Student motivations to study abroad – an empirical study of vietnamese students in UK

 Nguyen Tran Nguyen Khai. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 103-111 103 
STUDENT MOTIVATIONS TO STUDY ABROAD – 
AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF VIETNAMESE STUDENTS IN UK 
NGUYEN TRAN NGUYEN KHAI 
International University – Vietnam National University HCMC - ntnkhai@hcmiu.edu.vn 
(Received: October 02, 2017; Revised: November 27, 2017; Accepted: November 29, 2017) 
ABSTRACT 
This study adapts Push and Pull Theory in educational tourism to explore and measure factors that make 
students studying abroad in addition to considering travel behaviours of them while being in UK. By using the 
survey data from 125 Vietnamese students currently studying in United Kingdom. Vietnamese students decide to 
study abroad to get a better education than domestic one, improve job prospects as well as have a better 
understanding of western countries’ culture. Quality of the course and university is also considered when making 
decision. Besides, pull factor related to destination is the last factor affect students’ motivations. When Vietnamese 
students study at the host country, they seem to travel frequently and stay longer per trip. Vietnamese students also 
prefer hotel/motel than youth hostel in terms of accommodation. 
Keywords: International student; Motivations to study abroad; Push and pull theory; Travel behaviours. 
1. Introduction 
Studying abroad is not a new 
phenomenon, especially in higher education 
level. In fact, Altbach and Teichler (2001) 
argued that the 21st century might be called 
the century of education. In the world of 
economic globalisation, the need for human 
resources which can work effectively in 
international environment becomes more 
essential (Vaicekauskas et al., 2013). 
Organisations hunt for employees who have 
linguistics capability (Tremblay 2005) as well 
as intercultural skills, international experience 
(Daly and Barker, 2005). Studying abroad is 
one of the most effective methods for 
graduates to equip themselves those skills and 
become more employable. 
There is no surprise that the number of 
students enrolled in tertiary education outside 
their countries of origin has witnessed the 
sustainable growth since 1975. Over 37 years, 
the increase was more than 560%, reached 4.5 
million of foreign students in 2012 (Figure 1). 
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation 
and Development (OECD) countries are 
considered as top destinations which have 
75% of all foreign students study in (OECD 
2014). In addition, EU countries hold the 
largest proportion with 48% of foreign 
students, followed by North America with 
21% and Asia with 18% (ibid). More 
specially, US, UK and Germany are top three 
countries of destination respectively and the 
top six countries which include top three and 
France, Australia, Canada occupy more than 
50% of the market (OECD, 2014). 
On the demand side, with the young 
population, fast economic growth and the 
value of education in societies, Asia is the 
region which has the highest number of 
international students studying abroad with 
53% of total (OECD 2014). In some particular 
host countries, the proportion of Asian 
students among international students is 
extraordinarily high such as 94% (Japan), 
93% (Korea), 82% (Australia), 73% (US), and 
70% (New Zealand) (ibid). In country level, 
China is leading country of origin of students 
studying abroad with 22% of the market. 
Table 1 shows the top ten sending countries of 
international students enrolled tertiary 
education outside their home nation. 
104 Nguyen Tran Nguyen Khai. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 103-111 
Figure 1. Long-term growth in the number of students enrolled in tertiary education 
outside their home countries 
Source: OECD (2014, p. 344) 
There are five objectives discussed in this 
study: 
 To explore contributing factors students 
base on to choose a destination to study. 
 To identify the relationship between 
contributing factors and the satisfaction of 
students while studying in UK. 
 To investigate the future intention of 
student after experiencing UK education. 
 To explain descriptively the travel 
behaviours of Vietnamese students. 
 To discover the differences and 
similarities in travel behaviours in terms of 
different characteristics such as gender, 
marital status. 
2. Literature review 
Push and Pull concept 
“Push and pull” concept has become the 
most common tool for educational researchers 
to explain the international student choice of 
country and institution (Wilkins et al., 2012). 
