1. Introduction
According to the annual report of the Taiwanese Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics under Executive Yuan, the statistical unemployed population with a college or university degree has increased to approximately 270,000 in 2019, up from 110,000 in 1998. The unemployed rate for people with a college or university degree has been around 5% for the past six years, which is about one percent higher than the overall unemployment rate in Taiwan, as shown in
Table 1.
In order to improve the unemployment rate among higher education graduates, the Taiwanese Ministry of Education has instituted stimulating recruiting policies, such as hiring grants for companies to assist unemployed higher education graduates. Furthermore, the majority of Taiwanese corporations are skeptical of the professional value of a Taiwanese higher education diploma, due to the very high current acceptance rates at Taiwanese higher education institutions [
1]. For this reason, the most of Taiwanese higher education organizations have started to strongly introduce various professional or technical certificates at universities of technology, business, research and education, to cultivate a student’s professional capability after their graduation. Consequently, major global university rating organizations utilize graduation employment rate performance as the main assessed key performance indicator (KPI) in their evaluation of higher education institutions. The Ministry of Education in Taiwan has also incorporated graduation employment rates to be the main assessed KPIs in compensation regulation and policy for higher education institutions in Taiwan. This has led more higher education professors in Taiwan to begin to modulate their lecturing goal from academic “teaching-orientation and research-orientation” to empirical “employment-orientation” [
2]. As a result, according to the 2019 comprehensive higher education graduate employment market survey by the Taiwanese professional magazine, Global Views Monthly, most companies did indeed consider that the most crucial unemployment problem for higher education graduates is not only that the majority of higher education graduates find it difficult to cultivate their effective employability [
3] from the current disciplinary curriculum in a higher education institution, but that the bulk of Taiwanese enterprises also found it hard to recruit higher education graduates with outstanding decision-making proficiency, including (1) perspicacity: employees are supposed to have an excellent observed capability for detecting the most profitable niche before decision-making; (2) cognitivity: employees are supposed to possess an in-depth capability of investigating the business procedures in decision-making; (3) analyzability: employees are supposed to occupy a comprehensive capacity for evaluating the business circumstances of decision-making; (4) negotiability: employees are supposed to own an decisive capacity for striving for the best benefits of decision-making; and (5) justifiability: employees are supposed to have a decisive capacity to identify business accuracy and faithfulness beyond decision-making. Nevertheless, as higher education industry continues to develop, decision-making learning has gradually become a greater part of public life, when people make decisions related to the issues and problems with which they are confronted. Furthermore, thinking (individual cognition), action (people behavior) and result (society condition) are included in each decision-making process [
4]. Furthermore, “thinking (individual cognition), action (people behavior) and result (society condition)” are included in each decision-making process in decision-making science [
5]. In particular, based on the rapid development of goal-orientation in utilitarianism, the traditional decision-making lecturing often focuses on “result (society condition)” [
6] without the consideration of thinking (individual cognition) and action (people behavior) in individual growth education cultivation. In particular, based on the rapid development of goal-orientation in utilitarianism, the traditional decision-making lecturing often focuses on “result (society condition)”, without the consideration of thinking (people cognition) and action (people behavior) in individual growth education cultivation. The majority of current students started to be able to learn decisive competency only from a series of analytical courses in Taiwanese higher education institutions; particularly, the decisiveness is direct and necessary artifice in their employment anytime and anywhere after students graduated from higher education institutions. The most significant reason is “individual cognition forms personal behaviors; personal behaviors impacts individual cognition originality”; “personal behaviors constructs environmental development of entire society; environmental condition of entire society influences personal behaviors” and “individual cognition impacts environmental development of entire society; environmental condition of entire society forms from individual cognition”. Specifically, with the rapid development of telecommunication and wireless technologies and swift expansive of 3C (computer, communication and consumer) electronic devices, more of current higher education curriculums have been involved into a series of the diversified technological applications, such as Officers software for individual lecturing and learning, internet websites for group literature and studying, Facebook and Line for social directing and emulating and so on, with the various 3C devices (Authors 2018). For that reason, in order to systematically embed decision-making employability in the core curriculums of current higher education institutions, “how to provide the most high-quality technologized interdisciplinary curriculum to educate professional expertise in decision-making to fortify student’s employability” has been the most survived research issue. However, making comprehensive surveys [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12] on decision-making proficiency in student’s employability, there has been no research completed that has been able to synthetically and systematically assay and analyze the interdependence among the technological influence, learning performance and decision-making processes for supplying this academic gap and empirical issue.
