The Relationships among Socialization, Professional Training and Perspectives on Job Market: Evidence from Taiwan Doctoral Students Survey

Abstract

The study aims to explore how Taiwan doctoral education in knowledge society meets the change of labor market, and how doctoral students deal with the socialization and professional training during their study, as well as influence their perspectives on career plan and job choices. That is, assuming that socialization and professional training have relationships and influences on doctoral students’ career decision. The research questions are as follows: (1) Will the related factors of implementing socialization in doctoral education predict the choices of different career paths? and (2) What factors will affect doctoral students’ perspectives on future job market (academia, public sector, private sector)? 2,000 questionnaires, snowball and purposely sampling, were sent to current registered doctoral student and 914 questionnaires were returned, excluding 214 invalid ones. The amount number of valid respondents is 700. SPSS Window 22.0 version was adopted as the statistical analyzing tool. The descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, and multiple regression were main methods for data analysis. There are 4 models, based on findings, for doctoral students’ intentions of purchasing jobs according to the findings: academia orientated, being employed in the government or public research institute, working in the private sector, and self-confident with career and job market.