198 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. STUDENTS' EVALUATION ON FIELD TRIPS AS A MEANS TO PREPARE GRADUATE EMPLOYABILITY AT A VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY Pham Duc Long1,2+ Nguyen Thuy Nga1 1VNU University of Education, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, Vietnam. Email: longpd@haui.edu.vn Tel: (+84)975388986 2Center for Enterprise Partnership, Hanoi University of Industry, Hanoi, Vietnam. Email: thuynga@vnu.edu.vn Tel: (+84)964757807 (+ Corresponding author) ABSTRACT Article History Received: 16 March 2022 Revised: 27 April 2022 Accepted: 18 May 2022 Published: 30 May 2022 Keywords Experiential learning Field trips Graduate employability Student’s evaluation Student’s knowledge Student’s motivation Student’s identity capital. Field trips are regarded as significant extra-curricular activities to promote students' perceptions of preparedness for graduate employability. This study explored the effectiveness and satisfaction of field trips conducted in 2020 and 2021 by a Vietnamese public university from students' assessments. A total of 1,112 students who participated in thirteen trips were split into two groups: the first group of 70 respondents for the pilot survey questionnaire and 473 respondents for the structured survey questionnaire. The five-point Likert scales were utilized for two parts of the survey questionnaire. The first part was related to students' assessment of the field trips’ organization, and the latter was designed to test seven hypotheses. The results showed that the participants highly valued preparing for the field trips and support from enterprises and the university. The scales of factors were reliable after implementing reliability analysis, and three components were extracted from the findings from Exploratory Factor Analysis. It was noticeable that motivation stimulation was the most significant predictor for the students' enjoyment of field trips, followed by identity capital and knowledge advancement. Based on the study findings, Vietnamese universities are suggested to foster relationships with enterprises to implement similar field trips for university undergraduates. Contribution/Originality: The novelty of this study is the findings of the influence of motivation, identity capital, and knowledge on students’ satisfaction when participating in field trips to prepare for graduate employability at a Vietnamese university. 1. INTRODUCTION University graduates' unemployment has become a global issue from developed countries to developing countries, including China, the United States, India, and the United Kingdom (Mgaiwa, 2021). In Vietnam, university graduates' employment has been surveyed since 2017 after the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) was given the national focal responsibility. Accordingly, MOET issues official documents every year, requiring higher education institutions (HEIs) to survey their graduates' employment status up to one year from graduation. Although universities' average employment rate was declared at a high rate of above 90% for employed graduates in 2018 and 2019 on their websites, HEIs in Vietnam still complained about “poor capability of universities in enhancing or equipping students with the knowledge and skills required by the employer” (Tran, Humanities and Social Sciences Letters 2022 Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 198-212. ISSN(e): 2312-4318 ISSN(p): 2312-5659 DOI: 10.18488/73.v10i2.3011 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4166-9563 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3391-1313 mailto:longpd@haui.edu.vn mailto:thuynga@vnu.edu.vn https://www.doi.org/10.18488/73.v10i2.3011 Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 199 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. 2019). This has raised concerns about the responsibility of HEIs in preparing and promoting employment opportunities for university undergraduates. Graduate employability as one crucial factor affecting employment opportunities (Clarke, 2018) has attracted the attention of employers and HEIs because it is a so-called “plug and play” competency (Herbert, Rothwell, Glover, & Lambert, 2020). While employers want to appeal to ready work employees, higher education institutions are under tremendous pressure to fascinate learners by promising employment chances at graduation. However, it is complex to identify the employers’ actual needs for graduates, so undergraduates can be ambiguous by what they are expected to show (Wilton, 2012). University-industry cooperation has identified graduate employability as a “personal formal relationship” between human resource suppliers and consumers (Ankrah & Omar, 2015). University and enterprise partnership has been recently documented in approved plans for the 2021-2025 period by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training even though the HEIs’ current cooperation links remain loose (Pham, 2019) and “remain rare” (Tran, 2019). Many universities have implemented various strategic activities to enhance graduates' employable skills, including work-integrated learning (Jackson, 2017; Nguyen, 2022) or co-curricular activities (Jackson & Bridgstock, 2021). Higher education institutions have also focused on awareness-raising activities for their students from university entry until graduation. Their actions may include the first-year orientation, mentoring, and supporting final year students with CV and interview readiness. However, fostering the students’ perceived graduate employability by encouraging them to take proactive parts in field trips has been less researched. Therefore, empirical exploration of the field trips is necessary to produce an informative insight into the literature on developing employability. Field trips are one of the extra-curricular activities which are possibly separate from the formal curriculum. However, field trips are a complementary part of revising the students' previous understandings and facilitating their practical skills, which are unlikely to have enough time to be sharpened in the disciplinary curriculum (Tran, 2017). In addition, field trips can bring practical value for the students through obtaining novel experience, adding interest to learning, promoting cognitive skills, providing high motivation to school subjects, and facilitating social integration (Larsen, Walsh, Almond, & Myers, 2017). Larsen et al.'s most noticeable finding indicates that social capital is the highest value gained by first-year students. Additionally, their experimental study results reveal that field trips are a valuable addition to academic success and peer-to-peer relationship development, which are foundational to creating their future professional network. From the constructivist perspective, field trips as an experiential learning process include two steps. Initially, a direct experience is created by interacting between the student and the environment. Afterwards, the novel experience is made significant by integrating into the student’s previous cognitive framework (Mortensen & Smart, 2007). Experiential learning in an outside classroom environment can be implemented successfully based on three contexts: “personal, sociocultural and physical” (p.1394). For the personal context, while the student’s external motivation attracts classroom learning, experiential learning through field trips is driven by internal rewards. Furthermore, social learning in field trips may be similar to museum learning, where the student can benefit from asking and answering questions with guides at the museum. During the field trip, the students can interact with the human resource division managers, heads of the manufacturing zone, technicians, and even workers. More importantly, the students can have rare chances to see actual natural phenomena or touch real objects (Morag & Tal, 2012). In the study’s field trips, the student can observe assembling processes for a complete car/motorbike or feel textile products in the field trips. Virtual field trips are getting familiar in the era of the 4.0 industrial revolution, but they “cannot convey the impressions of a real-life field trip location” (Putz, Treiblmaier, & Pfoser, 2018). Furthermore, simulations and computers can only provide students with made-simple versions of the natural world and restricted chances to communicate. It is argued that virtual field trips do not easily displace real ones due to their irreplaceable benefits Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 200 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. (Putz et al., 2018). For example, field trips in Hong Kong can equip students with opportunities to achieve practical learning experiences in various travel environments in the tourism sector. Whether the student's learning experience can be positive or not is much based on the teacher's roles or the journey head's duties or pre-the-trip, during-the-trip, and after-the-trip activities (DeWitt & Storksdieck, 2008). Pre-trip activities may include numerous mini-plans such as asking for permission to visit the field trip venue, selecting a reasonable time, negotiating transportation, seeking funds, considering safety in addition to selecting and designing evaluation tools for student engagement. Additionally, the organizers are advised to implement a preparatory trip to confirm the field trip's content