The importance of undergraduate's computer competency and information literacy skills: Marketing faculty's perspectives in Thailand

Computer technology has become a significant part of life for many people. Because of this, undergraduate students should prepare themselves to learn this technology in order to meet the needs of the workplace. Incorporating computer and related technology into the curriculum has been a challenging task for many educators. The primary purpose of this study was to investigate faculty perceptions of the computer competency and information technology literacy skills of undergraduate students in the Department of Marketing in selected universities in Thailand. The second purpose was to examine the perceived level of computer and information technology literacy needed for success in the workplace. The last purpose was to compare the level of perceived computer competencies and information literacy skills students had when they entered and when they graduated from the universities. The study was conducted in the 2007 academic year in six selected universities in Thailand. Six research questions were proposed. Three hypotheses were constructed to correspond to the purpose of the research study. Fifty-six faculty members in the Department of Marketing from six selected universities in Thailand were surveyed to obtain their demographics profiles, the perceived computer competency and information literacy skills of the undergraduate students when they entered and graduated from the university and those needed for the workplace. Descriptive statistics were performed to report the frequencies, means, standard deviations, and percentages for each research question. MANOVA and ANOVA were conducted to test hypotheses regarding faculty's perception towards undergraduate students computer competency and information literacy skills. The results showed that there was statistically significant difference only in the level of computer competency and information literacy of undergraduate students in the Department of Marketing when they enter and graduate from the university. However, there was no statistically significant difference in the level of computer competency and information literacy of undergraduate students in the Department of Marketing in three universities in Bangkok and in three universities in the other provinces. There was no statistically significant difference in the level of computer competency and information literacy between students when they graduate and skills needed to be successful in the workplace.