Behavioral models of educational choice: A classification of decision-making patterns among Ukrainian higher education applicants

Type of the article: Research Article

Abstract
Educational choice is increasingly understood as a multidimensional decision-making process, shaped not only by economic, institutional, and social determinants but also by behavioral mechanisms that operate under uncertainty. Drawing on human capital theory, rational choice theory, social norms theory, and behavioral economics, this study develops a theoretically grounded, a priori classification of behavioral response patterns in educational choice – a rational model, a social-norms model, and a bounded-rationality model – and quantifies the distribution of model-coded responses among Ukrainian higher education applicants. It further examines whether this distribution varies by gender, admission score, family income, and locality of secondary education. The empirical analysis is based on a survey of 405 first-year students at five Ukrainian universities, using descriptive statistics and Pearson’s chi-squared test. Rational responses predominate in the choice of higher education institution (54.0%) and study program (49.0%), whereas the choice of study city is distributed almost evenly across all three models. Gender is the only variable significantly, though weakly, associated with the distribution of model-coded responses (Cramer’s V = 0.138); admission score, family income, and locality show no statistically significant association. The findings also point to the growing role of official university websites and social media in applicants’ information-seeking behavior, and to the importance of security considerations as a context-specific factor shaping institutional choice under wartime conditions. By integrating established determinant-based theories with a behavioral decision-making perspective, the study offers a novel classification framework and practical implications for evidence-informed recruitment and communication strategies in higher education.

Acknowledgment
Funded by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine under the project “Higher education in the conditions of war and post-war recovery: determinants of development to overcome threats to the restoring of human capital” (State registration number 0124U000351).