SELF-LEARNING POTENTIAL OF PRIVATE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN BANGKOK

Abstract

This research aimed at (1) studying internal factors, external factors and self-learning potential of private university students in Bangkok; (2) analyzing students’ internal factors and external factors affecting student’s self-learning potential; (3) analyzing various factors affecting the classification of student’s learning potential and (4) comparing the differences in self-learning potential, internal factors and external factors classified by study field. Population were private university students in Bangkok, and there were 809 students selected as study samples. The multi-step sampling method was employed. Independent variables included personal factors: cumulative grade point average and study field; internal factors: achievement motivation, friends’ and colleagues’ relationship and future expectations; and external factors: classroom atmosphere and institution services. Dependent variables included students’ self-learning potential and learning potential. Statistics for data analysis comprised of mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, Pearson simple correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, group classification analysis, and multivariate analysis of variance.

The results showed that students moderately agreed on the learning potential, achievement motivation, future expectation, and institution services and highly agreed on friends’ and colleagues’ relationship and classroom atmosphere. The simple correlation coefficient analysis by Pearson correlation revealed that all variables were significantly related at the level of .01. The multiple regression analysis showed that the achievement motivation and future expectations could significantly predict the self-learning potential at the level of .01 (R2 = 53.0%, Adj.R2 = 52.9%). The classification analysis of learning ability found that achievement motivation factors, future expectations, classroom atmosphere and institution services can significantly explain group membership by 87.8% (hit rate internal = 93.9%, external = 93.7%) at level of .01. In addition, the multiple variances analysis classified by study field showed that the students in the engineering-science group had more opinion towards achievement motivation, future expectation, self-learning potential, and institution services than humanity and social-science group and fine arts group statistically significant level of .05 and .01. However, classroom atmosphere was not significant.