KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

FACTORS THAT SIGNIFICANTLY INFLUENCE THE FEE OF A HOSTEL

IN AND AROUND KNUST CAMPUS

By

ABROKWAH, Moreen Acheampongmaa

ABAKAH, Sampson Agyapong

KUDIABOR, Ferdinand Dela

TINDANA, Josiah Tindan

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF MATHEMATICS,

KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY IN

PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE

OF BSC. STATISTICS

May, 2019
 Declaration

We hereby declare that this submission is our own work towards the award of the BSc. degree and

that, to the best of our knowledge, it contains no material previously published by another person nor

material which had been accepted for the award of any other degree of the university, except where

due acknowledgment had been made in the text.

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ABROKWAH, Moreen Acheampongmaa ..................... ..................

Student Signature Date

ABAKAH, Sampson Agyapong

..................... ..................
Student Signature Date

KUDIABOR, Ferdinand Dela

..................... ..................
Student Signature Date

TINDANA, Josiah Tindan

..................... ..................
Student Signature Date

Certified by:
Dr. Eric Nimako
..................... ..................

Supervisor Signature Date

Certified by:
Prof. A.O Adebanji
..................... ..................

Head of Department Signature Date

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 Dedication

We dedicate this project to the Almighty God. He is the source and sustainer of our inspiration,

wisdom, knowledge and understanding. We also dedicate this work to our parents, friends and all our

loved ones for their encouragements and support. Our love for you can never be quantified. God bless

you all.

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 Chapter 1

1.0 Introduction

This chapter describes hostels, their prices, and their fluctuations, in and around KNUST Campus. It

further focuses on the research objectives, methodology, justification, scope and the limitations of the

study.

1.1 Background of study

For some years now there has been a rapid growth in the population of students in most public tertiary

institutions in Ghana. As a result of the population increase, most of these institutions, that previously

depended on their halls of residence to accommodate students, had to introduce and switch to the

non-residential (off-campus) students’ system. (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO), 2019). In the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

(KNUST), students are provided accommodation in the various halls in their first year of stay on

campus. After first year, students are required to look for hostels of their choice to settle in, which is

known as the “in-out-out-out-system”. The University also built hostels on the campus to cater for

international students. As a result of the housing deficit, people who owned houses, hotels and guest

houses around the campus in the vicinity of Bomso, Ayeduase, Kotei, Deduako, Kentinkrono,

Oduom, Gyinyase and so on, turned these properties into hostels to provide students with

accommodation, and also make business out of the problem identified. Seeing opportunity and taking

action, owners of these hostels were making huge profits and attracted investors to invest in the hostel

business.

As a result of the high demand on hostels for accommodation, prices of hostels have been rising

yearly without any sign of renovations or provision of quality services which has been the greatest

worry of students in tertiary institutions, especially on KNUST campus. Over the past few years, the

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hostel business in and around KNUST campus has thrived. The thrifty nature of this business has

since been very worrisome to students and parents, the direct and indirect consumers respectively.

Every year, parents and students get into a headache of trying to get the right hostel for their wards

and themselves respectively. Even as some students will maintain their current hostels, others will

have to move either to a place of more comfort, given they have more money at their disposal, or

others to a place of less comfort because of a cut-down in budget. Other factors, however may account

for the above stated.

Many research works have been done on the factors students consider before they choose a particular

hostel. Out of these works it was deduced that most of the students considered price and distance as

a major factor before choosing a hostel.

1.2 Statement Of Research Problem

1.3 Research Objectives

As a result of the above-mentioned problem, it has become very necessary to find out how the

facilities a hostel offers students affect its fees. It is our objective to develop a model that represents

the situation stated above and can be used to forecast the fees of a hostel given the factors above

mentioned.

1.4 Research Methodology

In this study, we aim at using regression analysis, specifically multiple regression analysis to model

our data. Multiple regression analysis will be used to determine the significant factors that affect the

price of a hostel. It will be be used to further explain the relationship between the dependent variable

which is price of hostel and the independent variables, which include proximity to lecture area, hostel

facilities, include price of hostel, security (street light, CCTV cameras, fenced wall, and time of

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locking hostels), facilities (kitchen, bed type, study room, TV room, and room size), proximity to

lecture area, access to road, and number of roommates. Data will be collected from students in level

200 and above since they reside in hostels and have much experience with living in hostels. The data

will be collected through online questionnaires, then entered into Microsoft Excel, creating a .csv

file, and imported into SPSS for analysis. The statistical software for the analysis would be SPSS.

The study will rely on the internet, journals and articles about issues concerning hostels, personal

lecture notes and other sources.

