Abstract-Identification of employability skills expected by employers in engineering disciplines is vital for fresh engineering graduates who enter to Sri Lankan work force. Factor Analysis was found to be one of the best methods for identifying these skills, and use of proper sample sizes in such an analysis is essential for reliable results. From this view point, this study establishes a method for investigation of applicable sample sizes in extraction of employability skills of civil engineering graduates. For this purpose, a questionnaire survey was carried out among civil engineering organizations to measure employer expectation on thirteen technical and fifteen nontechnical specific attributes identified as important. These attributes were measured using five point Likert scale based on their importance levels. In the factor analysis process, the communality values of each attribute that represent the degree of participation in the analysis was considered as the key indicators to examine their consistency with effective sample sizes. This study used fifty random samples generated for sample sizes ranging from 25 to 100 with 25 increments and the total sample size 122. From the results, it was found that the communality values showed consistent trend above the sample size 75. Moreover, it should be noted that questionnaire should be properly designed and also respondents should be correctly chosen when this sample size is selected for questionnaire surveys. Finally the finding of this study will help in planning and conducting questionnaire surveys effectively and data analysis with a proper sample sizes in order to make reliable predictions in related studies.Index Terms-Employability skills, factor analysis, random samples, sample size.

Commuters tend to shift from public to private transport modes due to various reasons. This results in an increased traffic volume in the urban road network. The ultimate consequence is traffic congestion which creates massive economic losses and adverse environmental pollution. To provide a feasible solution for the above problems, this study is set to examine the factors affecting transport mode choice. Factor analysis was used to identify the factors influencing the mode choice variability of the commuters. Parameter estimation is done using the Multinomial Logit (MNL) model based on the utility maximization theory. The adjusted likelihood ratio index is used to show the model fits. Also, t-statistics and the respective sign of parameters are used to show the validity of estimated parameters. The outcome of the factor analysis shows that age and occupation significantly affect the public transport mode choice under personal characteristics. For private mode choice, the contributing factors are gender, age, occupation and monthly income. Trip distance, invehicle travel time, and travel cost are significantly influencing both public and private transport mode choices. Results of the estimated parameters and elasticity analysis suggest that more commuters can be attracted to public transport by reducing the total travel time of buses.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract