Ranking of the Determinants Affecting Students’ Attitude of a Higher Education Institution: Application of AHP

Abstract

With the higher education landscape getting increasingly competitive, the role of marketing has come to the surface. The current study is conducted to prioritise the determinants affecting the attitude of the students pursuing their studies in a particular business school at a private university of Bangladesh. Five criteria are considered in this regard where Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is applied to rank the chosen criteria. The results derived through Expert Choice software version 11.0 indicate that promotional activities are ranked first having a weight of about 52%; this is followed by the quality of teaching staff with around 22%. The other two criteria ‘Service provided by the business school’ and ‘Campus facilities’ are ranked third and fourth with about 12% and 11%, respectively. Co-curricular activities turn out to be of least importance having a weight of 3.4% only. Based on the results, a few marketing strategies are recommended for the policy makers to consider as they cope with the pressure of heightened competition in the market. Suggestions for some avenues of future research are also put forward.