Abstract:
The objective of this study is to analytically study the educational accomplishment and the retirement of the first-year students of the bachelor degree of engineering in the normal program of Faculty Engineering, Burapha University. This study covered the academic year of 2004 to 2007 with the classification by the academic years, the entrance systems, the subjects of general education, the causes of the retirement and the student opinions to the self adjustment. The study samples were the first-year students in the academic year of 2004 to 2007, totally 1,449 students. The methodology of this study was the collection of data and questionnaires to measure the five-leveled scaling adjustment. The data of the educational accomplishment and the retirement were collected from the samples, whereas the information of the student opinions to the self adjustment was collected from the 267 representative samples of the first-year students in the academic year of 2007. From the results, it is found that the first-year students in the academic year of 2005 had the most overall educational accomplishment with the average of 2056 and the first-year students in the academic year of 2007 had the least with the average of 2.38. In comparison with the entrance systems, it is seen that the students from the quota system had the most overall educational accomplishment with the mean of 2.61, meanwhile, comparing with the subjects of general education, the students had the accomplishment in the general-education subjects (with the average of 2.91) higher than that in the specific subjects (with the average of 2.35). The analysis of the student retirement shows that the number of the first-year student retirement in the academic year of 2004 was the highest (74 students or 23.57%) whereas that in the academic year of 2007 was the lowest (42 students or 11.73%). Moreover, comparing with the entrance systems the quota-system students retired the most (22.43%), meanwhile the most cause of the retirement was the resignation (44.49%). The reaults of the questionnaires of the student opinion to 11 aspects of the self adjustment express that the level of the overall problems was still low. The biggestproblem was the problem about activities and entertainments as well as the smallest problem was the problem was the problem about family. From this study, operational suggestions, politic suggestions and academic suggestions are proposed. For the operational suggestions, there should be increasingly the promotion of the faculty and the student recruitment in the local region so as to create students' interests in studying the field of engineering in the faculty. The faculty could then recruit the outstanding students more. The faculty should initiate and support creative activities for the first-year students, for example the tuition and the consulting programs by their seniors. The first-year students would feel genial and impressive in school surrounding. Furthermore, the faculty should provide budget and instructors to give the special courses for the introduction of fundamental engineering study immediately when the students enter the school as well as should keep these programs continuously every year. For the politic suggestions, the faculty should set up the policy of student recruitment based on research data and control the student activities to be in proper level, so that the students are able to pay attention on studying and do not worry about activities too much. The faculty should manage the advisory system effectively, particularly for the first-year students. In the academic suggestions, the analysis of the teaching condition for the first-year students of the bachelor degree of engineering in the special program of Faculty of Engineering, Burapha University is proposed. The faculty should study and compare the results from the normal program and the special program. Finally, the faculty should set up the monitoring system for the first-year students every semester end and plan to help the students who have unsatisfied grade.