The Outcomes of Thai Pharmacy University Students Participating in the Student Exchange Program

Abstract

This study determined to discover the outcomes that Thai undergraduate pharmacy students gained from participating in the student exchange program. The population in this study contained of 71 Mahidol University undergraduate pharmacy students who participated in the 2014 student exchange program in six host universities in four ASEAN countries for 28 days of the exchange. The research instrument employed in this study was a questionnaire consisting of twenty-seven closed-ended questions and one open-ended question. Furthermore, by using purposive sampling method, semi-structured interviews with six students were also applied to receive in-depth information. SPSS was utilized to analyze quantitative data, and a content analysis was used for qualitative data. The findings revealed that the outcome that the students gained most from participating in the exchange program was in the aspect of social development and culture, followed by personal development, academics and language, and career and higher education, respectively. This study on the outcomes obtained from participating in the student exchange program could be beneficial to the related pharmacy institutions in exploring the value of further developing their student exchange programs and collaborative coordinating as well as designing well-equipped and productive student exchange programs.