Core competency of public university supporting-line administrators: An analysis, techniques of development and structure of the program for development

Abstract

This study aimed to analyze and determine the core competency, methods of developing core competency, and the structure of a program for developing the core competency of public university supporting- line administrators by examining the core competency that is required for administrators to properly perform their tasks. The research includes a thorough study of five components necessary for successful job performance and is applicable to agencies in Thailand or a foreign country. Three mixed methodologies were used in conducting the study: document syntheses, quantitative research, and qualitative research. Document synthesis was accomplished initially. Quantitative research involved 300 copies of a questionnaire that were used to collect data from involved persons. The questionnaire was divided into 4 parts with 50 items and a reliability (alpha coefficient) of .90. Two hundred and forty two copies of the 300 questionnaires sent out were returned, an 81 percent return rate. For qualitative data collection, an in-depth interview with 11 experts was used. The three methodologies revealed the following results: 1) From a total of 10 core competencies obtained from synthesizing documents, the sample evaluated the necessity of each of core competency and found that the core competencies necessary for public university supporting-line administrators consisted of 5 aspects, in order from the highest to the lowest mean: teamwork, planning and management, leadership, creative thinking, and ethics; 2) Nine techniques used to develop these 5 core competencies, in order from the highest to the lowest percentage, were apparent: workshop, training, lecture, supplementary activities, management games, recreational activities, role playing, brainstorming, and field trips; 3) For the structure of the program for developing core competency, which was obtained from in-depth interviews with experts, it was found that the experts expressed opinions about guidelines, methods, contents of development, and methods of assessing all the 5 core competencies. Additionally, they believed that a wide variety of different methods should be included in the new program. The experts considered that the contents must cover all competencies by training continuously in the form of 9 learning units for a total of 180 hours or approximately 5 weeks of training. In development, there must be an emphasis on leading to real practicability and there must be a variety of methods of assessing development by superiors, subordinates, work peers, and self-assessment, both before and after training. Also, there must be assessment criteria. Recommendations for further research were included.