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management, creative education, and related researches.
2.
Research Methodology
The study used a research and developmentRD approach. Jipathapunsathan Ban
KhuBuamuseum was chosen as the studied area since it was the museum of cultural legacy of the
communities; it was located near the city, but it had conserved a lot of local culture; it had interesting
exhibition and had won many provincial, regional, and national awards, and; it had lots of visitors.
However, it had no creative educational activities yet. The research phases were as follows.
R
1
: Study of background information of the communities and the local museum. This phase is
to collect the communities’ background information and the people’s opinions towards the museum. A
field study was conducted to find out the communities’ states, general information of the
museum, guidelines for the museum’s development and creative educational activity management. The
research instrument and the informants included 1 a surveyform to collect data concerning the museum
operation from 9 officials and relating people, 2 an interview inventoryto collect data from 11 key
informants who were the community’s members, and 3 a questionnaire to collect data about opinions on
learning processes from 33 museum’s visitors who were met on the days the researcher went to have the
field study at the museum.
D
1
: The project development for developing creative education. This phase is to suggest guidelines
for developing the museum to enhance creative education. The background information was collected
and analyzed for a SWOT with the officials and relating people. The analysis was presented for
developing the local museum asa learning resource to enhance creative education with camping activities for
KhuBua cultural followings to have creative thinking inspired by the museum.
R
2
:Activity organization and evaluation.This
phase was to implement and evaluate the camping activities. The target group was 77 students from 2
elementary schools, 1 secondary school, and a non- formal education centerinKhuBua sub-district. The
activity cooperators were 5 elders, who were considered local scholars, to give knowledge at each
base, and 13 non-formal education facilitators as group assistants andentertaining activities organizers.
The researcher had a one-day campingoperatedat the museum and some local learning resources. The
learning process started with seeing the exhibition in the museum. The students were divided into 5
groups, and each group was assigned to learn the theme of one base. The bases had the themes of 1
following the ancestors, 2 good deed people at KhuBua, 3beautiful and famous KhuBuaJokfabric, 4 ancientcity
exploration, and 5building a legendary garden to memorize the city. After that each group was led to
explore the real sites of its themed base in the community, there the students interviewed some
knowledgeable people. Then, they went back to conclude what they had learnt and reflected their creative
thinking by drawing the conclusion from their imagination and things they saw and were impressed on
a 1 mx2m cloth. Finally, all the groups had a drawing and story telling competition based on their learning.
D
2
: Development of public relations materials from work and exhibition. This phase was
conducted to make the work known and to be guidelines for developing the local museum as a
resource for creative education.
3. Results
3.1 Background of communities and museum
1 KhuBua sub-district was not far from the city center of Ratchaburi province, so the communicationswas
convenient. The area was appropriate for agriculture, and most of the area was rice fields. It has the rural
atmosphere; however, some housing projects, and business buildings were found along the roads near
the city center. KhuBua sub-district had 15 villages, and most villagers were Tai–Yuan people who were
farmers and household handicraft makers, as supplementary jobs, such as Tin-Jokfabric weaving,
souvenir making, woodwork making from palm and coconut trees, flute and reed organ making. They did
the supplementary jobs in career groups.
Some well-known important places in the sub- district included KhuBuaancient city, built in
Dvaravatiera - some architectural remains were shown at WatKlongSuwanKhiri; and Ratchaburi’sJokFabric
Center at WatKaeSai, where information of KhuBua’s well-known JokFabric was collected.
2 The museum was started and operated by the community’s committee to be a place for Tai-Yuan
cultural legacy, and to preserve old Tai fabric and KhuBua’sJokfabric. Elderly volunteers welcomed, took
care, and led the tour groups. Public relations were found in the museum’s website and Thai museum
database of Princess MahachakriSirindhornAntropology Center. The museum had received various awards and
had lots of visitors who could enter it free of charge;
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however, it had got donation and supporting budgets from different organizations.