Students tend to study abroad because of the 
lack of capacity and opportunities in their 
home countries (Altbach, 2004), relatively 
lower educational quality, the unavailability 
of some particular subjects (Safahieh and 
Singh, 2006) as well as social and political 
issues (Maringe and Carter, 2007). Bourke 
(2000) in his rese ... verall satisfaction 
with r=.357; p<.001, followed by Course 
Quality r=.326; p<.001), and Destination Pull 
Factor r=.167; p<.001. 
Figure 2. Causal relationship result 
4.4. Student travel behaviours 
Past travel experience 
When be asked for the number of 
holidays in UK in the last 12 months, only six 
students (less than 5%) reported they have not 
travelled yet. On the other hand, 30% of the 
sample said that they travelled more than 6 
times. It means that roughly they have at least 
108 Nguyen Tran Nguyen Khai. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 103-111 
one trip in every two months. 
Type of accommodation 
Regarding to which kind of 
accommodation that students usually use 
when travelling, 74 respondents indicated that 
they stayed in hotel or motel, 53 respondents 
would stay in Friend/ Relatives’ houses, the 
same amount of respondents also stayed in 
Backpacker, Youth hostel, and only five 
respondents would stay in Camp site. The 
result may contradict with the common sense 
that students generally seek to cheap 
accommodation (WYSE 2010). However, it is 
similar to what Huang and Tian (2013) found 
when they studied about Chinese students in 
UK. There are several possible reasons for 
why Hotel/ motel is the most popular choice 
although Field (1999) indicated that students 
are more likely to stay at friends and relatives’ 
houses. Firstly, Vietnam is very far away from 
UK and there are few students have relatives 
and friends in Britain. Secondly, B&B 
accommodation and camp site are types of 
accommodation which are not popular in 
Vietnam. 
Mode of transportation 
When being asked about mode of 
transportation students often use, Bus/coach 
(88 respondents) and train (79 respondents) 
are chosen the most and just only few students 
used to use rental car, motorcycle or taxi as 
their main mode of transportation when 
travelling. It is understandable while the 
public transportation in UK is well-developed 
and it is also convenient and relatively 
cheaper to travel across cities with this means 
of transportation. The rental car and 
motorcycle are not popular might due to the 
different side when driving between UK and 
Vietnam and there are not many Vietnamese 
young people who can drive car. 
Size of travel group 
The result when asking how many people 
respondent usually go with reveals that students 
seem do not want to travel alone. However, the 
big group is also not a preferred choice when 
only 4 respondents reported to go with a group 
larger than 6 people. 79 respondents indicated to 
go with 1-3 other people and 38 of them would 
go with 4-6 people. One possible factor might 
account for such finding is that it is fairly 
difficult to find accommodation to big group 
when travelling. Since majority prefer hotel-
type accommodation, a room for a group of 2-4 
traveller is easy to seek. 
Eating preference 
84% of respondent reported that they 
chose local home-style cuisine to try when 
travelling. 48% of them indicated fast-food 
restaurant as one of the options, followed by 
deli (24.8%), self-prepared meal (24%) and 
prestigious restaurant (16%). 
Table 2 
Travel behaviours 
Categories Frequency Categories Frequency 
Past travel experience 
 Not yet 
 1-2 times 
 3-4 times 
 5-6 times 
 >6 times 
6 
31 
31 
19 
38 
Transportation 
 Rental car 
 Bus/ Coach 
 Train 
 Aeroplane 
 Motorcycle 
 Taxi 
16 
88 
79 
53 
9 
13 
 Nguyen Tran Nguyen Khai. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 103-111 109 
Categories Frequency Categories Frequency 
Length of trip 
 One-day trip 
 1-2 nights 
 3-4 nights 
 5-6 nights 
 >6 nights 
18 
37 
49 
12 
9 
Size of travel group 
 Alone 
 1-3 people 
 4-6 people 
 >6 people 
4 
79 
38 
4 
Accommodation 
 Hotel/Motel 
 Backpacker, Youth Hostel 
 B&B Accommodation 
 Friends/ Relatives’ houses 
 Camp site 
74 
53 
27 
53 
5 
Eating preference 
 Fast-food restaurant 
 Home-style restaurant 
 Prestigious restaurant 
 Self-prepared meal 
 Deli 
60 
105 
20 
30 
31 
5. Conclusions and limitations 
With the large amount of Vietnamese 
international students currently studying in the 
UK (HM Government 2013), this study 
critically explores the motivation factors of 
Vietnamese students in deciding the 
university to study abroad and investigate 
their travel behaviours during the time being 
in UK. 
