The Evaluation of Employers’ Satisfaction towards the Desirable Characteristics of the Pharmacy Graduates, Ubon Ratchathani University

Abstract

Introduction: Employers’ satisfaction toward the desirable characteristics of the graduates is one of the quality assurance indicators in the higher education. It reflects the quality of graduates whether they meet the requirements of the market or not. The curriculum of the faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ubon Ratchathani University (UBU) has been changed from a 5-year Bachelor of Pharmacy (BPharm) program to a 6-year Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) program since 2009. The first class of the PharmD graduates of UBU graduated in 2014. However, there has been lack of study of the employer’s satisfaction toward the desirable characteristics of the pharmacy graduates from those two programs. Objectives: 1. To evaluate the employers’ satisfaction toward the desirable characteristics of the pharmacy graduates from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Ubon Ratchathani University 2. To compare the employers’ satisfaction toward the 7 desirable characteristics of the pharmacy graduates from the 5-year BPharm and the 6-year PharmD program of the Ubon Ratchathani University (i.e., 1. Ethical and moral development 2. Knowledge 3. Cognitive skills 4. Interpersonal skills and responsibility 5. Analytical and communication skills 6. Corporate identity and 7. Pharmacy professional competencies). Materials and methods: In this survey research, the researchers collected the employers’ satisfaction toward the desirable characteristics of the pharmacy graduates, who graduated during 2010-2015, using the questionnaires. Such questionnaires were developed and collected by the Planning Division, Office of the President of the Ubon Ratchathani University. These questionnaires were tested for content validity by the experts, and the internal reliability was tested using Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient yielding values > 0.80. Compare the employers’ satisfaction between 2 programs by Man-Whitney U test statistic. Results: There were 223 from 486 employers completing the questionnaires (response rate 45.9%). The majority of employers were working in the public hospitals (BPharm 67, 77.0%; PharmD 58, 64.4%) and were graduates’ supervisors (BPharm 24, 17.3%; PharmD 46, 51.1%). The majority of the graduates were female (BPharm 69, 79.3%; PharmD 72, 80.0%). The overall satisfaction level was high in all domain (BPharm 4.026±0.448; PharmD 4.233±0.442). Additionally, the highest satisfaction level was in the morality and ethics domain. There was significance higher of the employers’ satisfaction for the PharmD graduates with comparing to the BPharm graduates in almost domains (p<0.05). Conclusion: The employers indicated a high level of satisfaction with the desirable characteristics of the pharmacy graduates. The employers’ satisfaction for the desirable characteristics of the 6-year PharmD graduates was higher than the 5-year BPharm graduates in almost domains.