and plan before the trip. During the journey, lecturers' roles are emphasized (Morag & Tal, 2012). They act as facilitators ready to answer the students' questions to connect the on-the-trip experiences with their prior understandings. The lecturers are advised to utilize worksheets to drive the students' attention to the oriented objectives of the trips. A small group can complete the worksheets instead of each student because they push them to collaborate and exchange views on the obtained data and personal experiences (Mortensen & Smart, 2007). Post- trip activities are advantageous. They would be fantastic opportunities for the organizers to receive the students' feedback and make adjustments for more effective following trips. Likewise, field trips to see living things in Turkey are fruitful for biology students (Ateskan & Lane, 2016). Ateskan & Lane developed the field trip programs for pre-service teachers. After graduation, their graduates were expected to apply their experiences to building and maintaining their simple and workable trips. The research findings showed that their programs brought about long-term impacts. Most respondents felt confident in planning and conducting the field trips for their students due to their interests in the previous pre-service field trips. In addition, more than half of respondents assured that their pre-service field trip experience was closely associated with increasing the number of field trips for their students. The field trips were organized by a Vietnamese university based in Hanoi. It has a long history of 124 years. University A (pseudo name) has 1.500 lecturers and support staff to implement training and education for over 30.000 students at three levels, including vocational training, higher education, and postgraduate education. Identified as a central technical school of Vietnam, this higher education institution was paid visits by President Ho Chi Minh four times. In support of three HaUI-JICA projects, the 50ha-large university has promoted a close partnership with enterprises to provide high-quality graduates for Vietnam's national targets of becoming a developed country with high income before 2045 (Viet Nam News, 2021). From 2020 November until 2021 April, the field trips to foster students' employability skills were proposed and approved for a trial phase at University A. Fourteen field trips were planned, out of which one was not implemented due to the effect of the COVID pandemic in the second week of December 2020 in Vietnam. Out of 1,190 registered students for fourteen trips, 1,112 students were involved in thirteen trips. They pursued 18 different disciplines shown in Appendix 1. Nearly 60% of venues for the trips were located in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital, with numerous industrial zones and commerce buildings. The remaining places were in northern Vietnam, which is 40 km (Vinh Phuc), 50 km (Bac Ninh), 65 km (Ha Nam), 95 km (Hai Duong), 115 km (Nam Dinh) far from University A. The trips were arranged more frequently in December 2020, January 2021, and April 2021. No trips were carried out in February 2021 when the Vietnamese traditional Lunar New Year was celebrated. A month after the Vietnamese lunar New Year was not a good time to visit enterprises. Our paper explores the participants’ evaluation of the organization of field trips and their satisfaction with the trips conducted in the academic year 2020-2021 by a Vietnamese public university. To examine the participants’ satisfaction; seven hypotheses were proposed in terms of development of their knowledge, skill, attitude, career orientation, career network, motivation, and intention as follows: H1: Students’ knowledge obtained from the field trip positively influences their satisfaction. H2: Students’ skill obtained from the field trip positively influences their satisfaction. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 201 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. H3: Students’ attitude after the field trip positively influences their satisfaction. H4: Students’ career orientation from the field trip positively correlates with their satisfaction. H5: Students’ career network development gained from the field trip positively affects their satisfaction. H6: Students’ motivation after the field trip has a positive influence on their satisfaction H7: Students’ intention after the field trip positively impacts their satisfaction. The field trips were expected to help students understand better undergraduates’ skills mismatch and preparedness for graduate employability. Therefore, the article hopes to bring a good example for Vietnamese higher education institutions to implement field trips for their students. