OPINIONS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS TOWARDS THE COURSE CHARACTERISTICS AND TEACHING STYLE IN THE COURSE OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY FOR TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY DHURAKIJ PUNDIT UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Although there is an abundance of classroom research, yet such research in the tourism and hospitality field is limited. In particular, the classroom research on the issue of research courses itself is rare. In general, the course of research methodology could be viewed differently from other general courses because it seems to
focus on learning about the research method rather than context-orientation. As such, it would be interesting to find out how students think about the course characteristics and teaching style in such course. Therefore, this study has the objectives to explore and compare undergraduate students’ opinions towards the course characteristics and teaching style in the course of research methodology for tourism and hospitality. The questionnaire was used to collect data from undergraduate students in the Faculty of Tourism and Hospitality who enrolled in the course of research methodology for tourism and hospitality in the 2nd semester 2013. Data were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

The study found that the top three issues that most students agreed on the course characteristics are 1) research methodology course should focus on the research method or process of conducting research 2) research methodology course has a different content from other courses and 3) research methodology course requires a depth understanding rather than memorizing. With regard to the teaching style, the top three issues that most students preferred are 1) teacher should lecture together with his/her research experience 2) teacher should have a variety of teaching media and 3) teacher should lecture together with several research examples. For the research hypotheses, it’s revealed that students with different GPA had different opinions towards the course characteristics and teaching style.

The study suggests that teacher should explain students regarding the course characteristics, its purpose and the content differences from other courses as well as the course contribution. For the teaching style, teacher should have various techniques such as a lecture with real research experience, the use of different teaching media, and the encouragement of students’ discussion with teacher.