Why Do Saudi High Schools’ Graduates Enroll in the Colleges of Technology: A Case Study?

Abstract

The paper aims at elaborating a strategy regarding students’ admission at the colleges of technology in the western region of Saudi Arabia. Purposely, the study surveys the opinion of the students attending the Jeddah College of Technology (J.C.T) and reports on seven socio-economic factors, specifically, the J.C.T. evaluation system, the high school G.P.A, the training period, the trainee “gut feel”, the scholarship, the professional project at graduation and the family financial support. A proportionate stratified random sample of 340 students has been drawn and asked to rate the influence of each factor upon their decision making prior enrolling the J.C.T. The sample has managed students who emanate from 11 sections (sub-strata) and four independent Depts., Management & Tourism, Mechanical Technology, Electrical Technology and Civil & Architecture. As we seek to ascertain different factors weights on the students’ decision making, the study has considered three major pooling schemes (strata), i) as per Depts., ii) as per seniority at the J.C.T, iii) and, as per the living location. For the pooling methods, one another, we investigated the correlation between the students’ decision making to enroll at the J.C.T. and each one of the study factors as cited beforehand. The Chi-square test is used to assess such a categorical association. Finally, a formal method was devised to determine the factors prevalence based on the Chi-square significance level and the number of the pooling schemes wherein the test has proven significant at 5% of significance level. The research findings have showed that the “high school G.P.A” and the “J.C.T evaluation system” factors are the most influential, orderly.