1.5 Justification Of The Study

The success of this study will help us to know the factors that significantly influence the price of a

hostel in KNUST. It is an acceptable fact that the factors being investigated play significant role in

the price of hostels. The study around the KNUST is the first of its kind. It enables:

 People in academia to probe further so that the study may shed some light regarding the effect

of price and physical experience by Hostel management.

 The research will also serve as a resource material and inspirational guide for potential and

actual investors in Hostel operations. It creates opportunity that will serve as a guide and

successive tool for potential entrepreneurs to value price and other factors as critical factors

in any business establishment. It is further hoped that the study will assist those in research

who want to study similar topic to find useful literature review.

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 Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.0 Introduction

This Chapter on Literature Review provides some literature complied from published sources on

Factors that influence hostel prices in and outside KNUST. It sums up current knowledge of factors
that influence hostel prices. include Price of hostel, Security (street light, CCTV cameras, fenced

wall, and time of locking hostels), Facilities (kitchen, bed type, study room, TV room, and Room

size), Proximity to lecture area, Access to Road, and number of roommates.

Accommodation is one of the fundamental necessities for every individual. It serves as a place of

shelter, comfort, security and refuge. (Oyetunji and Abidoye, 2016) argued that Students housing is

a supervised kind of hostel with shared facilities and amenities, where living and learning can be

done. (Ubong, 2007) stated that campus accommodation constitutes a particular type of building

which serves as shelter and provides important necessities, that is, an atmosphere that is comfortable

for learning to be done. (Strange and Banning, 2008) proposed three conditions that make students

living environment productive, a sense of security and attachment, processes for involvement and

experience from the neighbourhood. Therefore, it is essential for tertiary institutions to provide

accommodation. In view of this, students are provided with halls of residence and hostels for

accommodation purposes. Halls of residence are provided for students in first year. After first year

students are to look for Hostels to reside in, this has been one of the challenging issues in tertiary

institutions.

HOSTEL

A hostel according to HostelManagement.com, is a budget-oriented, shared-room (“dormitory”)

accommodation that accepts individual travellers or groups for short-term stays, that provides

common areas and communal facilities. In some countries, typically African countries, the word

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Hostel can also refer to students’ accommodation or long term accommodation for students. It is also

a type of affordable accommodation for people on a specific budget created and designed in various

colours, room type, bed sizes, space, kitchen and washing facilities, leisure rooms and washrooms to

accommodate clients who are mostly tertiary students. There are basically two types of Hostel

facilities depending on the location in and around KNUST. All hostels have either been classified as

Campus Hostels or Off-Campus Hostels. Most of these Off-Campus hostels in KNUST environs are

privately owned. Campus hostels are hostels built my school authorities to provide students with

accommodation. These are some off campus Hostels in KNUST, Brunei, Chancellors Hall, Tek credit

and SRC hostels. Charges for accommodation for these hostels are very high since they provide free

electricity, due to the fact they are located on campus, students feel safer as a result of the high level

of security, there is also the provision of wireless internet and learning commons to facilitate learning.

Living on-campus gives students the general opportunity to participate in more activities, use campus

resources and innovation experience (Rinn,2004). Student population has been increasing steadfastly

and hostels on campus could not accommodate all student hence private Hostels were built outside

campus to accommodate students. Since the government has not been able to provide enough

accommodation for students, they had to make partnership with the private sector to help provide

accommodation. These private owned Hostels owners are making huge profits out of these Hostels.

There are a lot of factors that influence students’ choice of Hostels. According to Frazier (2019)

convenience, location close to campus, high speed internet, proximity to campus and ability to study.

Bekurs (2007) says that a good hostel conditions have positive influence on students’ choice of

Hostel. Considering price and other factors, price was the major factor that influenced students’

choice of Hostel(Champion et al., 2013)

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Factors that influence hostel prices(Champion et al., 2013)

Prices

There are so many dimensions of price so it is sometimes very difficult to define price in real life-

situations(Adrian, 2005). This is such that one’s inability to realise will create very big mistakes in

measurement of prices. Different groups of people have different meanings and perspectives of prices

according to(Boachie-Mensah, 1999). To a group of people like sellers, price means a key element

in the marketing mix which, in the shorter, may be used to stimulate demand or to respond to actions

of competitors. Also to buyers, price helps them to measure the value placed on the exchange. This

value will be related to how they perceive the transaction and the satisfaction or utility they expect to

gain from it (July-August, 2013). According to (2002) price is defined as the amount of money

charged for product or service, or the sum of the values that consumers exchange for the benefit of

having or using the product or service. (2003)also defines price as the value of money(or its

equivalent) placed on a good or service. Prices could be elastic in nature, in that, the sensitivity of the

changes in the quantity is from the resulting changes in another quantity. An example is that when

the sales of a commodity drop by 5% when the price is increased by 10%, the price elasticity is -0.5.