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS In order to explore the participants’ satisfaction with organizing the field trips, students were required to rate their response to preparatory activities on a Likert 5-point scale for the trips and support activities by University A and enterprises during the trips. To discover the answers to the second research issue, we exploited a correlational research design including a quantitative approach of an online survey questionnaire. The prediction-formed correlational research design was employed because it could help the researchers determine “variables that will positively predict an outcome or criterion” (Creswell, 2012). Due to the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in Vietnam after the last field trip in April 2021, students have stayed at home for online learning. Therefore, an online survey questionnaire was employed to collect data because it could “access individuals in distant locations” (Wright, 2005). Google form was employed as the platform for collecting data for two reasons. Firstly, Google form accepts an unlimited number of respondents. In addition, the survey data and responses can immediately be converted into Google Spreadsheet (Ho et al., 2020). Our google form-based questionnaire consisted of three parts, involving students’ assessment of the field trip’s organization, the field trip’s results, and general information of respondents. The Likert 5-point scale was selected because it was easy to apply and simple to evaluate the quality (Spooren, Mortelmans, & Denekens, 2007). The students rated their responses for each statement of the field trip’s organization and the results by choosing 1 (Completely dissatisfied) or 2 (dissatisfied) or 3 (Neutral) or 4 (Satisfied) or 5 (Completely satisfied). The questionnaire was designed in Vietnamese and was translated into English, as seen in Appendix 2. Table 1. Summary of participant characteristics. Characteristics Category Overall (N=473) N % Gender Male 349 73.8 Female 124 26.2 Year in school First 39 8.2 Second 233 49.3 Third 143 30.2 Final 58 12.3 Discipline Information Technology 176 37.2 Software Engineering 63 13.3 Information Systems 50 10.6 Garment Technology 40 8.5 Electronic Engineering Technology 27 5.7 Computer Science 27 5.7 Mechatronic Engineering Technology 24 5.1 Marketing 20 4.2 Electrical engineering technology 18 3.8 Automotive Engineering Technology 17 3.6 Automation 8 1.7 Mechanical engineering technology 2 0.4 Fashion Design 1 0.2 Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 202 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. The participants in thirteen field trips were 1,112 undergraduates. One hundred fifty-three students were invited to participate in the questionnaire pilot process, 70 participants responded with acceptable data. Their pilot survey results helped the authors adjust the contents and structures of the questionnaire. The official questionnaires were distributed to 959 students via their emails. The recipients of the official questionnaire excluded the sample for the pilot phase. After eleven days, 620 students replied. After the incomplete questionnaires were eliminated, 473 usable questionnaires were employed for data analysis. The representation of the survey findings is determined by the sample size, which exceeds the minimum size condition– 282 students (Adhikari, 2021). Table 1 summarizes participants’ characteristics. SPSS software (version 26) was used to analyze data. Descriptive statistics were performed for students’ demographic information and their assessment of the field trip’s organization and results. Regarding the field trip’s outcomes, reliability analysis of the scales was executed before performing dimension reduction to identify principal components. Afterwards, a model was developed by running the linear regression. 3. RESULTS Four hundred seventy-three respondents were involved in this study. Three hundred forty-nine respondents were male (73.8%), and one hundred twenty-four respondents were female (26.2%). The majority of the respondents were second-year students (49.3%), followed by third-year ones (30.2%). The first and last year students who attended the trips accounted for 8.2% and 12.3%, respectively. In terms of training majors, 37.2% of respondents studied Information Technology, followed by Software Engineering (13.3%) and Information Systems (10.6%). The rest respondents were students of Garment Technology (8.5%), Electronic Engineering Technology (5.7%), Computer Science (5.7%), Mechatronic Engineering Technology (5.1%), Marketing (4.2%), Electrical Engineering Technology (3.8%), Automotive Engineering Technology (3.6%), Automation (1.7%), Mechanical Engineering Technology (0.4), and Fashion Design (0.2%). 