THE COOPERATIVE EDUCATION EFFECTIVENESS : A CASE STUDY OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THAILAND

Abstract

The objectives of the research were to 1) examine the evaluation of the
effectiveness of cooperative education undertaken in higher education institutions
in Thailand, 2) analyze the influential factors affecting the effectiveness of
cooperative education of higher education institutions in Thailand. It was qualitative
research. Data were collected through documentary research, in-depth interview,
and non-participant observation. A sample of 40 persons; consisted of 2 groups.
The first consisted of university administrators, cooperative education teachers as
supervisors, and students. All of them were from three universities including
Suranaree University of Technology, Walailak Univeristy, and Rajamangala University
of Technology Thanyaburi. The second group consisted of administrators from
business organizations, and staff acting as supervisors. All of them were from three
companies including Western Digital (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Betagro Public Co., Ltd.,
and Microchip Technology (Thailand) Co. Ltd, (as they were partners joining in the
cooperative education with the 3 universities listed above).

Findings were as follows:
The evaluation of the effectiveness of the cooperative education of those 3
universities was conducted in 3 different domains. The first domain was the
evaluation of the students’ quality, which could be observed from the students’
performance, and skills while they were on professional training at the workforces.

The second domain was the evaluation of the university quality, which could be
measured from the quality of the teachers, the cooperative education curriculum
whether the quality was maintained, and it remained updated, the management on
cooperative education operation, knowledge sharing between the university and
the business organizations, preparation to promote students’ work readiness and
working skills. The third domain was the evaluation of the quality of business
organizations, which could be measured from the process of recruiting qualified
students to study in cooperative education, the sizes of their business, internship
duration at the workforces, their budget allocation for the cooperative education
operation. Regarding the influential factors analysis, the research discovered that
the factors affecting the effectiveness of cooperative education consisted of
financial factor, institutional factor, and leadership factor.