Cooperative Education: Enhancing the 21st Century Skills of Thai Higher Education Students

Abstract

Globalization depicts an increasingly integrated global economy (Merriam-Webster, 2017) and entails that for smooth transaction operations, stakeholders are expected to be experts in managing businesses of all sorts. Moreover, the transglobal nature of transactions requires skills that are useful for surviving the challenges of the 21st century. Thus, the ultimate goal of this research study is to examine what 21st century skills of higher education students are enhanced not enhanced by the cooperative education program. Using questionnaire and semi-structured interview, the satisfaction of the immediate supervisors of the cooperative education students and the opinion of the 58 English major students of Huachiew Chalermprakiet University who registered in the 15-week cooperative education course were examined. The findings revealed students were able to enhance some of their Life and Career Skills (e.g. Productivity & Accountability, Leadership & Responsibility, and Flexibility & Adaptability) and Learning and Innovation Skills (Collaboration, and Creativity & Innovation). These findings were confirmed by their immediate supervisors’ responses in the satisfaction survey where students were viewed to have enhanced Life and Career as well as Learning and Innovation Skills.