Abstract:
Purpose of this research was to compare the student’s identities of Srinakharinwirot University which were composed of 9 aspects namely lifelong learning, awareness and use to analyze and summarize, diligence, good manners, public-mindedness, communication skills, humility, good personalities, and arts and sciences appreciation of the first-year undergraduate students in different group of majors. The population was the first-year undergraduate students in the subject class of General Education for Human Development (SWU 151) in the academic year 2010. The tools for collecting data were the Srinakharinwirot University student’s identities self-assessment questionnaires, Likert type five-point rating scales consisting of 50 items with alpha reliability co-efficient of 0.94. The researcher collected data from the sample groups, 3,649 students in the subject class of General Education for Human Development (SWU 151) which stayed on the final examination day. The statistical tools used for the data analysis were frequency percentage, arithmetic means, standard deviation, t-test, one-way analysis variance, and Scheffe’s test.
The results of this study were as follows:
1. The freshmen at Srinakharinwirot University had high levels of identities in overall aspects. Considering each aspect individually, it was discovered that they had high levels in 8 dimensions which the highest levels of arts and sciences appreciation followed by humility, good manners, good personalities, diligence, awareness and use to analyze and summarize, public-mindedness, good communication skills respectively and medium levels in lifelong learning.
2. The comparative study among the freshmen who had different demographic found that:
2.1 The freshmen from different group of majors had statistically significant differences in overall aspect and every single aspect.
2.2 The means of the student’s identities of Srinakharinwirot University divided by different group of majors showed: the Health Sciences students had the highest mean of identity assessment followed by the Social Sciences and Humanities students, and the Sciences and Technology students respectively.
2.3 Differences of the student’s identities of Srinakharinwirot University between different groups of majors by pairwise comparison as follows:
2.3.1 The Health Sciences students and the Sciences and Technology students had statistically significant differences in all aspects, while the Health Sciences students and the Social Sciences and Humanities students had statistically significant differences in 6 aspects, namely awareness and use to analyze and summarize, diligence, public-mindedness, good communication skills, humility, and good personalities.
2.3.2 The Sciences and Technology students and the Social Sciences and Humanities students had statistically significant differences in 7 aspects, namely lifelong learning, good manners, public-mindedness, good communication skills, humility, good personalities, and arts and sciences appreciation.