| Undergraduate Program determines whether we pursue Post-Graduate Degree | Prepared for Dr. A. F. M. Ataur Rahman (ECO455.1) |

Gazi Musayab Raffan ( 0910486520)&Mohsin Ul Amin Khan (0910894520) |

Abstract
The purpose of this research was to find out whether undergraduate performance and program of students reflect the motivation for continuing further education into Post-Graduate level. The research is based on questionnaire survey of fifty Undergraduate students from five different Universities in Dhaka. The questionnaire had 13 questions that were used to find out about the programs and CGPA of the participants as well as their plans for opting for Master’s level education. Since the survey was based on students currently pursuing their Bachelor’s we tried to know as much as possible about their plans for further education. In this regard we have assumed that the students who have planned out their further education in details have greater possibility of actually enrolling for Master’s level education. So we set the questions in such a way so as to reflect well the mental preparation as well other factors for planning ahead.
Upon analyzing the data a correlation between the hypothesized constructs have been found in general. Though some questions had given us mixed results, taken as a whole the research does find a relationship between undergraduate performance and program and the continuation of further education.

Acknowledgements
Firstly we would like to thank Almighty Allah for giving us the capability to be what we are today and also the future.
We would like to acknowledge and extend our heartfelt gratitude to our course instructor Dr. A. F. M. Ataur Rahman for his constant support for our research. His understanding assistance not only made our work easier, but also opened our minds and made us able to think out of the box; look at things from a different perspective.
We would now like to thank all our friends and classmates who encouraged and accompanied us and helped us carry out the research smoothly.
We would also like to thank our respondents for taking their time and filling out the survey questionnaires with patience and calm.

And last but not the least, special thanks to our families, who have always born with us through thick and thin and supported us in all our well intended endeavors.

Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………5
Literature Review………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………6
Methodology……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..7
Data Analysis……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..8
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………22
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….23

Introduction
The ever increasing competition in the white-collar job market of today has put the average undergraduate students in a classic dilemma. One has the opportunity to continue study into post-graduation level education such as Master’s degree; on the other hand one also has the option to enrol himself or herself quickly into the list of ‘office-goers’ as soon as they graduate. While the latter option is the more straightforward one as it offers the recently graduated person with a stable income and prospective future along the ladder of the corporate hierarchy, given that the graduate finds a job in the first place at all; the former option of continuing education in to post-graduation level is a perplexing one. While there have been a good number of studies on educational level, costs and the earnings of a graduate, including one on educational financing and lifetime earnings by Robert M. Sauer (Sauer, 2004), there is a lack of formal research on the factors that contribute towards influencing a recently graduate into continuing further education.
The formal hypothesis of this research is that ‘Undergraduate Program determines whether we pursue Post-Graduate Degree’. The focus of the research had been to find a causal relationship between firstly, the performance of a student in undergraduate level and the probability of the student enrolling for a graduate program; secondly, the program of a student and the probability of the student enrolling for a graduate program. So the research actually focuses on two aspects of undergraduate education and their relationship with continuing further education. This, on one hand, economizes on the research process by providing two findings with similar level of effort had it been focusing only on one aspect, on the other hand, it also keeps the research interesting without sacrificing the coherency.
Before continuing this paper with the primary research, which has been based on questionnaire surveys on undergraduate students in Dhaka, we take a look at the existing literature on similar issues. Since, as we have already mentioned, few researches have been carried out to find a formal relationship between the undergraduate level performance and program and continuation of education into post-graduation, a variety of literature has been included in the following section that even slightly relates to the topic in hand. The latter sections moves away from secondary research and focuses on the primary research that has been carried out. The first section of that part explicitly details the methodology used in constructing the program, gathering of data and analyzing the data. The next section deals with the data analysis and upon reaching a certain level maturity in analysis process puts forward the findings of the research.

