Educational Tourism: A Behavioral and Perceptual Analysis of Chinese Students in Malaysian Public Universities

This study embarks on an exhaustive exploration of these determinants, leveraging the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to decipher their interaction and overall impact on educational tourism. The research examines a variety of psychological variables, Attitudes, Subjective Norms, Perceived Behavioral Control, Resource Availability, Self-Esteem Motivation, Novelty Seeking, Perceived Value, and Opportunity Cost, focusing on their modulation by Resource Availability and Novelty Seeking. A structured closed-ended questionnaire serves as the research instrument, obtaining responses from 376 participants over a period of three months. The collected data is meticulously analyzed using the Smart PLS tool. The results illuminate considerable direct and indirect relationships between these factors and their consequent effect on educational tourism. Specifically, Attitudes, Subjective Norms, and Perceived Behavioral Control significantly influence Resource Availability, Self-Esteem Motivation, and Novelty Seeking. In turn, Resource Availability and Novelty Seeking exert a positive effect on educational tourism, while Self-Esteem Motivation shows a minor positive correlation. Perceived Value and Opportunity Cost also play an instrumental moderating role. Although perceived value positively modulates the influence of resource availability, counterintuitively, it exerts a negative moderating effect on novelty seeking. Opportunity Cost presents mixed moderation results. The study concludes by highlighting potential future research directions.