A story posted on the Globe and Mail website picks up on the results of a study recently carried out under the auspices of the Measuring the Effectiveness of Student Aid Project.
The story, titled Students decide about higher education earlier than thought, study shows, notes that many young people "set their sights on university or college" before Grade 9 which is, apparently, "earlier than once believed". The results of the study are indeed interesting, but they are, in fact, not at all surprising.
Conceptual models of post-secondary choice, which incorporate early decision-making, have been in use for quite some time. For example, the conceptual model developed by Hossler and Gallagher (1987) identifies 3 key stages of post-secondary choice decisions: predisposition, search, and choice. This model acknowledges that students begin to see post-secondary education as an important step in achieving their personal and occupational goals by Grade 7 or earlier.
As per Figure 1 below, the Hossler and Gallagher model can be extended to a 5-stage model to incorporate the post-enrollment retention and graduation decisions of college and university students (click on image to enlarge).
Wednesday, 29 September, 2010
Understanding post-secondary decision-making
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Quite right. But it was surprising to some sub-editors at the Globe, apparently.
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