Limited research, rigour, and comprehensiveness on international students’ choice of university, and analysis of TPB as a way forward

Though international students’ choice of universities has become an increasingly important topic, there are a number of gaps still in literature. Most significantly, there is yet to be a rigorous and comprehensive model to help understand and predict international students’ choices of universities. This conceptual paper analyses past literature in both the higher education and consumer behavior research streams to identify limitations, and then considers the appropriateness of the well-established and comprehensive framework of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) as a way forward. It is found that past models in higher education that help predict student choice have been limited to the use of economics-based, practical or statistical frameworks. Previous studies on students’ choice process lack rigor in the sense of not using well-established choice models that use psychological principles as a basis. Additionally past studies indicate a lack of comprehensiveness in that all salient beliefs, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural controls are essentially not covered. The TPB model, a rigorous and comprehensive choice-model, is proposed as way forward to help better understand and predict international students’ university choices