BRAND EQUITY IN SELECTING A PRIVATE HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTION IN KLANG VALLEY

Building a strong brand equity is the top most priority of many private higher education institutions, but attaining this objective is not always an easy task. This study attempts to investigate the factors influencing brand equity towards the selection of private higher education industry. By having a better understanding of influencing factors, it will be helpful to marketers and institution operators to enhance the operation and managing the business. This is a descriptive and quantitative study with the use of self-administrated survey as data collection tool. A total of 468 questionnaires were collected among private higher education institution students in Klang Valley who are active students of a university. Descriptive analysis was used to analyze the demographic background of the respondents and characteristics of the study constructs. Reliability statistics, item-total statistics and exploratory factor analysis were used to examine the reliability and validity of the measurements of the constructs. A regression model was formulated to examine the relationship between the variables. All the variables revealed internal consistency as all the scale reliability ranged within 0.845 to 0.902. As for correlations, significant positive correlations were found and the multiple linear regressions analysis had positive significant relationship brand equity. The results of the statistical tests had been proved to be useful and significant of the proposed conceptual model about the factors influencing of brand equity of customer in selecting a private higher education institution in Klang Valley. Therefore, the operators and marketers should pay attention to improve the brand equity of the private higher education institutions in order to increase the selection of the private higher education institutions