Higher Education and Employment: An International Comparative ...

Higher Education and Employmenterror indicates the importance of each factor, which may also be rated asstatistically not important. In each identified case, the null hypothesis wasthat the reason was not important. On a three-point scale, where 2indicated 'very important', 1 indicated 'important', and 0 indicated 'notimportant', the null hypothesis would be to set the average score in thepopulation at zero and test if the average score of the hypothesis issignificantly different from zero. This can be done by applying the 't'statistic. From the simple cross-tabulations, an idea can be formed as towhether any one reason was more important for a particular group ofstudents. This could later be tested statistically with a more sophisticatedstatistical analysis. In several cases, the same question was asked of thestudents, the graduates and the employers. For example, the importance ofthe various characteristics which would make a job satisfactory to anindividual was tested for all three population groups.The samplingThe sampling design varied from country to country depending on thecomplexity of the population of students, graduates and employers and theavailability of a sampling frame. It was easier to identify the population ofstudents because the list of institutions of higher education is much smallerthan the list of employing units in a country. The sampling of graduates andemployers was a mo-e difficult task. Most difficult was the sampling of theunemployed graduates, because of problems in tracing them, and becauseit was expensive to survey them, owing to lack of information on theiraddresses. However, attempts were made to trace them for the studies inWest Bengal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Employed graduates were tracedthrough their employers. This process was chosen instead of an independentsurvey of graduates in order to save time and money and providean opportunity for identifying interaction between the graduates andemployers.The sampling design described below was used in the study in thePhilippines.The student survey and the sample Information on the characteristics,attitudes, aspirations, and expectations of the students in the country wasgathered through a survey among the post-secondary student population inthe school year of 1977/78. Of the total student population of 613,807, 1.48per cent or 9,105 students responded to a fourteen-page paper-and-pencilquestionnaire. Sampling was done using three majo, criteria: (1) the yearlevel of the student, (2) the region of the school in which the student wascurrently enrolled, and (3) the field of specialization of the student. Onlystudents in their third or fourth year of post-secondary education were26