3.1. Students’ Assessment on Organizing the Field Trips As seen from Table 2, the field trips were well prepared. The respondents were clear about schedules (M=4.43, SD=0.658) and were satisfied with selecting the firms for the trips (M = 4.42, SD = 0.682). They had enough time to adjust their plans to partake in the University A’s trips (M = 4.43, SD = 0.692). The information about trips was sent to the students at least one week before the due date. The timely announcement was crucial because the formal educational activities were time-consuming. Vietnamese students seemed to have little time left for extra-curricular activities (Tran, 2017), especially for some students who took part-time jobs to make ends meet. Table 2. Students’ assessment of preparation and implementation activities for the field trip. No. Statements Mean Std. Deviation Preparation for the field trip 1 I was informed about the contents and plans of field trip 4.43 0.658 2 The field trip date was informed timely and suitable for my timetable 4.43 0.692 3 The enterprise for my field trip was ideal for my training major 4.42 0.682 Support activities of university and enterprise 1 Lecturers answered all my questions convincingly during the trip 4.25 0.745 2 University staff organized interesting activities on the coach to help me get more information about the trip 3.99 0.891 3 Enterprise introduced me the field trip’s content 4.42 0.659 4 Enterprise told me about the skills required at work 4.38 0.682 5 Enterprise let me know their regulations, procedure of production/business, and requirement of labor safety 4.31 0.744 6 Enterprise guided and answered me during the trip 4.38 0.676 Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 203 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. Additionally, the field trips were fruitful for the respondents because of good support from enterprises and University A. The enterprises made the respondents appealing because they provided the respondents with overall plans (M = 4.42, SD = 0.659), employable skills (M = 4.38, SD = 0.682), their actual requirements of working conditions (M = 4.31, SD = 0.744) and rapid response for the participants’ questions (M = 4.38, SD = 0.676). It was noticeable that on-the-coach activities could not be diverse and plentiful enough to make the participants relaxed and get more official news and instructions for the trips (M = 3.99, SD = 0.891). However, the respondents highly appreciated the lecturers’ support (M = 4.23, SD = 0.745). The lecturers are likely to comprehend the enterprises’ business domain, so they were friendly and ready to interact with their students. 3.2. Students’ Assessment of the Field Trip’s Results 3.2.1. Reliability Analysis of Scales The consistency of all scales in this study is presented in Table 3. Eight scales, including knowledge, skill, attitude, career orientation, career network development, motivation, intention, and satisfaction, are found reliable. Cronbach’s alpha values are more than 0.7, Cronbach’s alpha values if item deleted for four items are higher than 0.6, and the values for corrected item-total correlation are more than 0.3. Table 3. Consistency of scales. No. Scale N Cronbach Alpha (# items) Items Cronbach’s alpha if item deleted for four items Corrected item-total correlation 1 Knowledge (KL) 473 0.792 (4) KL1 KL2 KL3 KL4 0.712 0.728 0.727 0.789 0.661 0.627 0.632 0.496 2 Skill (SK) 473 0.892 (4) SK1 SK2 SK3 SK4 0.850 0.868 0.864 0.860 0.790 0.742 0.754 0.763 3 Attitude (AT) 473 0.844 (4) AT1 AT2 AT3 AT4 0.849 0.775 0.773 0.809 0.585 0.739 0.750 0.664 4 Career orientation (OR) 473 0.839 (4) OR1 OR2 OR3 OR4 0.827 0.805 0.769 0.780 0.600 0.657 0.732 0.710 5 Career network development (NE) 473 0.880 (4) NE1 NE2 NE3 NE4 0.827 0.805 0.769 0.780 0.600 0.657 0.732 0.710 6 Motivation (MO) 473 0.816 (4) MO1 MO2 MO3 MO4 0.737 0.746 0.859 0.735 0.712 0.697 0.481 0.710 7 Intention (IN) 473 0.856 (4) IN1 IN2 IN3 IN4 0.737 0.746 0.859 0.735 0.712 0.697 0.481 0.710 8 Satisfaction (SA) 473 0.901 (4) SA1 SA2 SA3 SA4 0.881 0.867 0.870 0.872 0.756 0.793 0.784 0.782 Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 204 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. 