A study of Generation Z from the communication perspective of universities

Abstract

This paper deals with the examination of high school and college students’ preferences for choosing the university who were born in the period of mid 1990s. The goal of the paper is to conduct more detailed analysis of the most common means of communication from the perspective of potential and existing customers (in this case, students). We approach how members of this generation make decisions when they choose a university to study and what content of the information affects their final decisions. Research conducted for this article include at most 900 respondents from among high school students and first year university students. It is evident that students are affected more by information concerning their future than those that make life in the study. A big influence on the decisions of the university have information that students gained from their friends or family who the studied similar schools in the past. We found that within a generation Z the older generation does not have such an influence on their decisions. Our findings also show a degree of decision-making dynamics of two students subgroups comparison - students who doesn´t study the university and those who already are studying. The valuable information for business sphere about the way how examined groups of student gather information is presented in the paper. This information can significantly help to understand and better targeting that groups.