Firstly, there are three factors, destination 
pull factor (5 items), course quality (3 items) 
and push factor (4 items) were confirmed 
significantly have a positive relationship with 
the overall satisfaction (3 items). The social 
adaptation (8 items) and study support (3 
items) were rejected to affect the outcome. 
Many students would like to recommend their 
friends and relatives to study in the 
country/university (68% of respondents) or 
even travel to the city/country that they are 
living (73.6%) of the respondents. In addition, 
55.2% of the sample reported that they would 
like to come back to UK in the future after 
graduation. This could be a hint to the 
increasing of Vietnamese tourists in UK; 
therefore, any businesses in tourism and 
hospitality industry should prepare strategy to 
attract potential customers from this nation. 
On the other side, 57.6% of students indicated 
that they made the decision of selecting 
university to study abroad by themselves. 
University manager could base on this finding 
to reshape their marketing plan to approach 
the student better. 
Moreover, in the last two decades, thanks 
to the increasing of internationalisation of 
education, both tourism and education 
industries are getting closer and witness the 
great growth rate (Lam et al., 2011). This 
research not only contributes to the academic 
literature but also provides crucial findings for 
both educational institution manager and 
organisations in tourism and hospitality 
industry. The understanding of motivations to 
study abroad and who influence the decision 
would help university to attract more students 
in the lucrative market. On the other hand, 
knowledge about travel behaviours would 
support tour operators or hospitality 
organisations to serve their potential 
customers better. 
When considering the place to study 
abroad, Vietnamese students choose 
universities in UK mostly because the quality 
of the program as well as the university. 
Students believes that with a qualification that 
recognised worldwide, they can improve job 
prospects/ chance of receiving better salary 
and promotions. Besides, Vietnamese students 
in the sample have a willingness to gain 
110 Nguyen Tran Nguyen Khai. Journal of Science Ho Chi Minh City Open University, 7(4), 103-111 
understanding of Western countries and like 
other Asian students, they believe overseas 
course is better than domestic one. Improving 
language skill is also one of the reasons that 
push students to study abroad. Moreover, 
factors related to destination such as climate, 
environment, lifestyle and living cost are 
considered when making decision. Therefore, 
envisioning a bright future after graduation by 
introducing successful alumni stories or their 
reviews about the course could attract more 
prospective students. In addition, an 
introduction of the destination which is both 
rich cultures, exciting to live and suitable to 
study with cost advantage would gain 
impression from future students. The public 
educational fair or workshops in high school 
and university in Vietnam that targets directly 
to students could be a suitable approach since 
students reported they made the studying 
abroad decisions by themselves. 
Tour operators should pay more attention 
to this lucrative market since most of 
respondents (95.2%) have travelled last year; 
even 30% of them had more than 6 holidays 
per year. In addition, the fact that majority 
would come back to the country after 
graduation turns this market more beneficial 
not only at the moment but also in the future. 
Therefore, the attractive promotions 
exclusively for students and strategy to 
maintain relationship with those who used to 
travel are some of the must-have tactics of any 
tourism organisations. In addition, the eating 
preferences of Vietnamese students imply that 
local home-style restaurants have competitive 
advantage against chain fast-food restaurant. 
The business owners of that kind of restaurant 
should have more promotions to appeal 
students. 
Due to the difficulties in approaching 
target population which is Vietnamese 
students living in UK, the sample size of the 
study is quite small. Therefore, it will be 
difficult to generalize to the whole population. 
There is a recommendation that future 
research can use result from the study and 
conduct in the larger scale to ensure a 
representative distribution of the population. 
Besides, the objective of this study is to 
collect opinions of students from all level of 
higher education included doctorate degree. 
However, it was challenging to find many 
PhD students to diversify the answers 
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