3.2.2. Dimension Reduction To analyze exploratory factors, we employed principal component analysis to refine the selection of variables. For the dependent variable “satisfaction”, KMO = 0.854, Bartlett’s test had statistical significance (sig = 0.000 < 0.05) and Eigenvalue loading > 1.0. The result showed a model with one factor of construct, which accounted for 82.191% of the variance. For the seven independent variables, as seen from Table 4, exploratory factor analysis was also used. The KMO test value was 0.959 > 0.6, implying that the 28 items were adequately divided into three principal components. The first factor involves twelve items NE1, NE2, NE3, NE4, SK1, SK2, SK3, SK4, OR3, OR4, AT1, MO3, of which loading values are higher than 0.5. Identity capital may be the factor that comprises the above items. Therefore, we proposed to ren the first factor as identity capital as suggested by Cote (1996), which can be formed by sharpening technical skills in numerous domains (SK1 and SK2) and social skills (SK3 and SK4). It can help make long-term connections with critical communal and professional networks (NE1, NE2, NE3, and NE4). Besides, identity capital can contribute to psychosocial development (OR3, OR4, and MO3) and constitute a plentiful source of the best behavior (AT1). Table 4. Results from exploratory factor analysis for independent variables. Item Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 NE4 0.803 NE2 0.801 NE1 0.736 NE3 0.714 SK3 0.709 SK4 0.708 OR4 0.699 SK1 0.669 SK2 0.629 MO3 0.593 OR3 0.553 AT1 0.550 MO1 0.821 MO2 0.802 IN1 0.774 AT3 0.764 AT4 0.758 MO4 0.746 AT2 0.599 KL4 0.591 IN2 0.570 KL1 0.722 KL2 0.672 KL3 0.586 OR1 0.521 KMO test value 0.959 Eigenvalue 12.589 2.394 1.055 Total variance explained 50.356 59.931 64.152 Bartlett’s test Chi-Square 8547.890 Df 300.000 Sig. 0.000 Note: Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Rotation converged in 6 iterations. KL = knowledge, SK = skill, AT=attitude, OR = career orientation, NE = career network development, MO = motivation, IN = intention. OR2, IN3 and IN4 were eliminated because IN4's loading value was below 0.5. After removing IN4 from the factor analysis, IN3 and OR2's loading values were below 0.5. We continued to eliminate the IN3, OR2 from factor analysis. Humanities and Social Sciences Letters, 2022, 10(2): 198-212 205 © 2022 Conscientia Beam. All Rights Reserved. The second factor covers three items MO1, MO2, and MO4 of “motivation”, three items AT2, AT3, AT4 of “Attitude”, two items IN1, IN2 of “intention,” and one item KL4 of “Knowledge” in Table 3. They are put into one category of "motivation" for the following reasons. Firstly, AT2 "I learned the spirit of curiosity to improve myself after the field trip.", AT3 "I felt more proactive in accessing information about the enterprise.", AT4 "I felt it necessary to work harder for the remaining study time at the university.", and KL4 "The field trip helped me understand the enterprise's working culture." appeared to belong to the internal motivation respondents. They are driven to participate in the trip to explore new relationships or seek things of personal curiosity. Such engagement in the field trip for the virtues of the discovery or the mastery of something new was defined as internal motivation (Covington, 2000). Secondly, IN1 "I want to join the next field trip." and IN2 "I will share the field trip results with the students of the next grade." presented the participants' high motivation. They were satisfied with the trips' results and actively promoted the trips. The third factor, which included three items KL1, KL2, KL3 of "knowledge" and one item OR1 of "orientation", can be categorized into the factor of "knowledge". Therefore, the previous hypotheses can be restated into three following ones: H1n: Students' identity capital achieved from the field trip positively affects their satisfaction. H2n: Students' motivation achieved from the field trip positively impacts their satisfaction. H3n: Students' knowledge achieved from the field trip positively influences their satisfaction. 3.2.3. Multiple Regression Model We performed multiple linear regression with independent variables: F_identitycapital (12 items), F_motivation (9 items), and F_knowledge (4 items) and the dependent variable of satisfaction (4 items). The finding from Table 5 indicates the adjusted R2 = 0.693, which means three factors (F_identitycapital, F_motivation, and F_knowledge) can explain 69.3 % for changes in the participants' satisfaction according to the model of Y = 0.517*F_motivation+0.298*F_identitycapital+0.107*F_knowledge + Ɛ with the p < 5% significance level. The Durbin-Watson statistic value is seen 1.997 (approximately 2), which indicates that no autocorrelation occurs. The standard deviation is approximate 1 (Std. Dev. = 0.997), and the mean is close to 0 (mean = 7.06E-15) means that the residual has a nearly standardized distribution. The range for VIF values which is 1< VIF (range from 2.059 to 2.567) < 5, presents that the variables can be slightly correlated. “No problem collinearity” occurs when the small values of VIF (1