Literature Review
The research intends to find a causal relationship between undergraduate performance and program and continuing further education, where the former tends to influence the later. Here, self-reported Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of undergraduate students has been taken as a proxy of the performance of the students at such level. The use of CGPA as a performance measure is not without controversies. One previous research in this filed claims that faculties tend to show an ‘adaptation level’ by awarding the same average and distribution of grades regardless of the general level of aptitude of the current students when compared to that of yesteryear students (Baird & Feister, 1972, p. 440). Another factor important in this regard is the current semester of the student being surveyed. Research has shown that undergraduate grades fall sharply in the second semester and then pick up in the first half of senior years before slumping in the final term (Grove & Wasserman, 2004, p. 170). Since the survey for this research did not cluster the subjects by the semesters in which they are, but rather had indiscriminately been chosen as candidates for the questionnaire survey, the pitfalls of a pattern with the CGPA over the student life is very much applicable in this research. To somehow mitigate this drawback, a data analysis based on the number of credit completed by the students has been carried out in Data Analysis section. Also, since the CGPAs have been self-reported by the subjects, the problem of accuracy of reporting exists. It has been found that though the self-reported CGPAs of with better academic performance is a good indicator, students with lower academic performances may over-report their CGPAs (Kuncel, Credé, & Thomas, 2005, p. 74). However, since collecting official transcripts of each individual student was not a practical alternative; the research has been carried out withy the aforementioned data.
Another recurring theme in educational researches is that of gender inequality. A research carried out in India states the lower enrolment rate of women in higher education, especially at research level (Chanana, 1992, p. 77). This may be valid even in Bangladesh, given the commonalities that we share. Family pressure into getting married is one of the factors that may act against a women continuing further education. Thus, even after having a good CGPA upon graduation and willingness of continue post-graduation, women in this country maybe unable to do so due to social and family factors.
One interesting research finds a correlation between unemployment rate and higher education, where it states that during recession when unemployment arte is high students are more likely to continue further education (Berggren, 2006, p. 143). This confirms our assumption of effect of job market prospect in influencing further education decision, however, this acts as a negative force where the lack of job market opportunity makes the student continue education while our hypothesis tries to find out a the effect of a positive force, that of undergraduate performance as well a program, on continuing further education.
The other part of the research was to find a correlation between the specific programs that the students are enrolled into and the persuasion of post-graduation level education. Though this a rather a nominal data to begin with, such that any ranking for comparison purpose maybe flawed, but still it would provide us with much insight into the decision making process of an undergraduate student. In fact, it has been found that the more able students tend to pursue more difficult courses (Leslie, 2003, p. 346). Though this does not directly infer a correlation between the program and post-graduation continuation, however, on the premise of the first causal relationship if a relationship between performance and further education can be found a correlation between p-program and further education is a logical deduction, assuming that validity of Derek Leslie’s findings.

Methodology
Quantitative methodology was followed in our research process by conducting primary and secondary survey. Quantitative methodology was used as we had to work with lots of data and statistics. For the primary survey, we constructed a questionnaire for our respondents. Out targeted respondents were Under Graduate (UG) students who were in their final year. This was because these students were now on the final stage of UG program and their next logical step is Masters.
The primary research was done through questionnaire survey, which was conducted on a sample of 50 respondents from 5 different universities in Dhaka. The questionnaire consisted of 13 questions. The survey was kept totally anonymous and there was no interaction with the respondent, whatsoever.

Data Analysis
Using mainly our data from the survey we tried to find a relation between our proposed hypotheses, i.e., Undergraduate Program determines whether we pursue Post-Graduate Degree.
For the primary research, a questionnaire survey of 50 respondents was surveyed from five different universities in Dhaka, namely: North South University, Prime Asia University, BRAC University, Independent University of Bangladesh and Dhaka University (Institute of business Administration). To keep the survey as neutral as possible, we tried to survey equal number of male and female respondents and no further inquiry were asked regarding their backgrounds. The surveys were conducted in their respective campuses. We tried to view and analyze the situation from different perspectives, which were:
CGPA, UG program, Age, Gender, and finally an overall average was also calculated, which would act as the control throughout the Data Analysis of the report.

Of the 50 respondents, there were 10 respondents from each Institution, as shown above in the pie chart.

