ACQUIRED KNOWLEDGE OF THE MOST COMMONLY FOUNDBUSINESS ENGLISH ABBREVIATIONS USED IN A WORKPLACE: A CASE STUDY OF THE 4th YEAR THAI UNDERGRADUATES MAJORING IN ENGLISH

บทคัดย่อ

This study aimed to survey how well the 4^th year students who would be graduating and entering into a business industry recognized the most commonly used business English abbreviations in a workplace. All of 160 students majoring in English at a university in the Northeast of Thailand received the questionnaire, a research instrument, generated by the researchers and all of them returned the questionnaires to the researchers. The students were selected by using a purposive sampling technique with the qualifications that having pass grades on all courses relating to business communication and correspondence provided by the university. The questionnaire was employed as a main research instrument gaining the participants’ personal information and their recognition of the business English abbreviations most commonly found in a workplace as well as knowledge of how to use them in a professional context. The statistics used to analyze the quantitative data collected were frequency and percentage, whereas an interview – an additional research tool - was randomly conducted so as to gain in-depth information from the participants assuring they knew those abbreviations correctly – to triangulate the data gained. The results showed that 32.50% of the students gained scores ranging 21-30 out of 30, 46.87% gained scores ranging 11-20 and 20.63% received less than 10 points. Additionally, the findings revealed the reflection of the management of the courses in the department curriculum which are necessary to be reconsidered so as to prepare graduands better and appropriate knowledge of useful business abbreviations to be used in a written discourse in their jobs in the future.