Hostel managers base their price on the demand elasticity because the demand of hostel is affected

by price changes. According to(July-August, 2013), the demand for Hostels service is elastic, due to

availability of substitute and competing brands. Price differentiation strategies benefit consumers and

providers alike. Such segmentation could be based on number of people in the room. Example, one

person in a room to improve privacy, two in a room to create flexibility and maximum four people in

a room to reduce cost for those who cannot afford as well as varied facilities providing items such as

computers, internet accessories, refrigerators, and ceiling fans, writing desk and chairs.

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Security

Hostel Security involves all the conditions provided for students for them not to be threatened

physically, psychologically, emotionally and financially. A very choice determinant factor of hostel

prices is Security. It is among the most relevant factors for hostel choice according to . Also, students’

intentions not to move from their hostels is due to high security level. The same study by Champion

et al. (2013) showed that most students do not advocate and recommend for hostels with poor security.

Hostel security include CCTV cameras, Fenced walls, Street lights and Time of locking hostel gates.

In (Anushree Bobhate, 2018), the researchers noticed the high statistics of the crimes related to girls

and were motivated to create a system designed to maintain security for girls when they leave or

return to the hostel. In their project whenever the girl wants to leave the hostel, she will enter her in-

time and will carry a security module with her which is a mobile application. When the girl is in

danger, she will press the key on the security module and one message will be sent to the hostel

warden’s mobile, also the message will be sent to the parent’s mobile number along with the location

of that girl. All these are efforts to strengthen security at hostel and they happen to come with huge

costs. These costs in directly affect hostel prices such that higher security implies higher prices. This

proposition is confirmed by (Susana Cró, 2018) in an article evaluating the impact of security in the

hostel industry on the willingness to pay by customers. In the study, the results highlight the

importance of security on the determination of hostel room prices. They found that customers are

willing to pay a higher premium in terms of price, in the least worldwide peaceful countries, for a

hostel room with higher levels of security.

Facilities

Hostel facilities involve the physical means or contrivances, equipment or infrastructure which make

living in hostels easy and comfortable. Residential colleges or universities with residential facilities

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play a vital role in many of the best universities in the world (Nimako, 2013). In (Joseph Marfo, 2018)

study of INVESTIGATING THE EMERGING TREND OF ACCOMMODATION CHARGES OF

PRIVATE HOSTELS IN GHANA: A SURVEY AT KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (KNUST), UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION WINNEBA,

KUMASI-CAMPUS (UEW-K) AND KUMASI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (KTU), GHANA, to

measure the Effects of accommodation charges on students’ residence and performances; relationship

between hostel charges, rapid increases, increment affecting student’s academics and student’s ability

to hire private hostels, hostel facilities were found to be an important factor in determination of the

accommodation charges in their findings and discussions. Also in their study, they aimed at

investigating the students’ satisfaction with the available hostel facilities and amenities. They

investigated this by finding the mean and standard deviation of the students’ satisfaction for facility

items like kitchen, bed type, study room, TV room, room size, toilet, wardrobe, etc. Almost all the

items revealed a mean score below 3 but above 2 or closed to 2 indicating that the students are much

satisfied with the services of the available facilities and utilities. For an accurate prediction of hostel

prices or charges, availability of good facilities to meet students’ satisfaction cannot be ignored.

Hostel facilities also contribute to classification of hostels, thus, first, second and third class hostels.

Students who can afford can demand the services of the first and second class hostels where the

facilities are much better than the third class hostels according to (Lydia Asare-Kyire, 2016). This

same study provided stratification of hostels in the study by using facilities and hostel charges as

strata.

Room Type

There are various room types in the university hostel or hall residences which largely affects pricing

of hostel or accommodation charges for every academic year. The type of room determines the

amount one should prepare to pay per academic year or semester. Basically, there are room types

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which are 4-in-a-room, 3-in-a-room, 2-in-a-room, 1-in-a-room and also flats. The prices descend in

that order respectively. According to the accommodation resource page on the University of Bristol

page referenced, the accommodation fee you pay depends on the type of room you have. They have

a very wide variety of accommodation, and so the fees are varied similarly. Fees are calculated using

a number of factors including room size, whether you have a basin, or en suite, facilities at your

residence such as common rooms and bars, gardens and sports facilities, any enhancement to your

room, and catering (if applicable). The fee also includes all gas, electricity and water rates, plus

internet and a bus pass. From the results and discussion of the study, ‘Level of Satisfaction with

Private Hostels around KNUST Campus by (Anthony Kwame Danso, 2017), majority of students

stayed in their hostels for more than 2 semesters while a few stayed for only a year. Their period of

stay in the hostels gave credibility to the answers they provide concerning hostel prices. 24.8% and

36.2% of the respondents live in a 3-in-a-room and 4-in-a-room respectively. The journal also

specifies that among the room types the occupants of the 4-in-a-room relatively paid cheaper prices

for accommodation.

