Research on factors affecting the decision to choose a major in economics of foreign trade university students

FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY School of Economics International Business Research methodOLOGY in economics and business RESEARCH ON FACTORS AFFECTING THE DECISION TO factors affecting the decision to CHOOSE A MAJOR IN ECONOMICS OF FO.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS

RESEARCH ON FACTORS AFFECTING THE DECISION TO CHOOSE A MAJOR IN ECONOMICS OF FOREIGN TRADE

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY

School of Economics & International Business

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TABLE OF CONTENT

1 Introduction: 1

2 Literature review: 2

3 Theoretical basis 4

3.1 Theories about motivation 4

3.1.1 Definition of motivation 4

3.1.2 Features of motivation 4

3.2 Studying motivation 4

3.2.1 Definition of motivation 4

3.2.2 Categorizing studying motivation 5

4 Methodology 6

4.1 Methodological approach 6

4.2 Data collection methods 7

4.3 Questionnaire design 7

4.4 Analysis methods 8

5 Plan to avoid threats to internal and external validity: 8

5.1 Internal validity: 8

5.2 External validity: 9

6 Proposed timeline and intended outlets: 10

6.1 Proposed timeline: 10

6.2 Intended outlets: 12

REFERENCE 15

1 Introduction:

Tertiary education has always been regarded as one of the most important parts of every person’s career path Some people would even consider it to be indispensable since the majority of jobs nowadays all require a college degree That is why so many students’ immediate course of action after high school is to enroll in a university However, this in turn gives rise to the problem of choosing a university major Being able to select a suitable field of study for oneself is not an easy task While there are some who could instantly choose which major they want to apply for, most high school graduates tend to struggle when it comes to this decision

Nevertheless, despite the fact that many students do not know which major to study, more and more people are pursuing higher education And one noticeable trend in today’s university admission is that the number of students choosing to study Economic-related majors is increasing This raises the question of what makes so many people decide to study Economic-related majors There are numerous internal and external factors that could explain this phenomenon Perhaps it’s because of the students’ personal interests in the field or maybe it’s because their parents want them to study Economics Each student is affected by different factors and each factor has a different impact on the student’s choice of studying Economics

A number of studies and research has already been carried out to explore the factors that affect the decision of undergraduates to study Economic-related majors And as there has not been any similar studies conducted in Foreign Trade University, we decided to pick the topic “Factors that influence Foreign Trade University students’ choice of studying Economic majors” for our research with a view to shedding some light on this matter

The main goal of this research is to answer the following questions:

(1) What internal and external factors influence Foreign Trade University students’ choice of studying Economics majors?

(2) Which type of factors (internal or external) will have more influence on the students?

(3) Do students driven more by internal factors have a higher or lower satisfaction level with their decision on choosing Economics major than ones more externally driven?

This research proposal will show some of the findings of other research as well as present our research theoretical basis and methods, internal and external validity, proposed timeline and intended outlets

2 Literature review:

According to Hossler và Gallgher (1987), a student's college selection process can be divided into three stages: shaping, searching, and choosing In the shaping phase, students are interested in or have intention to go to college as they develop aspirations for employment and education In the second stage, students search for information about universities During the searching phase, students form a selection set of universities to which they will actually apply In the third stage, the student decides to enroll in a particular college or university

Concerning factors affecting student college choice, prior research tends to focus on the importance and influence of factors affecting students’s choice of major or college, but there is less research related to relationships between the dominant factor and students’ satisfaction with their choice

David.W Chapman (1987) proposed a model showing that there are two groups of factors that greatly influence student college choice The first is student characteristics The second is external influences, namely the influence of significant persons, the fixed characteristics of the institution and the institution's own efforts to communicate with prospective students

Studying the same theme, Bromley H Kniveton (2004) explored factors affecting a young person's choice of career that focus on information and guidance from both the family and the school, directly or indirectly To be more specific, the influence of parents on career choice is more than that of schoolteachers

Meanwhile, Bashir, et al (2013) divided different influencing factors into two primary groups -internal and -internal ones and discovered that both -internal and external factors affect business

