Present effectiveness and future development of aviation education programs in Taiwan, Republic of China

This study determined the participants' perceptions of the present aviation education/training program in Taiwan and their perceptions of the future development of aviation education/training in technical high schools, technical junior colleges, and universities. Comparisons were drawn using certain demographic indicators. This study also compared the perceptions of airline owners, pilots, maintenance personnel, and training staff regarding the effectiveness of the present aviation education/training program and the development of future aviation education/training capabilities.; The population for the study consisted all government officers working in aviation education and management, personnel employees for six airlines, and all faculty in aviation education/training programs at technical high schools, technical junior colleges, and universities. Three hundred fifty survey questionnaire sheets were mailed to selected participants. Three hundred nineteen usable survey instruments were returned during the estimated data collection time, with a 91.14 percent response rate. Data were processed and analyzed by using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) software.; Findings in Part 1 revealed that the highest rate (100%) of response group is the school faculty group, the lowest rate (60%) of responses came from the government officer group, and the response rates for the airline personnel group was above 90 percent. The three largest groups of respondents were those who had served 1--2 years (29.15%), 3--4 years (25.08%), and 5--10 years (27.27%). Most government officers and school faculty had 5--10 years of experience in their present position. The largest group of respondents with an associate degree (35.63%) were airline personnel. Only one airline personnel respondent held a doctoral degree; 16 respondents have master's degree. Most of the government officers and school faculty held a doctoral degree. The largest group of respondents involved in the aviation education/training is the school faculty (62.50%), while smallest group of respondents involved in aviation education/training is the airline training class stuff (11.99%). The largest group of respondents holding aviation licenses is the airline pilots (100%), the smallest group of respondents in this category is the government officers group (0%). Only 15 percent of respondents of school faculty hold an aviation license.; Findings in Part 2 revealed that the mean values of all items in Tables 8 and 10 are below the midpoint of 3.00. This shows that airline personnel, school faculty, and government officers are not quite satisfied with the effectiveness of aviation education/training programs in Taiwan during the past few years. Most mean values for the items in Tables 9 and 11 are above 4.00. This indicates that airline personnel, government officers, and school faculty do not have different perceptions about the development of future aviation education/training capabilities and agree that the progress of such will be successful in the future.