| dc.description.abstract | The composition of female studies has been growing all over the world. The trend seems to indicate that female students prefer some courses over others. Female students who enroll in postgraduate courses do so for a number of reasons which range from the desire for high income or better employment, empowerment for decision reasons and other social cultural factors. This trend is also typical in the College of Education and External Studies of the University of Nairobi. The purpose of the study was to investigate the factors that influence female enrolment in postgraduate studies of the College of Education and External Studies of the University of Nairobi.
The study was conducted in the departments of Educational Administration and Planning, Extra Mural Studies and Educational Communication and Technology. The objectives of the study were to establish the influence of economic, social/cultural, personal or individual and contextual factors on enrolment of female in postgraduate studies. Theories and literature on female enrolment in postgraduate studies were reviewed and a conceptual framework developed to guide the study. The study used survey design. The target population was female postgraduate students enrolled in the year 2010/2011 academic year in the three departments (Educational Administration and Planning, Extra Mural Studies, Educational Communication and Technology).
Stratified sampling design was used to select the participants. Simple random sampling was used to select respondents from each strata using postgraduate nominal roll. Data was collected from 91 female students through the use of a questionnaire. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive and factor analysis. The study expects to generate findings that will provide empirical data on factors that influence female enrolment in postgraduate programmes.
The study concludes that economic factors, socio-cultural factors, personal/individual factors and contextual factors influence the enrollment of postgraduate studies. This research study therefore recommends that the commercial banks in Kenya should provide loans for post graduate students. The study also recommends that that women postgraduate' students should first of all finish their academics before getting into family life so as to reduce their commitments to marriage and commitment in terms of finances. | en_US |