The story of KhuBuaancient city and way of life of Tai-Yuan settlers since 106 years ago had been
exhibited in the museum. There were sections of Dvaravati ancient antiquities excavated in KhuBua
sub-district, work gadgets and Tai-Yuan’s way of life, house appearance, food cooking, giving birth scene,
Jokfabric weaving which was Tai -Yuan’s indigenous wisdom, displays of big pieces of Jokfabric weaved at
special occasions, Tai-Yuan’s old and new Jokfabric. The outstanding features of the exhibition were model
use and real life imitated scenes in the past, such as roasting the new mother after giving birth to a child,
and a display of a villager sitting at the loom to weave fabric, etc.
3.2 Results of the camping organization
Opinions of the 13 samples - the museum officials, local scholars, teachers and administrators of
the schools which their students participated in the camping – were examined by an open-ended
questionnaire. Additionally, 10 non-formal education facilitators, the group assistants were interviewed.
The findings were as follows:
1. The results of the activity evaluation showed 1 the relating people – the researcher, the museum
officials, the local scholars, the teachers, and the group assistants – could exchange their learning by
working together. 2 The students who joined the activities could learn together. Although they had different
ages and educational levels, there were buddies between a student in school and a non-formal student and
relationships occurred. The example was told by a group assistant, “…They talked like siblings, the younger ones
asked but the older ones wrote since they could write faster. The younger ones were likely to faint and the older
ones took care of them, and the older ones helped while the younger ones were painting....” 3 Using the elders as
instructors at the learning bases allowed the students to have chance to listen to the old stories, while the elders
were happy to tell them, and ones saw the activities were impressed as one said, “…I liked it when I saw people of
three generations talking under the trees. The picture reminded me of the elders who were teaching their
grandchildren, even though I didn’t know them.” 4 The students had creative thinking when they visited the real
places; the visit inspired them to weave their imagination and transfer it on the cloth to produce their creative group
work from what they learnt, evidenced by some students’ saying, “…add more orange and put some black color to
make it look old….draw the van, too. Today I travel by van….You write the map to Aunty Sorn, too…” 5 The
students acknowledged the value of the learning resources in the community and wanted to reserve them, as they
said, “…When I came to see the museum and Uncle Suwin’s house, I feel we have to keep the things in the
house instead of selling them….” 6 The students got both knowledge and fun, as they said, “…We have lot of
fun. We met students from other schools when we went outside, and we knew different trees…”
2. The outcomes evaluation showed: 1 the useful document “Stories from the Camping” which
collected the community knowledge from 5 groups of the camping attendants; 2 paintings on a piece of
cloth were art works that showed the 5-group attendants’ impression on learning from the camping
activities, and; 3 opinions on activity organization of the participants, collected by using a 5 - scale
questionnaire, showed most of the respondents agreed with both the activity organization and creative
thinking, and; they viewed the organization process, the content, the activities and outcome could enhance
learning of people in the community at the highest level.
3.3Results of the impact evaluation
1 The impact on the students’ activity participation helped them learn the indigenous
wisdom from people, places, and things through their real experience, touch, talk and question. Thus, the
effect gave the students’ pride, value, and importance, that needed to be inherited, evidenced by what they
said, “I saw the receptionists’ dresses made of so beautiful KhuBua material, and that made me want to
dress like them.” Learning outside the classrooms motivated them to be curious, imaginative, and having
creative thinking, as one said, “… I wished I could cook rice on the 3-piece of rocks, …I wanted to know
about the beads evacuated at KhuBua. …I would like to learn about ixora - flower mobile hung at Aunty
Tongyu’s house…”
2 The impact on the museum revealed the museum’s officials had already improved some
guidelines for a live museum development with new forms of creative learning activities, and some
guidelines for camping organization. The evidence was from what a committee said, “…We had never
organized these kinds of activities. For me, I really like them when I took the students to do the activities,
and I would like to see morefrequent of the camping organization…” The other effect was the document
“Stories from the Camping” for further distribution.
