The Factors Affecting the University Preferences of Students Who were Placed in CEIT Departments in 2017

According to the results of 2017 Student Selection and Placement Exam, referred as SSPE, none of the students were placed in 7 of the Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) departments and nine or less number of students were placed in the remaining 38 of them. While four of the departments have fully filled their quotas, 22 % of them have filled their capacity between 20 % and 60 %. In this respect, there is a need to conduct research to determine reasons that affect students’ preferences of selecting CEIT departments. In the present study, it is aimed to explore the university and department-related features that affect the preferences of students from CEIT departments that fully filled their quota or between 20 % - 60 % of their capacity. The data were gathered by survey research method from 290 students who were enrolled in 12 different CEIT departments, which filled their quota with 20 % or more. In this respect, two different scales were developed as data collection tools, their factors were determined, and validity-reliability analyses were performed. The first scale the impact of university-related features on preferences was composed of 14 items and four factors (advice, location, opportunity, and reputation), the impact of department-related features on preferences scale was composed of nine items and two factors (quality, advice). Statistical analyses showed that the impact of university opportunities and department quality factors on determining preference revealed significant difference in the favor of CEITS which fully filled their quota, the factor of university location revealed significant difference in the favor of CEITS which did not fully fill their quota. The mean scores of the opinions of the students on the reasons of preference was calculated as 3.63 out of 6 in terms of university-related features and 2.72 in terms of department-related features