Although efforts were given to keep the report gender unbiased, at the end, it was seen that majority of the respondents were female, and some chose not to disclose their gender. However, it may also be due to the faulty design of the questionnaire where people failed to notice that there were other filters at the top.

As the research was mainly done for under Graduate students, it was seen that majority of the respondents were in the age group 21-23, with a very insignificant portion belonging to the other age groups.

The most popular UG degree in Bangladesh is BBA and this is again confirmed by the pie chart above. Although majority of the respondents were from Business backgrounds, a significant portion came from Textile Engineering (mostly from Prime Asia University) and other science background, namely EEE, ETE, CSE, Bachelor of Arts, etc also were of significant proportion. A very small percentage of students were from Economics background.

Although the respondents were chosen randomly, most of the students were from the 4th or final years. This made our research a lot more credible, as these are the students who will be pursuing Master’s in a very short and so basically our most ideal respondents. Students of 3rd and 2nd year were much lower in number.

As the CGPA was a part of the Questionnaire, it helped us to find out if there was a link between the results and if s/he pursues Masters Degree or not. Most of the respondents were in the higher boundary of 3.00-4.0

What do you Plan to do immediately after you graduate? (Comparison based on CGPA)

This particular Question gave us a clear understanding as of whether the students wanted to actually complete masters after graduation or not. Students with CGPA of 3.50 or more said that they wanted to start off with masters right after graduation; whereas students on the lower boundary of CGPA chose to look for jobs. Respondents with CGPA ranging from 3.00-3.49 had almost similar answers to all of the above questions, i.e. their decisions are well balanced.

Do you plan to pursue Masters Level Education soon after you graduate? (Comparison Based on CGPA) This was the main deciding Question as of whether respondents chose to pursue masters or not. If they had said no, then they were redirected to answer a different question, skipping many in the process. As expected, students with a higher CGPA chose to do masters right after graduation, where as respondents falling in the lowest range chose not to do Master’s. This might say that better student has a higher probability of pursuing higher education than weak students.

Have you decided in which country you will study for masters? (Comparison based on CGPA)

This Question actually acted as a confirmation to the previous question, stating whether the respondent actually did some research on his/her Master’s program. If the respondent chose yes, then it meant that doing masters was quite certain. However, some students chose NO as their answer; these mainly were females with high CGPA. This also showed that they might want to pursue their degree in a foreign country, but may be held back due to several factors, both social, financial, etc.

How do you plan to finance your Higher Education? (Comparison Based on CGPA)

We believed that financing of Master’s is just as equally important as choosing to do it in the first place. While the finance from the household was the most obvious option, it was interesting that scholarship was one of the most important sources of expected finance for respondents with CGPA of less than 3. As expected, the best students also expected the highest Scholarships.

When choosing Masters level program, did you Bachelors program influence you? (Comparison based on CGPA)

This Question almost summarizes the main point of our research, i.e- if the masters program was influenced by the current UG program. As expected most of the respondents said that they will be pursuing the same degree as they have been studying in the UG. However, respondents with low CGPA said that it was not their UG program, but rather they were dictated by the job market to pursue the degree which was in demand.
What do you Plan to do immediately after you graduate? (Comparison based on Seniority of Student)

As all the questions were analyzed from different perspectives, this shows us as of how, master’s education decision changed over the course of seniority among UG students. Most of the respondents said that they would pursue master’s right after graduation, while an equal no. of respondents said that they would look for jobs. There were a few respondents who thought otherwise.
What do you Plan to do immediately after you graduate? (Comparison based on Seniority of Student)

Since this question directly stated whether the respondents would pursue master’s education, most said that they would, however some said that they won’t. An interesting observation here shows that none of the 4th year students said that they will not pursuing Masters. This again tells us that senior students are more prone to go for higher studies. Have you decided in which country you will study for Masters? (Based on Seniority)

It seems that the students belonging to the lower range of CGPA had decided as of where they would pursue higher education. However, many respondents hadn’t decided yet , which was very odd as they had decided already if they would pursue higher education or not.