3 The impact on the education institutes could provide some ideas for creative learning activity
organization. It could also encourage the teachers to integrate various learning resources in the community
into their instruction. A school director said, “… The
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Ancestors Reminding Garden is just in the school backyard…We can let our students plant rice and
harvest it there. I believe there are many students whose parents have rice fields, but they never plant
any rice…” Furthermore, the impact could be a motive for some ideas to develop school learning
resources. The same director said, “…There are lots of trees in school, and the museum of the school has a
lot of old tools. I will have both the teachers and students develop the museum and use it as a learning
resource…”
4 The impact on the community showed the encouragement of the elders’ potentialvaluable use
could make them have pride in themselves, and the community acknowledged their value, the museum’s
and learning resources’ in the community.. Aunt Sorn said, “…Please don’t go upstairs, I haven’t cleaned it
yet.. I live by myself, and I can’t sweep and clean it everyday. My children rarely visit me. I like if you
often come here. You can come to learn cloth weaving. I will teach you for free…”
3.4 Sustainability
The guidelines for those activities organization could have the following effects: 1 The educational
institutes in the community had innovative guidelines for development. 2 The museum could apply them.
3 The students in the community acknowledged the value of local culture and antiquities. They loved
them and wanted to inherit them for the community. 4 The community acknowledged the local scholars
and had them as a part in cultural inheritance. 5 The community was strengthened by working together;
and the network occurred among the research team, the community, the museum, the education institutes,
and other relating people.
4. Discussion
The researcher discussed the research results as follows. 1 People were not interested in the museum,
and the schools did not frequently use it as a learning resource. Creative activities should be developed and
let everyone in the community know about them by improving working processes and activities. The
findings agreed with SumaleeSangsri and et.al. 2005: f – g and SuthasineeWatcharabool 2002: 15 who
said the museum was a lifelong learning resource, and it should have had various activities based on its own
purposes. 2 Organizing a learning process by using cultural learning resources in the community was
creative learning in which all the receivers, the delivering people, and the organizers were happy and
satisfied. It agreed with TisanaKhammanee 1999: 4 – 5 who said the design of learning activities,
content, experience and needs of the learners, by encouraging them to participate in the learning
organization, and have fun from learning. It agreed with Frobel 2005, cited in SiwaleeArunyanart,
2008:3 who wanted to see the learners themselves be able to learn naturally, accumulate experience and
acknowledge the value of those things according to their potential. Additionally, SiwaleeArunyanart
2008:3 said the conclusion with drawing promoted aesthetic from direct experience and caused learning
by using art, which brought love and appreciation. 3 Most of the participants were pleased with the place
and atmosphere of the learning organization both in the museum and learning resources from outside. It
agreed with SuwatWatanawong 2004: 7 who said learning environmentshould have been comfortable,
suitable, reliable, and honoring the learners. It also agreed with PrawesWasee 2000: 21 who stated that
the interaction between the teachers and learners should have been friendly and had mutual activities in the
learning processes. 4 For the productivity, the knowledge conclusioncould make the attendantshad so
clear thought from their direct experience and exchange that they could transfer it to stories and drawings. As
NantiyaJinama 2006: 40 stated that using learning resources in the community to develop story writing
skills could help learners have skills above the general criteria. Students learnt from things close to them and
they would be active learners. And the drawings of each group could reflect the learners’ ideas that created a story
on a piece of cloth. The result agreed with UthaiDulyakasem 2010: 9 who stated that encouraging
learners to have creative thinking and create things should have been a part of organizing experience for
learners. 6 The impact of using community’s stories in learning could make students have knowledge and good
attitudes to the culture of the community.
SomchitKokethong 1994: 2 stated that encouraging one to see the importance and have good attitudes to
ancient buildings and antiquities promoted conservation and appreciation of the culture. It could inspire the
learners to find ways to further inherit the community’s culture. 7 For the sustainability, ChusriSucharack
2004: 73 said that use of local wisdom as a topic to integrate all the aspects could help learners know their
own local better, have more pride and obligation to the local, and the teachers could develop new learning
models and local curricula to meet their own needs.