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students' choice of business school but external factors influence students more than internal factors

There is also research applying the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) and the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to examine factors affecting students’ major choice According to the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980), a person's behaviors are determined by their attitude about the behavior (which is connected to the outcomes from the behavior) and their perception of social norms (which are related to approval of the social group such as parents, spouse, instructors, peers, etc whose opinion the individual respects) Based on TRA, (Porter and Woolley, 2014) in a study about Students’ Decision to Major in Accounting predicted that

“students who place importance on outcomes of majoring in accounting that they think are likely

to occur are more likely to major in accounting” and “students who believe that their parents and peers approve of majoring in accounting are more likely to major in accounting” Besides, the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), a development of the Theory of Reasoned Action (Ajzen, 1991), adds perceived control over a behavior as an extra determinant in performing a behavior The term "perceived behavioral control" describes a person's perception of their own capacity to perform the behavior According to TPB, (Porter and Woolley, 2014) assumed that students who feel confident in their capacity to pursue an accounting major are likely to major in accounting

In Vietnam, there are also works about students’ choice of college or majors Nguyễn (2012) conducted a fairly similar study to our work specifying corporate governance majors in a college The outcome was that the top three of the most influential factors to a student's choice of corporate governance in order were job opportunities, reference objects and inter-level training opportunities Moreover, students who chose the major as the first choice in their college wish list are more influenced by job opportunities and reference objects On the other hand, the other students are more influenced by job opportunities without asking for advice from reference objects

To extend that research, we sought to investigate the importance of factors influencing student’s choice of Economic major at Foreign Trade University Hanoi and examine the correlation between the more influential factor and students’ satisfaction level with their decision In the present study, we intend to carry out at Foreign Trade University and apply questionnaire to

collect primary data We expect to classify different influencing factors into two main categories -internal and external ones and find out the more influential factor as well as its relation with students’ decision satisfaction The outcome of the research may assist university’s managers in identification of the factors critical for the students and provide guidance for the future Economic-majored students

3 Theoretical basis

3.1 Theories about motivation

3.1.1 Definition of motivation

In psychology, you can encounter several different definitions of what is motivation However, they are all similar in explaining it as the reasons why an individual behaves in a certain way In conclusion, motivation refers to a need or desire that energizes behavior and guides it in the direction of a goal

3.1.2 Features of motivation

 Motivation produces goal-directed behavior

 Motivation is a continuous process which never ends until the completion of the objectives

 Positive motivation vs Negative motivation: Negative motivation is defined as encouraging others to do by punishment and positive is by some incentives

 Motivation are created based on internal and external factors

 Motivation is a complex process: Humans are different in their expectations and perceptions A particular type of motivation may not affect every individual at the same level

 Motivation shows individual differences Each one has various different motivations to achieve their goals

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3.2 Studying motivation

3.2.1 Definition of motivation

Studying motivation can be defined as the willingness to invest time, effort, and other materials over a long duration of time to achieve goals set for ourselves According to Gardner (2001), motivation contains 3 elements: desire (wanting to obtain a goal), effort (the effort students make

in order to achieve their objectives) and positive affect (enjoy the task of learning)

3.2.2 Categorizing studying motivation

 Self-determination theory:

Self-determination theory is an access to people’s motivation and personality using traditional empirical methods and emphasizing the significance of people's evolved inner resources for behavioral regulation (Ryan, Kuhl, & Deci,1997) In 2000, Richard M Ryan and Edward L Deci have developed this theory and divided motivations into 3 types:

3.2.2.1 Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation is regarded as an inner drive that stimulates an individual to pursue a goal In other words, people do what they do for personal satisfaction or fulfillment Thus the goals come from within and outcomes meet your fundamental psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness For example, you would participate in a competition because you enjoy it rather than aiming for an award

3.2.2.2 Extrinsic motivation

In contrast to intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation depicts the fact that you do an activity in exchange for an external reward Extrinsic goals focus on external gains such as fame, power, money or avoiding consequences rather than satisfy your basic psychological needs Goals involve external gains, such as money, fame, power, or avoiding consequences Richard M Ryan and Edward L Deci have categorized extrinsic motivation into 4 groups: External regulation, Introjected regulation, Identified Regulation, Integrated Regulation

