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Factors influencing Non-Registration of students accepted to BCIT Nichols, Alan David

Abstract

BCIT provides training in more than 50 technological programs leading directly to career placement. The number of seats offered in each Technology is limited to exactly meet the anticipated employment needs of business, government or industry. For this reason, registration of qualified applicants must be maximized. In the mid 1980’s BCIT experienced difficulty in attracting qualified applicants. A parallel-samples cross-sectional survey questionnaire research design was employed in the fall of 1990 to discover why some fully-qualified first year technology program applicants, who had been accepted, chose not to attend. A control sample of 1394 registering first-year technology students and a target sample of 644 non-registrants was surveyed. The study had four fundamental purposes: to determine if the control and target samples were drawn from the same population of potential students, to determine if and where the attitudes and expectations of the two samples differed, to determine what marketing tools were effective for each sample and to determine what the target (non-registered) group did instead of attending the Institute. SPSS/PC 4.0 was used for hypothesis testing. The results of the study indicated that the demographics of the two samples were essentially the same. However, significant attitudinal differences existed. About half of the applicants were found to be using BCIT as a backup application to a university. Just under 40% indicated that a lack of funds prevented their attendance. Others preferred to attend their local college. Approximately 30% of the applicants indicated they would re-apply within one year. The study confirmed findings of other researchers. The study provides strong support for the notion of a common application to post-secondary educational institutions in British Columbia to optimize the recruitment/admission process.

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