Sample Detail

The circular charts given depict different methods used by overseas students in three countries when enrolling in online English courses from 2009 to 2010. Overall, while the online booking method in Australia became popular and pre-booking via agent declined considerably after a year, students studying abroad in Canana displayed the greatest preference for agency-based booking. Most notably, USA had a balanced allocation among four categories during the period. In 2009, students studying abroad in the USA used four methods evenly when booking virtual English courses, with the exact figure ranging from 24% to 26%. A year later, the figure for methods in the USA had a slight shift, making pre-enrollment via agent the largest proportion, compared to the ‘other’ category that remained the least popular, at 23%. In-person registration and registering on the internet accounted for 24% and 25%, respectively. Although Australia had an even distribution across all categories in 2009, the proportion of the internet bookings then increased markedly from 24% to 39% in 2010 at the expense of pre-enrollment with agent, plummeting from 27% to 11%. At the same time, Canada witnessed a significant reversal of positions. Agent booking emerged as the dominant category in 2010 despite previously being the second largest, whereas direct registration category dominated at 45% at first, falling to 26% in 2010. Additionally, ‘other’ ways also grew in popularity in Canada although it still revealed the least common way.