MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS, HO CHI MINH CITY Lê Thị Mỹ Nhung HIGHER EDUCATION AND JOB SATISFACTION: A STUDY WITH POSTGRADUATES IN HO CHI MINH CITY MASTER‟S THESIS In Business Administration Ology code: 60.05 Supervised by Dr. Trần Hà Minh Quân Ho Chi Minh City – 2010 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Acknowledgement Completing a dissertation is one of great efforts in my education. It is an opportunity for me to practice, apply the knowledge and understand how market is working. However, I would not able to finish it without kind helps and supports from whom I would like to express my eternal gratitude.
I highly appreciated the lecturers in the University of Economic Ho Chi Minh City who provided me precious knowledge during last three years. Specially, the MBA course in English was so pleased that I had a chance to know how a student can have new approach and new studying method in second language within limited time and budget. A sincere thankfulness is for my supervisor, Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan, for all his guidance, ideas and inspiration throughout the research as well as during the course.
I would express my heartfelt thanks to my MBA Batch 16 classmates, especially Mr Nguyen Thanh Trung, Mr Lam Hong Phong and Ms Dang Hai Yen. They all have been along with me for years and given me so many supports and encouragement to complete this thesis. Many thanks to all my close friends, my colleagues and interviewees who I may not mention herein, but they did help me on data and gave me many kind advice to improve the study. Finally, I am deeply indebted to my parents, who gave me the life and shape of how I am now, for their loves, encouragement, understanding and patient to keep asking me how I was doing.
Let me take a chance to give them my best regards and dedicate this work as a gift to them all. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Abstract Attending higher education, especially Master level, is a movement in Vietnam in recent years. Meanwhile, job satisfaction is a well know research topic for years. However, a link better these two dimensions have not been either reviewed much or performed in Vietnam.
A model was developed from extensive literature and a study of 220 postgraduates from many Master programs in Ho Chi Minh City was conducted to examine the relationship between reason for pursuing Master‟s degree courses and participants‟ overall job satisfaction. Besides, some extensions were done to find out the different concepts among groups of postgraduates. Fine hypotheses were developed to represent three research questions and analysis techniques including multiple linear regression, sample t-test and ANOVA were then applied to test all the hypotheses. According to the result, the original measurements could be applicable in Vietnam market, but the content was changed as local respondents‟ evaluation.
It showed insignificant impacts from attending Master‟s degree courses to overall job satisfaction. In addition, there were small variances among groups of postgraduates when they were different from each other in job level, study languages and study duration. Key words: higher education, Master’s degree course, postgraduates, Job satisfaction iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Table of Contents Acknowledgement. iii Table of Contents.
iv List of Tables. vi List of Figures. vii List of Abbreviation. viii Chapter 1: Introduction .2 Rationale of the research .3 Research objectives and Questions .4 Scope of the study.5 Methodology of research .6 Implication of the research .7 Structure of the study.
7 Chapter 2: Literature Review. Higher education and relevant theories. Reasons for continuing education and PRS.1 Definitions and outcomes of job satisfaction .2 Measuring Job Satisfaction. Relationship between continuing higher education and Job satisfaction.
25 Chapter 3: Research Methodology. 27 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.2 Measurement and Scales .3 Focus group discussion. 39 Chapter 4: Data analyses and results.1 Descriptive statistics of sample .1 Correlation between reasons for pursuing Master‟s level and Job satisfaction .2 Difference in reasons for pursuing Master‟s degree courses among groups of postgraduates .3 Difference in overall job satisfaction among groups of postgraduates. 58 Chapter 5: Conclusion and Implication .2 Conclusions from the research .3 Implication of the research .4 Limitation and recommendation for further researches.
66 List of References. Focus group outline. Total Variance Explained. 76 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of Tables Table 3.1: Scales to measure reasons for pursuing Master‟s degree courses .2: Scales to measure Job satisfaction .3: Estimating margin of Error on Sample survey results .1: Communication methods and respondents .2: Respondents‟ demographic profiles.3: Reliability of measurement instruments .4: Rotated Component Matrix .6: Group Statistics of Job Level .7: Independent Sample T tests for Job Level groups .8: Group Statistics of Language .9: Independent Sample T tests for Language groups .10: Independent Sample T tests .11: Test of Homogeneity of Variances.
58 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of Figures Figure 2.1: Aspects of participation .2: Definitions of job satisfaction .3: Consequences of high and low job satisfaction .4: Average Job Satisfaction levels by facet .5: Proposed Research model.3: Job level characteristics .4: Hypothesis testing results. 58 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com List of Abbreviation CPE Continuing Professional Education JDI Job Descriptive Index JIG Job in General Scale JSS Job Satisfaction Survey HE Higher Education LLL Lifelong Learning MOET Ministry of Education and Training MSQ Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire NOSQ Neutral Objects Satisfaction Questionnaire PRS Participation Reasons Scale SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Introduction In the first chapter, researcher provides general introduction of the study through five sections. Rationale and objectives of the research help explain the circumstance and concerns in which the study may become necessary. From that, research questions as well as their hypothesis are developed in the context.
