Employers’ satisfaction towards the qualifications of the graduates of applied Thai program

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to investigate the desired characteristics of the Applied Thai Program’s graduates of the faculty of Liberal Arts and to compare the graduate users’ personal factors. The subjects were business organizations and executive managers. The research tools were questionnaire and interview. The data were analyzed by percentage, mean, standard deviation and F-test. The findings were as follows: As for employers’ satisfaction towards the graduates’ qualifications, the desirable characteristics of the graduates both overall and within each aspect are at the high level ( x= 3.84). Moral and ethical behavior rated the highest desirable characteristics (x= 4.01), followed by domain of psychomotor skills (x= 3.99) as well as interpersonal skills and responsibility (x= 3.84). As for the comparison of the graduate users’ personal factors, it was found that: as for types of business organizations, the overall mean value of types of business organizations was not different but the mean scores of moral and ethical behavior and domain of psychomotor skills were statistically significant at 0.01 level. As for positions of graduate users, the overall mean value of positions of graduate users was statistically significant at 0.01level. Moreover, the mean scores of knowledge and university identity were statistically significant at the level 0.01 while the mean scores of moral and ethical behavior, mathematical analysis skills, communication skills, information technology application skills and domain of psychomotor skills were statistically significant at 0.05 level. As for working experiences, the overall mean value of working experiences was not different but the mean scores of university identity was statistically significant at the level 0.05. As for working tenure, the overall mean value of working tenure was statistically significant at 0.01level. Moreover, the mean scores of moral and ethical behavior, knowledge, cognitive skills, interpersonal skills and responsibility, mathematical analysis skills, communication skills, information technology application skills and domain of psychomotor skills were statistically significant at 0.01level while the mean scores of university identity was statistically significant at the level 0.05. As for employers’ needs, the first desired characteristics of the graduates were information technology application skills and basic computer knowledge. Thai and English oral communication skills were the second desired characteristics.