Third Language Selection for Career Prospect by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP)

Abstract

One of the benefits for career prospect is having a third language. Selecting third language is a hard decision for students considering they have limited choices. The objective of this study is to determine the main criteria in selecting a third language as well as determine the highest demand among students. Analytics Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was chosen to conduct this study since 1977 (Saaty, 1977). Six criterions identified were ease of learning, culture, purpose of language, interest of student, parent influence and friend’s influence. Choices of third language are Arabic, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, German, French and Italian. The result shows Mandarin as the most preferred third language with the highest weightage of 0.1918. For main criteria, ease of learning is identified as main influencing factor in student third language selection. This data were verified by consistency index (CI) were all the CI is less than 0.1.