5. Suggestions
Certain activity development according to the research findings should be really conducted, for
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examples, cooking rice on 3 pieces of rocks as required by learners; various creative activities continually
organized by both formal and non-formal educational institutes, networks and communities; expanding
learning time in each activity, or giving more time for creating art works for the competition.
Suggestions for further research: 1 there should be more research on local museum development to
enhance creative learning of other target groups, for examples, community leaders, village health
volunteers, career groups, etc.;2 there should be research on creative learning activity development for
the youth and housewives’ groups to initiate products
to sell for more income;3 there should be research on
creative learning activity development for various career groups to create various products with creative
models;and4 there should be research on creative learning activities in other learning resources in the
community.
References
ChusriSucharack. 2004. Opinions of parents, teachers and students on participatory learning
local museum of Wat Sri Bua Ban School, MueangLamphune District.Thesis of Master of
Education in Social Science Teaching, Chiang Mai University.
NanthiyaJinama. 2006. Use of community learning resources for developing story writing skill of
PrathomSuksa 5 students. Thesis of Master of Education in Elementary Education. Chiang
Mai University. SiwaleeArunyanart. 2008. Results of art experience
organization to enhance art learning for kindergartenstudents. Thesis of Master in Education in
Art Education, Chulalonkorn University. SrisakWallipodom. 2008. Museum of local
history: The learning process together. Bangkok: Lek – PrapaiViriyapant Foundation.
SumaleeSangsri and et.al. 2005. The study on the resources of legacy lifelong learning:Museums.
Bangkok: Office of the Education Council. SuwatWatanawong. 2004. Psychology for adult
education, 2
nd
edition. Bangkok: Dansutha Publishing Company, Ltd.
SuthasineeVatcharabool. 2002. Museums the power of learning: A case study in England.
Bangkok: Office of National Education Commission.
SomjitKhoekthong. 1994. Attitudes towards preservation of ancient remains and antiquities of
secondary school students in Educational Region 7. Master of Arts Thesis in Thai Studies.
Naresuan University. Office of National Education Commission. 2002.
Education Act of 2542, as amended No. 2 Act 2545. Bangkok: Prigwan Graphics.
UthaiDulyakasem. Conversion of strategic plans of Silpakorn University to action plans of faculties
division. Documentation of training at the Royal City on May 31, 2010.
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The Development of the Creative Scientific Invention Course Based on Constructionism
for Ninth Grade Students
Paisan Wongkraso, Somsong Sitti, Araya Piyakun
The study is the Research and Development. The main purpose of this research is to develop and implement the creative
scientific invention course based on constructionism for ninth grade students. The research study is conducted through four stages
including study of fundamental data, course construction, course implementation, and course evaluation and revision. Following
these steps, the creative scientific invention course based on constructionism for ninth grade students is composed of five
components: 1 principles of the course, 2 aims of the course, 3 course contents, 4 teaching-learning processes and instructional
materials, and 5 assessment and evaluation. The draft course will be verified for quality, appropriateness, and validity by experts.
The course is experimented with 20 students from ninth grade students who interest and enroll in course of
Nongsoongsamukkewittaya School in Mukdaharn province, Thailand. The experiment period is the second semester of the
academic year 2013. A mixed methods design is used to investigate and analyze the data from the course implementation.
The data in this study are used to answer two research questions. Both quantitative and qualitative data are gathered and
analyzed to answer the research question. In addition to quantitative data, thematic analysis of qualitative data collect from follow-up
interviews explained and supplemented the initial quantitative results. The findings of the study could provide ample knowledge to
encourage learners to be successful inventors and to think like successful inventors.