Therefore, the interplays among “individual cognition, personal behaviors and social conditions” in the multidisciplinary decision-making relative courses have been the most three important analytical perspectives (“individual cognition, personal behaviors and social conditions”) in this research. In order to solve this most brief academic research question, not only the technological influence of the technological acceptance model (TAM), but also the autonomic learning performance of social learning theory (SLT) [
13], as well as the decision-making processes of the rational decision-making model (RDMM) into the three core analytical perspectives in
Figure 1.
In
Figure 1, taking the connections of the technological influence of TAM model, autonomy-learning performance of SLT theory and decision-making processes of RDMM model into account, there are five briefest commonalities to be able to deeply assay and extensively evaluate the correlationships and interplays. These commonalities are (1) The reciprocal determinism has been definitely existed in three interactive-circle among individual cognitive, personal behaviors and society conditions which covers each individual cognitions, concepts and behaviors [
14]. (2) The reinforcement effectiveness is interactive in three interactive-circles among individual cognitive, personal behaviors and society environment conceptual dimensions [
14]. Intensively, the individual cognition motivation strengthens the personal behaviors implementation and the personal behaviors implementation enforces the individual cognition motivation; the personal behaviors implementation facilitates society condition development and the society condition development reinforces the personal behaviors implementation, as well as the society condition development, and enforces the individual cognition motivation, while the individual cognition motivation advances society condition development [
15]. (3) The experienced observational autonomy-learning has been appearing in three interactive-circle among individual cognitive, personal behaviors and society environment conceptual dimensions [
15]. The reason is that the personal behaviors will change in response to the transformation of the individual cognition; the social condition will be modified in accordance to the alteration of personal behaviors, as well as individual cognition, which will turn in connection to the re-construction of social conditions [
15]. (4) The expectancy value is always previously created and justified in three interactive-circles among individual cognitive, personal behaviors and society conditions conceptual dimensions. The reason is that the personal behaviors are concrete accomplishments of individual cognition, and the society condition is a comprehensive achievement of the personal behaviors, as well as the fact that the individual cognitive is an abstract expression of the social condition. (5) The outcome is the final consequent expression of three interactive-circle among “individual cognition, personal behaviors and social conditions” [
15]. The reason is that personal behaviors are hierarchically formed from the individual cognition, but the personal behaviors inversely affect individual cognition; the personal behaviors finally construct the society conditions; however, the society conditions conversely re-organize the personal behaviors and the social condition backward leads to individual cognition; nevertheless, individual cognition is an original source of social conditions.
Extraordinarily, in comprehensive analyses on individual cognition, not only the external variables of six assessed elements of technology-influence TAM model, but also the self-proactive (SP) of autonomy-learning performance of SLT theory [
16], are both able to supply and promote (1) the defining and diagnosing the research issues or problems: separating symptoms from cause [
17], (2) clarifying the objectives to be achieved: identifying criteria, of seven decisiveness processes of decision-making RDMM model, in order to boost [
18], and (3) searching for all possible solutions: seeking all possible options for each issue or problem, of seven decisiveness processes of the decision-making RDMM model. Because the majority of decision-makers will use the diversified various electronic and electric devices (e.g., mobile phone, notebook, personal computer, etc.), to proactively collect the all relative information during confronting the issues or problems. In view of various assessments on personal behaviors, the perceived ease of use and the perceived usefulness of six assessed elements of technology-influence TAM model, as well as the self-organization (SO) [
19] of five evaluated elements of autonomy-learning performance of SLT theory can facilitate and strengthen (4) comparing, evaluating and allocating the criteria-weights of each solution: evaluating all options for each issue or problem, of the seven decisiveness processes of decision-making RDMM model. In continuity, the attitude toward, and the behavioral intentions to, the use of six assessed elements of the technology-influence TAM model and the self-control (SC) [
20] of autonomy-learning performance of SLT theory can accelerate and integrate to (5) select the best solutions: justifying why this choice and why not the others, of seven decisiveness processes of decision-making RDMM mod-el. In succession, the six assessed elements of technology influence TAM model and the self-efficacy (SE) [
21] of autonomy-learning performance SLT theory are also able to assist and enforce (6) implement decision-making: executing steps and procedures of seven decisiveness processes of decision-making RDMM model [
22]. Ultimately, the more advanced and sophisticated point is to probe into the interactive impacts among individual cognition, personal behaviors and social conditions after decision-making, the self-regulation (SR) [
23] of autonomy-learning performance of SLT theory are necessary to be explicated for supplementary energizing the original expectation and intervention needed of seven decisiveness processes of the decision-making RDMM model.