RELATED WORKS

A study by (Oyetunji Abiodun Kolawole,2016) was aimed at assessing of factors that influences

student’s choice of Hostels in Nigerian tertiary institution. A survey was conducted on final year

students of the Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria since they had a lot of experience

on off – campus and campus living. A sample size of 470 was obtained. A well- structured

questionnaire was distributed among the sample using the simple random sampling technique and

376 out of 470 were returned. Data was collected and analysed using Weighted Mean Score (WMS)

and discriminant Function Analysis. The data was analysed using SPSS 21.0. Choice of

accommodation represented the dependent variable and the following factors represented the

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explanatory variables, proximity to campus, price, type of dwelling, level of facilities provision, size

of room, access to transport, privacy provision, security of neighbourhood, nearness to market,

aesthetics, access to medical facilities and outdoor environmental quality. Findings from this study

revealed that proximity to campus was the most significant factor followed by Price and provision of

facilities. This study reveals that Distance and Price were major factors students considered to choose

hostels. In view of this, Hostel owners are using this opportunity to increase Price of hostels abruptly

since students prefer Hostels closer to faculty areas and with the provision of adequate facilities.

A Thesis on “FACTORS INFLUENCING UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ LEVEL OF

SATISFACTION WITH ON-CAMPUS AND OFF-CAMPUS ACCOMODATION AT MOI

UNIVERSITY MAIN CAMPUS, KENYA” by Jennifer Jepkosgei Chepkener (2018). The aim of the

study was to establish the factors influencing undergraduate students’ level of satisfaction with on-

campus and off-campus accommodation at Moi University Main Campus. The choice of the Main

campus was because it provided both off and on-campus accommodation. The target population

consisted of all 11000 undergraduate students. A sample of 130 students were used for the study.

Questionnaires were distributed and the data was collected from them. The data was coded and SPSS

–version 20 was used for analysis. The study revealed that 61.8% of students off-campus considered

distance as a major factor when choosing a hostel and 72.8% of students on-campus students as well.

This implies that both students considered distance as a factor for choosing a Hostel.

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REFERENCES

2002. Principles of Marketing, Pearson Education Limited.

2003. Marketing Essentials, N.Y, Glencoe / McGraw – Hill.
July-August, 2013. THE EFFECT OF PRICE AND PHYSICAL EVIDENCE ON THE CHOICE
OF STUDENT HOSTEL AROUND KNUST CAMPUS. Global Journal Of
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 10.
ADRIAN, P. 2005. Principles of Service Marketing, NY, McGraw-Hill.
ANTHONY KWAME DANSO, S. F. H. 2017. Level of Satisfaction with Private Hostels around
KNUST Campus International Journal of Science and Technology, 6, 9.
ANUSHREE BOBHATE, D. C., MAYURI UDANKAJAL PAL, PRANJALI HULKE 2018.
Hostel Girls’ Security System. International Journal of Advance Research, Ideas and
Innovations in Technology, 4, 5.
BEKURS 2007.
BOACHIE-MENSAH, F. O. 1999. Fundamentals of Marketing, Cape Coast, Catholic Mission
Press.
CHAMPION, C. B., ASARE, E. & MPRAH, R. K. 2013. The Effect Of Price And Physical
Evidence On The Choice Of Student Hostel Around Knust Campus. Global Journal of
Interdisciplinary Social Sciences, 2, 9-23.
FRAZIER 2019.
JOSEPH MARFO, E. M. M., SETH ADJEI-POKU 2018. INVESTIGATING THE EMERGING
TREND OF ACCOMMODATION CHARGES OF PRIVATE HOSTELS IN GHANA: A
SURVEY AT KWAME NKRUMAH UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(KNUST), UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION WINNEBA, KUMASI-CAMPUS (UEW-K)
AND KUMASI TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY (KTU), GHANA European Journal of
Education Studies 5, 19.
LYDIA ASARE-KYIRE, W. A. A., ANTHONY KUSI AND ABRAHAM OSEI1 2016. An
Investment Analysis of Private Hostel Business in Ghana Tertiary Institutions: A Case of
Knust Campus British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 13.
NIMAKO, S. G., & BONDINUBA, F. K 2013. An empirical evaluation of student accommodation
quality in higher education. European Journal of Business and Social Sciences.
SUSANA CRÓ, A. M. M., JOSÉ MANUEL SIMÕES, MARIA DE LURDES CALISTOV 2018.
Effect of Security on Hostels’ Price Premiums: A Hedonic Pricing Approach.

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