The Determinants of Students’ Destination Choice in Western Balkan Countries
Mirko Savić, University of Novi Sad (Serbia)
Milena Kresoja, University of Novi Sad (Serbia)
Abstract
International mobility of students is the key ingredient for developing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). It is the corner stone for employability of students and it provides improvement of competencies and skills. Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia have recognized the importance of international mobility. Increasing of the international mobility rates of teachers, students and researchers is already set as an action goal in their strategies for development of higher education. However, the overall results of EUROSTUDENT V research, conducted in 2014, showed lower mobility rates in all three countries in comparison to the other 25 countries participating in the EUROSTUDENT survey. Apart from rates of participation in international student mobility, important aspect is also the choice of destination country. The analysis of international mobility in this research investigates factors that affects the choice of mobility destination on the basis of the same EUROSTUDENT dataset. The regions for foreign enrolment were classified into three categories: EU countries, EHEA-countries without EU and non-EHEA countries. Decision and realization thresholds were analyzed separately for each country and the modelling of both thresholds were performed by multinomial logistic regression models. Three groups of indicators were chosen as potential determinants. The first one consists of indicators of students‘ social and economic status, the second one consists of satisfactions with certain aspects of studies and the last one consists of possible obstacles for studying abroad. Overall results distinguish age, year of study and skills in foreign languages as the strongest predictors of the choice of the destination for international mobility.