FACTORS AFFECTING CAREER CHOICES OF GRADUATING SENIORS : A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN KOREAN AND THAI STUDENTS IN COLLEGE OF HUMANITIES AND ENGINEERING

Abstract

The purpose of this study aims to investigate the factors influencing the career choices for the graduating Korean and Thai students in the college of Humanities and Engineering, addressing the personal factors and social influences. Quantitative method was used to collect and analyze the data. This study uses a questionnaire to survey; 200 Thai and 200 Korean students. Populations are from the top university from each country, Chulalongkorn University as a representative of Thai students and Seoul National University as a representative of Korean students. There are five factors this study focuses on; personal interest and social influences, learning experience, Self-efficacy, outcome expectation, and career choice motivators The finding identified that Korean students value personal interest and social influences factor at high level. On the other hand, Thai students considered on these factors at moderate level. As of the other four factors, which were learning experiences, self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and career choice motivators, both Thai and Korean students considered these factors at high level as Korean students had a higher mean score. The issues which are obviously outstanding about the factors are as follow: the result showed that personal interest and social influences factors such as salary or other incentives were the most important decision making factors for the Korean students. Self-efficacy indicated that Korean students are more confident and prepared to enter a career (or workforce) than Thai students. Mentioned to the outcome expectations, Thai students valued the freedom in a job more and Korean students valued the security and stabilities in a job more than Thai students. In terms of the choice motivators, there are different perspectives toward these factors. Korean students has been affected by this factor more than Thai students, as Korean students value the career incentive as the most important, followed by the fitness of the job to their personality, abilities and interest, and the nature of job, while Thai students valued the nature of career the most, followed by job that fits their personality and career incentive. Each factors mentioned above can be measured statistically for the similarities or differences.