 External Regulation: regulation with a lowest self-control indicating behaviors being practiced to satisfy an external demand such as to avoid punishment or gain rewards

 Introjected regulation: internally driven by nature but be affected by outside such as performing acts to avoid guilt, anxiety and or to achieve ego boosts like pride

 Identified regulation: a more self-determined form of extrinsic motivation, reflecting that people consciously value behaviors that are being acted, recognize their importance and choose to perform them on their own

 Integrated regulation: the most autonomous form, decide to do the activity because you view it as a right fit for you

3.2.2.3 Amotivation

Amotivation is the lack of volitional drive to perform any activity

4 Methodology

4.1 Methodological approach

Based on the classification of Richard M Ryan and Edward L Deci (2000) and the study of Bashir, et al (2013), we divide the listing factors affecting students’ choice of Economic major at FTU into 2 main factor groups: internal and external factors

The research will be conducted to investigate the influence of each factor affecting Foreign Trade University Students’ choice of studying Economic Major The data is expected to:

1) tell the relationships between those factors and the student’s major decision

2) explore whether internal or external factors have a greater impact on students’ choice 3) show the correlation between the more influential factor to students and their satisfaction level with their major decision (Are students driven more by internal factors likely to have a

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higher or lower satisfaction level with their decision on choosing Economic major than ones more externally driven?)

To achieve the objective, we use quantitative method and collect primary data then use statistical software to analyze that data

4.2 Data collection methods

We will select the questionnaire approach to collect primary data from students studying economics major at Foreign Trade University Hanoi The questions will include multiple choice and open-ended questions, which will help us to have an in-depth look into the internal and external factors that affect students’ decisions

The target audience for this research is students studying economics First we select two specialities in economic majors: International Commerce and International Business Economics and then select students from these specialities to answer the questionnaire According to the admissions criteria of FTU in 2018 - 2022, it is expected that Economic majors admit about 700 students in total per year Therefore, we estimate that about 2,800 students from first to fourth class year are studying economic majors at FTU We expect to choose a sample size of 280 students which takes up 10% of the sample population The respondents will be from all class years (freshman, sophomore, 3nd, 4th) and at three education programs (standard, high-quality, advanced program)

The technique of self-select sampling will be used Since we have difficulty in accessing to the list of the whole students, self-select sampling is a preferable choice over probability methods

4.3 Questionnaire design

To ensure that the data gathered from the questionnaire were reliable and accurate, we will develop the document by supplementing it with findings from previous research and then asking

30-40 students in Economic major to list which factors influence them to select their majors Therefore, we can develop the most relevant list of factors for the questionnaire

It would be difficult to hand target students questionnaire papers because we don't have the list of students in each major of Foreign Trade University Therefore, we decided to publish our questionnaire online on Facebook groups of students from the target majors and ask for support from teachers and Faculty of Economics and International Business to spread the questionnaire to students studying Economic major from different class year in different programs The survey's opening questions will gather information on the demographics of the students, such as age, gender, and class year (freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior) Next, each student will be required to choose his/her speciality (International Commerce or International Business Economics The main part of the questionnaire will be personal evaluations: On a scale from 1 (not important) to 5 (very important), each student will be asked to rate the significance of 10 different variables while choosing a major These variables are divided into two categories: internal factors and external factors The internal factors will include variables like ‘family',

‘friends', ‘peer advice’, ‘talent', ‘hobby', ‘personality' while the external factors will include variables like ‘major's reputation', ‘tuition', ‘job opportunity’, ‘collaboration with foreign universities’ We also include a revision part to test the satisfaction level of students with their major decision The end of the questionnaire will be an open-ended question which gives participants the chance to provide any extra thoughts or details about choosing the major

4.4 Analysis methods

We will prepare the data by checking for missing data, removing outliers and transforming the variables Then the data will be analyzed via Stata - a statistical software to conclude the correlation between mentioned factors vs decision on choosing Economics major of FTU students

5 Plan to avoid threats to internal and external validity:

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