KMITT ALUMNI TRACER STUDY : The Relationship of KMITT’s Effectiveness of Academic Programs to Graduates’ Socioeconomic and Working Status

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate KMITT graduates’ socioeconomicand working status, the effectiveness of academic programs, and the relationship ofKMITT’s effectiveness of academic programs to graduates’ socioeconomic and workingstatus. The target group studied was those graduated with bachelor’s degrees from KingMongkut’s Institute of Technology Thonburi during the academic years of 19 74 to 1990.The sample was drawn twenty percent (20%) of 5,965 graduates during these years, bymeans of stratified random sampling. Results of the study were summarized as follows:

Socioeconomic status : among all respondents, the majority of them were male and werebetween the ages of 40-49; worked in the private sector; had achieved bachelor degreelevel; lived in Bangkok or Muang district of the provinces; and graduated from the Facultyof Engineering. Working Status : of the five categories of working groups, the majority ofthe respondents were in high profile positions; at administrative levels; earned more thanBt.30,000 per month; and stayed in the second or more employment rather than the firstafter their graduation.

KMITT’s Effectiveness of Academic Programs : three dependent variables were evaluatedregarding the effectiveness of the academic programs and were found to have an effectiverate of 3.18, on a scale of l-5. Specifically, these variables were work performance;country development-involved work; and the opinions on academic programs. Therelationship of KMITT’s effectiveness of academic programs to the graduates’socioeconomic status and working status : several independent variables were found to have a statistically significant relationship with the dependent variables, while otherswere not; e.g., under socioeconomic status faculty was found to have no relationshipwith those three variables, age was found to have a relationship with all three dependentvariables, under working status position was found to have a relationship with workperformance and opinions on academic programs, but not with country developmentinvolvedwork.