Motivation and decision in choosing civil services as a career of fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 epidemic is affecting the work of people around the world including students who have to graduate and to decide in choosing a civil servant career. The aim of the study: to explore the motivating factors influencing the decision for the 4th year students of Chiang Mai University to enter the civil service during the COVID era. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted among fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University. The sample in this study consisted of 362 people. Multiple regression analysis was used to find a linear equation that expressed the relationship between motivating factors and decision-making. Results: The findings of this research showed that choosing civil services as a career of fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University during the COVID-19 outbreak was high with an average of 3.60. According to hypothesis testing, the factors affecting levels of favorable decision in choosing a civil service career were statistically significant at the 0.05 level in descending order as follows: security, compensation and benefits, values, career path and job characteristics. The influence of personal factors on choosing civil service jobs were not significantly different at the 0.05 level, except the family income factor that influences choosing civil service jobs. Conclusions: It was found that personal factors which consisted of gender, domicile, grade point average and average family income per month affecting different government career choices and factors in motivation in deciding to choose a government career containing job characteristics, compensation factor and welfare factors career advancement factors, security factor and value factors had a negative effect on the level of decision-making on the choice of civil service careers.