Corresponding author: born2belouisgmail.com
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The Development of Web Based Instruction Using Problem Based Learning on System
Analysis and Design course
Oranan Chaopanich
The purposes of this research were to construct and validate the efficiency of Problem Based Learning Web Based
Instruction PBL-WBI via system analysis and design course and to compare learning outcome between the students in the experimental
group and the controlled group. Also, aimed to evaluate the satisfaction of the students who learned through PBL-WBI. The
samples used in this research were 30 diploma Business Computer students, who registering for System Analysis and Design course at
Kalasin Technical College in the semester 12013 from the simple random sampling. The tools used in this research consisted of an
PBL-WBI via system analysis and design course, pre-test, post-test, summative test and student’s satisfaction questionnaires. The results
of this research illustrated that firstly, the efficiency of a PBL-WBI was 88.1283.13 which was higher than 8080 as set criterion.
Secondly, there was significantly higher learning achievement of the students in the post-test than in the pre-test at .05 levels. Thirdly,
there was significantly higher learning outcome of the students in the experimental group was higher than the learning outcome of the
students in controlled group at .05 level, Fourthly, an effectiveness index of PBL-WBI were .6826. Finally, the learner’s satisfaction
after learned through PBL-WBI found that it was in a good level. In conclusion, the developed PBL-WBI via system analysis and design
course can be applied to the target groups.
Corresponding author: orananchaopanichyahoo.com
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The Effects of Standard-based School Policies on the Teachers’ Student- centered Instruction in Thailand
1
Theera Haruthaithanasan Ph.D. Educational Policy Studies, Lecturer
Department of Educational Administration, Faculty of Education Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani Campus
Abstract
This quantitative research aims to study the causal relationships between standard-based
management,
school-based management, outcome
standards, process standards, and student-centered instruction. Particularly, the research focuses on
examining how much Thailand education in the recent reform era promotes William Spady’s
outcome-based education. The research collects data from a sample of 173 state primary schools in
Surathani province and uses a questionnaire for school administrators and the other one for
teachers. The data analysis is a multiple linear regression analysis using the technique of
Structural Equation Modeling.
In the research findings, school management indirectly affects student-centered
instruction in regard that both approaches of school management have a significant effect on the
focuses on both educational standards, which in turn have a significant effect on student-centered
instruction. Remarkably, standard-based management is key to promoting student-centered
instruction in the focus on the process standard, which regulates every teacher to employ student-
centered instruction. However, the outcome standards mainly focusing on student achievement,
particularly O-NET scores, has a significant negative effect on student-centered instruction.
This finding indicates that Thailand education could not support the concept of Outcome-based
Education. Moreover, school-based management might have a significant negative effect on student-
centered instruction as well. Key words: Standard-based Management,
School-
based Management, Student-centered Instruction, Outcome-based
Education, Education Reform in Thailand
1
A shorter version of the research paper having submitted for publication. This research are
funded by the research grant program at PSU Pattani campus.
Introduction
The education reform in Thailand, according to 1999 National Education Act, focuses
on decentralized administration to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness in school management.
Decentralization into local agencies school districts and schools affords administrators and
teachers autonomy in school management. One approach of decentralization, school-based
management SBM has been gradually recognized and adopted in Thailand’s education system. In
fact, this approach has long been innovated and developed in Western world, yet those countries
have recently realized the crisis of year-by-year dropping student achievement and the expanding
gaps in educational management among schools. As a result, national education standards have been
specified in order to mandate the ongoing educational development, as required in the
standards, in every school Jorgensen Hoffmann, 2003; McLaughlin Tilstone, 2000. That is,
centralization, in the form of standard-based management, has been brought back to
complement SBM. Accordingly, Thailand’s government has recognized those issues and
enacted the national education standards and quality assessment system, as well as the basis
education core curriculum.
