Demographic And Psychographic Characteristics Of Students At Holmes And Their Impact On Choice Of Institution

Factors Affecting Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior and the process of buying consumer goods is one of the most controversial issues in marketing and consumption. Consumer behavior is regarded as the study of organisations, groups and individuals together with the processes they use in selecting, securing, and disposing of products, services and experiences as well as ideas to satisfy their needs; and the effects that such process have on the consumer and society. Business organisations focus their entire marketing efforts and activities on the consumer.

The knowledge of the consumer’s activities and behavior is one of the crucial aspects of marketing and consumers purchase goods and services to meet various needs and urges (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2014). Using the case of Holmes, this report provides a comprehensive research of 25 current Holmes students while analyzing their decision process in selecting Holmes as an institute of study in Australia. Given this scenario, report describes the demographic and psychographic characteristics of sample students, expansively discusses the steps involved in choosing Holmes over other providers, and analyzing how student motivation, personality, and emotion affect their purchasing power. Furthermore, the report provides recommendations to aid the institution in their efforts of recruiting international students.

Consumer’s behavior is dynamic and thus keeps on changing depending on the situation and for this reason there are various factors that affect consumer behavior including, demographic, geographic, and psychographic factors. For the purposes of this research, only demographic and psychographic factors will be discussed with regard to how they influence students in choosing Holmes as their institution of study.

Demographic factors are the socioeconomic characteristics of a pollution that is statistically expressed in terms of age, sex, level of education, occupation, marital status, and occupation (Quester, 2011). The following are the demographic findings of the research undertaken at Holmes Learning institute. The research participants were 25 students.

Sex is classified into two categories; male or female.

In this research, 14 participants were male while 11 participants were female as described in the table above. These results indicate that, there are more male students at Holmes than females. A close analysis of these findings thus indicates a substantial number of students chose Holmes as a leaning institution because it has a higher number of male students than female students.

Age is categorized into infant, child, teenagers, young adults, mature adults and senior citizens. For the case of Holmes, age as a factor will use three categories; teenagers, young adults and mature adults

Demographic factors and how they affect consumer decision making

In accordance with these results, the dominant student age at Holmes is young adults followed by teenagers then mature adults. Following this observation, many individuals studying at Holmes decided to join the institution because the school is composed of a young adult population and thus associating with persons of their age made them happier as well as providing a good studying and learning environment.

Marital status is categorized into, single, engaged, married, separated, divorced and widowed. In this research, single and married categories were used.

A majority of students at Holmes are singles; 72% of the study participants were singles. Only 28% of the entire study population was married. In regard to these results, only a small population of Holmes student fraternity is married; a clear indication that a substantial number of students chose Holmes as an institution for learning because it had a higher population of unmarried individuals.  

The income status is another key aspect in determining consumer behavior. Income status is categorized into low, middle, and upper income.

These results indicate that a majority of students at Holmes come from middle income families. Nonetheless, the Holmes student population cuts across all levels of income. With regard to these findings, despite income status being a crucial demographic factor to consider when making a choice to join a learning institution, it seems not to be the matter at Holmes. The school accommodates all individuals from all levels of income.

Education can be classified into, primary, secondary undergraduate, and postgraduate. In Holmes case undergraduate and postgraduate categories were used.

According to these findings, there is a higher undergraduate population at Holmes as compared to postgraduate students. Given these understanding, a large number of students decided to join Holmes because it had a higher number of undergraduate students. Similarly, the institution offers both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.

Modern market is known for setting new trends that have a tendency of attracting new as well as existing customers. Marketers are thus called upon to have a full understanding the customers’ state of living in order to evaluate the current situation (Solomon, 2014). Psychographic factors play a critical role in the customers’ decision making process and these factors include: motivation, perception, learning, and attitude.

There are several key concepts that can motivate an individual towards selecting a tertiary learning institution and they include: quality instruction, quality curriculum, relevance and pragmatism, academic advising, interactive classroom and effective management, progressive assessment and timely feedback, self direction, conducive learning environment, and academic advising (De Mooij, 2010). For the case of Holmes five variables were used to determine what motivated students to join the institution.

Psychographic factors and how they affect consumer decision making

According to the table above, progressive assessment and timely feedback is seen as a major motivator for students to select Holmes as an institution of study. Nonetheless, scores for all variables except conducive learning environment posted similar results (Dord, et al., 2013). In essence, the all the five variables quality instructions, quality curriculum conducive learning environment, progressive assessment and timely feedback and academic advising are highly regarded as key motivators for selecting Holmes as an institution for study by many students.

Perception is the mental impression; a way of understanding or interpreting something. Perception involves the way of thinking about or understanding something. In this research, study participants were asked to about various factors that influenced their decision in choosing Holmes as their institution of study (Aga & Shamuganathan, 2010).. The four main perception variables that were used are reputation of the institution, placement assistance, institution infrastructure, and quality of faculty.

According to the findings above, a higher percentage (44%) selected Holmes as their institution of study because they perceived that the school has a good reputation. Furthermore, a substantial number of students based their choice on placement assistance service that the institution offers. In essence, all the four perception variables were important in one way or another in helping students make the decision.

This is the process which consumers change their behavior after gaining experiencing or information. The reasons why they cannot buy a bad product twice, or make a repeat buy of a good product. Learning in this essence, occurs through repetitive behavior that may either have positive or negative consequences (Aga & Shamuganathan, 2010). The key variables used in learning were skills development, professional growth, and building strong network.

