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		Individual Demand for Tertiary Education: Interests and Fields of Study
		98/2 Adrian Harvey-Beavis Australian Council for Educational Research Gerald R Elsworth Faculty of Education, University of Melbourne April 1998
		Evaluations and Investigations Program Higher Education Division Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs

©Commonwealth of Australia 1998

ISBN 0 642 23758 1

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This report is funded under the Evaluation and Investigations Programme of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs.

Executive Summary

The study investigated individual demand for tertiary education courses in Australia.

Findings

Using data taken from the Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre for 1994, the list of all applications to all university undergraduate and a number of TAFE certificate courses were factor analysed to establish if there were any patterns in these applications. It had been expected, on the basis of the previous work undertaken by one of the authors (Elsworth), that applications would tend to cluster together into meaningful groups.

The analysis largely replicated the earlier work, and revealed clusters of applications in the 1994 data from Victoria. At the highest level of generality these clusters were made up of:

1. Visual Arts and Music courses;
   
2. Humanities and Social Science and Communication Arts (Media, Performing Arts etc.) courses;
   
3. Applied Social Science, Child Care and Teaching, Health Studies, Community Service and Sport and Recreation courses;
   
4. Business–Commerce–Law, Hospitality, Business Languages and Library and Information Studies courses; and
   
5. Building and Design, Engineering and Computing and Professional and Applied Science courses.

It was felt that for a more subtle understanding of demand, one likely to be needed in policy contexts, a finer grained classification was needed. A 16 category classification was also developed which was then condensed to 14 as a result of our findings. This consisted of courses clustered into:

1. Visual Arts;
   
2. Communication Arts;
   
3. Music;
   
4. Humanities and Social Science;
   
5. Applied Social Science including Community Service;
   
6. Child Care and Teaching;
   
7. Health Studies
   
8. Sport and Recreation;
   
9. Professional and Applied Science;
   
10. Engineering and Computing;
    
11. Building and Design;
    
12. Business–Commerce–Law field—minus Business Computing and Information courses, but including Business Languages courses;
    
13. Business Computing and Information courses, possibly including Librarianship; and
    
14. Hospitality Management.

Individual Interests and Stability of the Classification

As part of an attempt to show that these classifications are likely to be stable, it was theorised that these categories would be systematically related to the interests of students. (Interests tend to be stable.)

A nationally representative sample of Year 12 school students was surveyed to find out what courses they intended to apply for in 1997. The questionnaire also included the research form of the Australian Interest Measure (AIM). The courses the students nominated first on their list of courses were classified into one of the five and one of the 16 categories.

Systematic relationships were identified between the interests of the students and the type of courses for which they applied.

Validity across Systems

Data from the Queensland Tertiary Admissions Centre and the South Australian Tertiary Admissions Centre for 1994 were used to compare the various offers and acceptance rates within the five- and 16-category classifications and compared with the offer and acceptance rates in Victoria.

Patterns of offer and acceptance rates were consistent within fields across the three States, suggesting that the classification was not driven by factors and processes peculiar to Victoria. The classification is thus probably valid for all systems in Australia.

Persistence with the Field of their First Preference

The study found that most applicants tend to persist with the field of their first preference in their lower order preferences. Generally, therefore, the first preference is a fair guide to an applicant’s field of interest.

Implications of the Study

The following are the major implications of the study’s findings.

1. Demand for tertiary education courses seems to be driven by interests. No evidence was found in these data to support a contention that pursuit of status (whether of a course or of an institution), or the use of a ‘cost benefit’ strategy was important in students’ choice. (It is possible, however, that once students select a field of study, they may make these calculations.) This means that any policy designed to shift enrolment patterns will need to recognise that interests remain relatively stable over time, are not easily amenable to change, and probably weigh heavily in decisions of most applicants.
   
2. The clustering of courses identified by the study reflects the similarities students see in courses. What these clusters are showing are the ways in which applicants ‘segment’ the tertiary education ‘market’.
   
3. The clusters of courses may be usefully seen as fields of study, which, because they are empirically derived and are shown in the study to be likely to be stable over time, may prove more useful than other classifications in understanding the dynamics of the demand for tertiary education in Australia, and in sensitively identifying where demand is not being met.

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