However, the mentioned circumstance would be so wide and overall that researcher needs to narrow down the scope of the study in section 1.5 presents research methodology used for this study, section 1.6 mentions main implications of the research while the hypotheses are tested in other chapter later on.7 provides whole structure of the essay.2 Rationale of the research Higher education (HE) has been prioritized and considered as one of the essences in national strategy for the development of education and training in Vietnam towards the years. The aims are to build a modern system that is capable of training professionals with the high level of education demanded by the causes of industrialization and modernization, and to secure development of the country as well. The growth of HE in Vietnam during recent years, especially in the training field, has resulted in the increase of high level human resources; thus it meets requirements of economy and social, as well as creates good opportunities for citizens in various backgrounds who have the desire and the ability to keep up with their studies of HE, improves the common cultural standard in the whole country (Ministry of Education and Training [MOET], 1998). Over the past ten years, HE in Vietnam has continuously experienced many changes including diversification in types of institutions and the establishment of quality improvement standards for its developing accreditation model.
According to statistic data from MOET, there were 140 universities (divided into public and non-public groups) in 2007-2008. Particularly, 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com mentioned by Dung (2009), Vietnam had 160 universities by August 2008. They were invested in many types such as public, private (the fastest growing sector), and foreign related. Primary authority for governing the HE system in Vietnam lies with the highly centralized MOET, which is responsible for drafting and implementing policy guidance, as well as supervising the connection between all education programs and management of HE institutions.
The government allocated 20% of the national budget for education (VND 67 trillion or US$ 4.3 billion in 2007) of which HE received VND 297 billion or US$ 18 million (MOET, 2006). Dung (2009) also lists out characteristics of the higher education system of Vietnam as following: Training focus: be small size, create a restricted market; little research on the potential of higher education; formal institutional uniformity (although there are numerous types of institutions) with hierarchy ostensibly recognised. Centralised management: relatively centralised control of the curriculum, funding, and resources; low institutional initiative, since the conditions of centralisation inhibit the taking of initiatives, challenging bureaucratic rule in the universities, or the developing an entrepreneurial spirit. Restricted competition: not due to markets, students, or business but to state- controlled resources; high consumer demand but low recognition of this by the universities.
With limited resources (teaching staff, facilities and funding), universities are able to select only more capable students (about 15-25%). In the respect that labor markets have been seeking for skilled, well-trained people, higher education graduates and postgraduates, there are more and more people attending higher education including Master‟s degree courses. They are not only spending money but also sacrificing time and taking into account the trade-off between time for academic learning and time for working and families, and they choose the course for some specific reasons. Recently, globalization trends have made thousands of Vietnamese apply to study abroad.
The most favorite countries are United States, Europe countries, United Kingdom, Australia, Japan, etc. The students have different purposes to study abroad, but mainly are to gain knowledge from the developed countries and high 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com technology application that they can perceive “real-world” for their future, to learn necessary occupational skills for career development (Thuy, 2009). For others who have no opportunities to study abroad, Master‟s degree courses that are conducted either by local universities or by co-operated units between local universities and foreign universities seem to be the preferable choices. As a response to the requirements of both labor markets and the postgraduates, universities in Vietnam have developed themselves with new strategies, reputation, and varieties of curriculums for the Master‟s degree programs and make these courses seem ideal destination for who would like to continuing higher education.
Tho, Trang and Dung (2006) agree that there has been an increasing trend of Master‟s degree training since 1990s while many universities have been opening courses. There are many programs such as local Master‟s degree courses taught in Vietnamese and designed with traditional style or co-operated with foreign universities taught in English in which the postgraduates may study in Vietnam full time or may spend a part of their training time in other countries. Furthermore, from 2007, the University of Economics in Ho Chi Minh City has organized pilot Master‟s degree courses in English (e. Master of Business Administration and Master of Banking), and established International Business School (IBS) in 2010.
In that circumstance, it can be explained that Vietnam HE system has also adapted a raise on needs of their customers, especially the postgraduates. However, has the system satisfied the customers as their expectation? Dung (2009) helps to identify that Vietnam HE system is facing with many challenges. Among them, we can see some points related to relationship between higher education and jobs, careers or economic: The quality of higher education is low and relevance is limited by a weak link between universities and industry. There is a lack of articulation between training and economic development.
Many employees require retraining after graduation. These things remind us about importance of connection between higher education and participants‟ jobs. It seems there is a necessary to consider whether the participants have satisfied with benefits from their academic learning or not, 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com especially if the learning can help improving their job satisfaction.