How do you plan to finance your Higher Education? (Comparison Based on Seniority)

As seen earlier, scholarship was the most preferred choice for finance of Master’s degree. However, a trend among the 3rd year students is seen that they prefer financing from home. A significant portion of the 2nd year students said, that they plan to finance through scholarship.

When choosing Masters level program, did you Bachelors program influence you? (comparison based on seniority)

Respondents from all levels said that it was their UG program that influenced them to pursue Master’s in a similar degree, and a small percentage talked about the job market. No peculiarities were seen here.

What do you plan to do immediately after you graduate? (Comparison based on the UG programs)

At this point, the data was again analyzed form the filter of current UG programs that the respondents were studying. As shown earlier in the pie chart, most of the students were from Business backgrounds, few from Textile engineering, many from Science and engineering departments, and a very few from economics. Most unanimously agreed to go for Master’s right after graduation, but the economists chose an earning alternative after graduation.
Do you plan to pursue Master's level education soon after you graduate? (Comparison Based on UG program)

An interesting trend can be seen here, in the sense that almost half of the BBA respondent might not go for masters, where as almost all engineering students said that master’s was their primary objective. This shows that engineering students are more prone to higher education than BBA students, which is actually a professional degree.

Have you decided in which country you will study for Masters? (Comparison based on UG program)

A unanimous decision was reached by almost all that they had already decided in the country they will be studying master’s in, which shows that they have already done their homework and hence their answers would be very credible.

How do you plan to finance the expense for your higher Education? (Comparison based on UG program)

The only peculiarity seen here was from the economists, where all said that they would rely on home finance. Most of the Science background students hoped for scholarship and the preference of BBA students were pretty much well balanced. When choosing Master's level program, did your bachelor program influence you? (Comparison based on UG program)

This table shows that people are actually influenced by their current UG programs, regardless of the department they are enrolled in. Although several sciences backed students that it was job market, but they also mentioned that they will be studying a slight varied version of their UG program for masters. Many textile engineers mentioned that they might go for masters in other degrees, and so did a handful of BBA students.
Is there any reason other than academic for choosing the country of your choice?

It was seen that most of the people who wanted to do Master’s, thought about going abroad. It was interesting to see as of why they wanted to go the respective country, other than academic reasons. The most popular choice was of Job opportunities and the availability of scholarships. Many said that settling in a better developed country was their objective, while some even said that it was due to family pressure and somewhat social acceptance.

This question was mainly asked to people who had said that they were not planning for masters. The main reason as we found it was that they were more on the lookout for jobs, than other factors.

The answer to this question was very obvious. Almost everyone had the intention to do masters, if not now, then after working for time in the specific field.

This was the final question of our survey, asked to those who said that they won’t be pursuing masters after graduation. Most of them answered that it was because of their need to work, while many also said they had family business to take care of. Very few had family restrictions, and some also had financial problems as their primary constraint.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, it can be said that there is a vibrant relation between UG program and our pursuit for higher education.
Through the analysis of our obtained data, it was seen that the subject that we choose to study for Masters level education is primarily determined by the current UG program of students. The second deciding factor is the job market. Although not many depend upon this, but a significant number of respondents said that the demand of the degree in the job market changed their minds. It seemed the MBA was the most common and sought after degree for most.
Through the analysis and usage of filters, it was seen that students with a high CGPA were more inclined to pursue masters than students with a comparatively lower CGPA.
As the students approached their final years in their UG degree, their decision for masters became more firm, as the 4th year students showed the most determination for pursuing masters. However a completely different viewpoint was seen from 3rd year students. This can be attributed to the fact that students in the 3rd year are frustrated with university life and getting rid of it is their primary objective.
Little distinction was seen between males and female, however, many females did claim that they could not pursue higher education due to family pressure or financial constraints.
Proportionately, engineering background students were prone to do masters than students from other background. Engineering and science backed students unanimously said that they will be pursuing masters in their respective field, however comparatively more of these respondents said that it was the job market that had decided their masters discipline.
At the end of the day, we indeed found a very strong relationship between the program and performance of a undergraduate students and their opting for further education.

Bibliography

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