Factors Influencing Students' Intention to Enroll in Bachelor of Science in Biology: A Structural Equation Modelling Approach

With the declining number of students interested in pursuing STEM courses such as Bachelor's Degree in Biology as evidenced by low enrollment, HEIs currently offering and those which intend to offer the academic degree program are competing and looking for ways to increase their competitiveness. Hence, several efforts have been made in response to it, including investigating what attracts students to choose the HEI and the course it offers. In this regard, this study aims to evaluate the factors influencing students' intention to enroll Bachelor of Science (BS) in Biology at Cebu Technological University using an extended Chapman's Model of Student College Choice. Using a quantitative cross-sectional survey design, 416 senior high-school students from Cebu Province in the Philippines participated in an online survey. The survey aimed to test the influence of student characteristics, influence of significant people, marketing factor, fixed university characteristics, university image, perceived program quality, and perceived career opportunities on students' intention to enroll in BS Biology. The findings of structural equation modelling suggest that only student characteristics influences students' intention to enroll the academic degree program. Irrespective of the disassociation of six other proposed hypotheses, the offering of the course is still deemed feasible as supported by students' responses in their intention to enroll it. In conclusion, this study reveals the model's usefulness in understanding one of the factors influencing students' intention to enroll in the course. Consequently, the results offer managerial and theoretical implications to further strategize institutional student recruitment techniques.