Communicating to prospective students through appropriate sources of information: a comparative study of selected public higher education institutions

A proper assessment of the usefulness of the sources of information considered by prospectivestudents could enable higher education institutions (HEIs) to allocate funds, time and resourcesmore efficiently and effectively. The main objective of this study was to determine students’perceptions on the usefulness of sources of information that they used to select a public HEIin South Africa, and further to establish whether differences occur between the perceptions ofstudents from various institutions. A quantitative study with a self-administrated questionnaire was used to obtain information bymeans of a non-probability convenience sample of 1 241 students from six public HEIs in SouthAfrica. The findings indicated that prospective students find sources of information coming directlyfrom a public HEIs - such as campus visits and open days, university publications and websites –to be of most use, while information from mass media, such as radio, television, magazines andnewspaper advertisements are less important. The responses of students from the different institutions varied significantly regarding the usefulness of sources of information in selecting a public HEI. Although university publications,campus visits and open days, and also websites ranked high, the importance ranking betweenrespondents from different institutions varied. The findings can be used to develop student-focused marketing communication that could aid prospective students in making more informed decisions about the public higher educationinstitution they wish to attend.