By
Mariam Jabeen
A Research Paper submitted to the Faculty of the Lahore School of Economics in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Bachelors Degree Program in
Finance & Marketing
Lahore School of Economics
2012
FACTORS INFLUENCING PAKISTANI STUDENTS’ DECISION TO PURSUE POST GRADUATE STUDIES AT FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES
ABSTRACT
This paper explores the decision making process the Pakistani students go though while deciding to go abroad for higher studies and the extent to which personal factors, external push-pull factors and the friends and family influence impacts their decision. Primary research has been conducted with a target sample of 45 survey questionnaires and 5 interviews. Respondents included those people who had acquired foreign degrees. It was concluded that personal motivation factors significantly influenced the decision to go abroad while other factors also had an impact. ANOVA Analysis revealed a significant relation between independent and dependant variables.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my school, Lahore School of Economics for giving me an opportunity to conduct this research, my instructor Feryal Khan whose continuous guidance enabled me to write this paper and lastly my family and friends who have supported me through the completion of this research paper.
Table of Contents
Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Introduction 5 Literature Review 6 Research Questions and Objectives 15 Theoretical Framework 16 Hypotheses 19 Methodology 20 Instrumentation 21 Survey Findings 23 Profile of Respondents 23 Results and Analysis 26 Testing significance 27 Table A: Hypothesis Testing 27 Table B: Determinants of decision to study abroad 30 Interview Findings 32 Implications 34 Conclusion and Recommendations 34 References 35 Appendices 37 Appendix A - Survey
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