PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING DECISION OF YOUNG ADULTS TO STUDY ABROAD

OBJECTIVES The purpose of the study is to identify and describe the most persistent psychosocial factors that influence young adults of Karachi to take up the decision of studying abroad. STUDY DESIGN It was a cross sectional study. Respondents of the study were young adults currently abroad or planning to go abroad for higher studies from Karachi, ages ranging between 18 to 30 years. In this regard, a closed ended questionnaire was made on Likert scale. Non probability convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data with the sampling size of 170 students. RESULTS Out of 170 participants, the majority were male which counted to 117, whereas female participants were only 53. From the mean of all the independent variables, it was found that factors affecting quality of life is the most persistent, having M=3.36 with ±0.718 SD among all that encourage young adults to take decision to study abroad. For future research, comparative analysis can be done to find the reasoning behind young adults those who are applying and those who are not for higher education abroad. CONCLUSION The three highlighted issues, which became focus of this study includes quality of education, social & personal factors, and quality of life. In this study it is also concluded that quality of life is the focal point for most of the young adults of Karachi.