Desired Characteristics of Academic Instructors of Ubon Ratchathani University

Abstract

Introduction: Academic instructors is one of important factors influencing the process of human resource development. Effective teachers appear to display certain characteristics. The objective of this study was to assess attitudes toward desired characteristics of instructors by stakeholders including students and instructors of Ubon Ratchathani university. Materials and Method: This study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. The target population were all undergraduate students and instructors of Ubon Ratchathani University. Data was collected by a questionnaire during September 2013. In order to assess attitudes toward desired characteristics of academic instructors a questionnaire developed by Sukhontha Thongborisut were used. This instrument’s content validity and reliability were satisfied (Reliability: Cronbach’s alpha coefficient = 0.97).  For data analysis descriptive statistics, mean and standard deviation were used. In addition, non-parametric statistics: Mann-Withney U test were used to compare desired characteristic between student and instructor samples at significant level of 0.05. Results: There were 314 participants in this study. Most were students (78.34%) and the rest were instructors (21.66%). Four aspects of desired characteristics were assessed including 1) teaching capability, 2) personality, 3) virtue and ethics, and 4) counseling.  Findings showed that both groups of samples strongly agreed that instructors should have all aspects of characteristics. Moreover, both groups place the strongest focus on virtue and ethics issues. The comparison between two groups, instructor samples place more weight on characteristics of teaching capability and virtue and ethics than student samples significantly (p<0.05). Conclusion: The results of the study indicated that academic instructors should have all desired characteristics at high level. Because these certain characteristics have impact on teacher effectiveness.  In addition, finding suggested that the university administrators should implement a policy and strategies to improve counseling role of academic advisors.