the University of Utrecht is reported, comparing recruitment indices for biology, art history, philosophy, sociology, and social geography. Findings indicated that environmental factors were decisive for 60% of freshmen students and educational and organizational factors were decisive for 30% of freshmen. The usefulness and cost effectiveness of quantitative analysis in the design of an investigation of student enrollment motives is stressed. Includes nine references. (DB)