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Abstract
Graduate students are often overlooked as a critical audience when universities strategically communicate scientific research, and few resources are traditionally dedicated to graduate student recruitment. Graduate students additionally possess a myriad of characteristics – including cultural – that contribute to their decision to enroll in a graduate program. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to explore the influence of prospective students’ demographic, background, and cultural characteristics on their communication tool preferences when searching for graduate programs within a college of agriculture (COA). The study utilized an online survey to collect quantitative data from students at nine highly ranked COAs in the U.S. and operationalized audience segmentation, uses and gratifications theory, and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions of collectivism/individualism (CI), power distance (PD), and uncertainty avoidance (UA). The first study found students utilize a variety of communication tools in their graduate program search, with department/program websites, graduate school websites, email communication, and faculty lab websites being the most prominent. Gender, age category, marital status, and degree sought had significant associations with students’ use of communication tools. Levels of UA predicted students’ use of graduate school and departmental websites, while PD levels predicted use of video calls. The second study found that during the graduate program search, students sought a sense of realism and the feeling of being at the university to be gratified on departmental/program websites, faculty lab websites, and social media. Individual-level cultural dimensions of CI, PD, and UA only accounted for a small amount of variance in the gratifications students sought. The third study examined gratifications obtained and frequency of use of communication tools, revealing the most frequently used were departmental and program websites, faculty lab websites, and graduate school websites. Frequency of use, CI, PD, and UA significantly predicted students’ cognitive gratifications obtained on departmental sites. Frequency of use predicted cognitive and social integrative gratifications obtained from social media. Recommendations for future research and practical implications are discussed.