 Following the above results, it is evident that selected Holmes as their institution of study because it of excellent skills and professional development. In addition, the school helps students in building strong networks.

Attitudes are the mental position emotional feelings; the unfavorable or favorable evaluation and action tendencies that people place products, services, ideas, companies, issues or institutions. Attitudes are enduring and they are based on individual’s values and beliefs and hence they are hard to change (Boyd et al., 2011). The variables that were used here include social life on campus, safety on campus, and study atmosphere around college.

According to the findings established from the study, Holmes has a favorable study atmosphere; a substantial study population (36%) exhibited to have a good attitude about Holmes study atmosphere. In the same line of discussion, the students’ attitude towards campus social life and safety is good. In this essence, these attitudes played a vital role in their decision to select Holmes as their institution of study.

Consumer decision processes involved in choosing Holmes over other providers

Marketers have a critical duty of influencing potential and existing customers to purchase their products (Schiffman & Kanuk, 2014). Every marketer has an obligation of understanding the consumer in order to understand his needs and thus provide essential product information that will help the customer purchase commodities that will meet his needs. Understanding the process that the consumer uses in making the purchase decision is the key (Demby, 2011). The consumer purchase decision making process is a five step process: recognition of the need, information search, comparison of alternatives, selection of product or service, and evaluation of the decision. Given this understanding, this section describes the process through which a student must follow in selecting Holmes as an institution of study.

For any student to join a higher learning institution, he/she must have the desire or urge to want to learn. For instance, the student must develop that need or want that they want to satisfy in this case acquiring a university degree or professional accomplishment. For this reason, the student feels like all is not well an something is missing and must be addressed before regaining his/her normal state (Kim, et al., 2010). The student will only recognize the need for higher learning when he/she is faced with a difference between the desired state and the real state. After recognizing the need, the individual will start looking for means to satisfy the identified need.

After identifying the need for higher education, the student begins searching for information about institutions that will help the individual access the desired education. For instance, student will use search engines like Google to search for answers (Ahmad, et al., 2010). Similarly, the student can consult actual human beings, including friends and family members with different experiences in higher education; these individuals will offer actual recommendations regarding different learning institutions.

Evaluation of alternatives is the next step; based on the information search results, the individual will now have to compare between the different recommended institutions. For instance, after determining what will satisfy the individual’s want or need, the person starts to seek out the best (Ahmad, et al., 2010). This determination is based on various variables including, price, quality, safety, and favorability of the institution. The students for this case may read many reviews about higher learning institutions in Australia and compare prices, curriculum quality, institution quality, and the learning environment. The institution that will best meet his need requirements will be selected (Levin & Nolan, 2013).

How student motivation, personality and emotion affect their purchasing decision

After comparing all options available, the student will now have to decide on one institution that will help in achieving the high education need. The student may have had a prior experience with exactly the same decision or they may be influenced by advertisement of the institution and hence want to try it out (Levin & Nolan, 2013).

Once the student has decided on the learning institution, there is this big question; does this institution satisfy my higher education needs? Is it below or above my expectations? in this regard, the goal of a marketer in not and should not be for a one-time customer but rather for a recurring lifetime customer (Schoenfed, 2010). Marketers should ensure that superb services are offered to ensure exceptional customer experience that would culminate into brand loyal customers who may become brand evangelists for the institution.

Motivation

Motivation is described as an inward drive that an individual has to get what he needs. According to Abraham Maslow people’s needs are satisfied based on a hierarchy referred to as Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. In accordance with Maslow’s theory individuals satisfy their low level needs first before proceeding to satisfy higher level needs (Ormrod, 2013). For instance, for the case of Holmes, individuals will first satisfy their physiological needs, safety needs and social needs prior to seeking self esteem needs that comprise of acquiring higher educational knowledge. In essence, the motivation to acquire higher education, individuals will strive harder to enroll for university education at Holmes.

Consumer behavior is strongly hinged on the way people purchase and use products or services to satisfy their needs. Individual traits including self-confidence, individualism, friendliness, conscientiousness, workholism, compulsiveness, adaptability, ambitiousness, aggressiveness, and competitiveness are key in determining consumer behavior (Rotman, et al., 2012). The Holmes case for instance, personality characteristics such as aggressiveness, adaptability, and competitiveness have massive influence on selecting the institution as their choice of study. Personality of an individual plays a vital role in consumer purchasing decision.

Emotion is considered as one of the main factors that influence consumer behavior. Emotions like cognition have substantial impact on consumption. Furthermore, marketers must understand what drives the expectations of discrete emotional states and how these emotions uniquely affect decision making together with the motivation that cause consumers to regulate their emotional states over time. Emotions play a large role in purchasing. In behavioral economics, the consumer is not a rational agent who calculates the benefits and costs with great relevance (Jones & Jones, 2012). For instance, the manner in which people behave in terms of consumer decision in order to maximize the best choices is triggered by emotions. The theory of a rational actor is majorly driven by emotions and hence emotions play a significant role in consumer behavior. Consumer actions are directed by emotions rather than reason.

Holmes should consider demographic factors like widening the programs offered at the institution; rather than offering undergraduate and postgraduate studies, the institution   offer graduate programs.

Holmes should also create a learning environment that offer high quality programs to attract more students into the institution.

References

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