An Application of Conjoint Analysis for Preference Measurement

The application of the conjoint analysis to the choice of study major problems is discussed. Each course is described by five variables: advice from parents, teachers, and friends; fashion; degree of course difficulty; attractiveness of the job after graduation; coincidence with personal intellectual interests. A sample of Wroclaw University of Economics students were asked to express their preference. The data was collected in autumn 1997. The orthogonal array of 16 variants was constructed. The respondents were asked to evaluate proposed variants by ranking them. In order to estimate the part-worth's, and relative importance of each characteristics in the choice process, collected data is analyzed with the conjoint measurement methodology. As the result of the analysis, the relative importance of each variable to the overall evaluation of the study major choice is shown and the market segments were determined