Factors in the decision of undergraduates to pursue a master’s degree

Graduate studies are very important to one’s personal ability to advance socioeconomically and to the development of society. Despite the importance of graduate degrees, relatively little research has been published on the factors that affect the decision to pursue graduate studies. Some models, such as human capital theory and social cognitive career theory (SCCT), have been proposed to explain the choice to pursue graduate studies (for master’s or doctoral degrees). The present article, based on the SCCT model, examined the association of several main factors of the model with the intention of students in the middle of the third and final year of bachelor’s degree studies to pursue master’s degree studies. According to the results, student grades in the previous year did not correlate with the intention to pursue a master’s degree and, in contrast, students’ aspirations regarding their grades did correlate with the intention to pursue a master’s degree. In addition, the relationship of some of the variables with the intention to pursue a master’s degree depended on the levels of the other variables.