Conclusively, according to
Figure 1, in order to detect and assay the correlationships and interplays among individual cognition, personal behaviors and social conditions, the factor analysis (“FA”) approach of quantitative analysis and the entropy method (“EM”) and analytical network process (“ANP”) of qualitative analysis of multiple criteria decision making (“MCDM”) have been cross-employed step-by-step into a series of evaluated measurements for optimizing the results of questionnaires given to three surveyed groups: higher education students, professionals and experts in technological applications, self-learning performance, decision-making fields. The main reason is that the FA approach of quantitative analysis was firstly employed to systematically refine and categorize the entire commonalities of each evaluated criterion; the EM of qualitative analysis was secondly applied to comprehensively recognize the connected dependences among each evaluated criterion, as well as the fact that the ANP of qualitative analysis was further utilized to hieratically assess consistencies between each evaluated criterion through the consolidation of assessed consequences of the FA approach and EM method. Specifically, in sight of the ANP model essential concept, the ANP model was pioneered to be able to hierarchically appraise interplays among each evaluated attitude, criterion, sub-criterion and candidate (solution), by mean of the weight-questionnaires of professionals and experts with the higher research reliability, validity and representativeness [
24,
25,
26,
27,
28], to completely construct the most effective technological determinants of the decision-making employability evaluated model (“TDDEEM”) in order to comprehensively inducing a multidisciplinary multi-criteria of decision-making proficiency in student’s employability.
5. Research Conclusions and Recommendations
Nowadays, many Taiwanese enterprises require decision-making employability (perspicacity, cognitivability, analyzability, negotiability and judgeability) as a main consideration and condition for recruiting higher education graduates. For this reason, this research not only comprehensively assays and analyzes the interdependence among the technological influence, learning performance and decision-making processes through the consolidation of technological TAM, self-learning STL theory and the decision-making RDMM model for academically resupplying the research gap and empirically providing the most effective course’s strategy in developing a series of interdisciplinary curriculums to efficiently advance the higher education graduate’s employment rate and effectively increase their student registration rate.
Significantly, in order to strengthen research reliability, validity, representativeness and accuracy, the FA approach of quantitative analysis was not only firstly employed to systematically identify the entire commonalities of each evaluated criterion, but the EM method of qualitative analysis was also secondly applied to comprehensively recognize the connected dependences among each evaluated criterion. In addition, the ANP model of qualitative analysis was further utilized to hieratically assess consistencies between each evaluated criterion for synthetically constructing the most effective TDDEEM model for discovering the multi-criteria of decision-making proficiency in a student’s employability into the multidisciplinary curriculums.
Significantly, beyond a series of evaluated measurements of the FA approach of quantitative analysis and the EM method and ANP model of qualitative analysis in
Table 7, there are four valuable and contributive findings, which are:
The “Judgeability” of decision-making employability was the most critical decision-making employability for corporate recruiting consideration and “Judgeability” was further directly influenced by the “SE, SC and SR” of autonomy-learning performance. Significantly, current higher education organizations have commenced their institution of the decisive “Judgeability” in the multidisciplinary curriculums, in order to nurture and develop student’s “SE, SC and SR” decision-making capacity and proficiency in student’s employability.
Precisely, “SE” of the autonomy-learning performance was directly influenced by the multi-criteria of “BIU and ASU” of TAM model and “MCED, SBS, COA and SPS” of the decision-making of RDMM model. This means that most companies request that the higher education graduates must possess the decisive “Judgeability” employability, to confidently deal with the diversified problem-solving issues by actually using various technological applications for clarifying, monitoring, controlling and evaluating the decision-making objectiveness, as well as systematically searching through all of the possible solutions in order to eventually induce the most suitable solutions for the diversified problem-solving issues.
Notably, “DDIP” of the decision-making RDMM model positively affected the “SC” of autonomy-learning performance, because most companies believe that higher education graduates are supposed to have the decisive “Judgeability” employability skill, to exercise the introspection capacity to thoroughly define and diagnose the diversified problem-solving issues through an interdisciplinary curriculum.
Particularly, the “AU” of the technological TAM model also obviously impacted the “SR” of autonomy-learning performance, because most companies demand higher education graduates who can assess, revise and justify their self-action capacity in thinking, motivation, feeling, cognition and have the behavior from the interdisciplinary curriculum instilled that allows them to cultivate their self-observing experience.
Ultimately, as for the research limitation, not only does the extension of quantitative and qualitative analysis methods and models of MCDM methodology need to be utilized in the relative research with technological influence, learning performance and decision-making processes research fields and the expansion of surveyed data need be considered in the future directions, beyond this research.