There are conflicts between the concepts of SBM and standard-based management. On one
hand, SBM is the concept that school administrators and teachers have more freedom and
control in educational management; schools are self-managing organizations; managements and
operations within school are flexible and adjustable to changing situations, as well as suitable for the
school characteristics and the local community needs Elliot, 1997; Marsh Heng, n.d. On the
other, standard-based management is the concept that school administrators and teachers are required
to follow the rules and regulations; school management is systematized, and operating
patterns and organizational structures are clearly specified and
fixed. As a result, educational quality and outcomes are consistent in every school, but school
management does not respond to changing situations and the local contexts Steiner, n.d.;
Willms, 2000. These conflicts of both concepts have the effects on school policies and instructional
approaches Swanson
Stevenson, 2002. Thailand’s educational system has adopted
educational development approaches from the US and UK; for example, theoretically the
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specification of national education standards are focused only on the desired educational outcomes
so that the educational processes are flexible under recommended frameworks and guidelines
McLaughlin Tilstone, 2000. That is, schools freely adjust administration and instruction to fit
their local contexts, but are required for educational quality control as specified in the national
standards Elliot, 1997. Thus, the challenges for school administrators and teachers are how to
manage the schools and instructions properly with the concerns of balancing work autonomy and
quality control.
Student-centered instruction is acknowledged for its learning efficacy in that
students understand the knowledge contents clearly and deeply. This learning approach has long been
developed in Western world and then accepted world-wide as a universal instructional standard. In
Thailand’s recent educational reforms, student- centered instruction is one of the main focuses.
Student-centered instruction is based on the concept that learners construct their own
knowledge through thinking processes, learning by doing, and discovery learning, rather than rote
learning and drills Ormrod, 2004; Bonk Cunningham, 1998. Thus, teachers are not
commanders who require students to follow the orders and rules, and they do not transfer their
knowledge into the students’ heads; but teachers should advise, support, and stimulate the students
to get engaged in their own learning process Airasian Walsh, 1997. In theory, SBM and
student-centered instruction would support each other in that SBM would give teachers freedom in
instructional management, and they are able to develop and adjust their instruction to fit the
students’ natures and needs Bolstad, 2004; Marsh Heng, n.d.; Elliot, 1997. In addition, teachers
manage to provide the students with various learning activities. Thus, standard-based
management, theoretically in contrast to SBM, may bring about somehow negative effects on student-
centered instruction.
A balance between SBM and standard- based management corresponds to the William
Spady’s concept of outcome-based education Killen, 2000; McNeir, 1993. Under this concept,
school administrators are able to control educational quality by specifying only educational
outcome standards, whereas teachers have full autonomy to select and adjust knowledge contents
and instructional approaches suitable for every student and help them reach their own learning
achievement as specified in the standards. Hence, in theory, schools with standard-based management
are likely to support the concept of outcome-based education, particularly the main focus on
educational outcome standards, in order to promote the teachers creatively focusing on student-centered
instruction. However, student achievement are mostly measured and assessed with standardized
tests, which include only some knowledge and skills, as well as not support higher-order thinking
skills Killen, 2000; McNeir, 1993. As a result, teachers may turn back to apply the instructional
approaches focused on rote learning and drills.
In Thailand’s educational contexts, standard-based management and bureaucratic
system a deep organizational structure and hierarchical relationships, as well as teacher-
centered instruction and rote learning, have long been developed and become Thai educational and
work cultures Visathavethaya, 2001; Chiangkul, 2001. As a result, Thai people get used to and have
positive attitudes toward these concepts and approaches, and then they are likely to opt for
conventional approaches, rather than innovative ones, even though the latter are sounder
Tongthew, 2000; Handal Herrington, 2003. In contrast, Western countries get used to and then
support SBM and student-centered instruction. These facts would be ones of the main factors to
decision-making in educational management by school administrators and teachers in Thailand.
Thus, in Thailand’s contexts, school policy approaches whether focusing on standard-based
management or SBM may not bring about theoretically expected outcomes. In addition,
Outcome-based Education seems to appear so vaguely that Thailand’s national education
standards may need to include the requirement of student-centered instruction.
Research Objectives
This research is: 1. to study the levels of school
administration standard-based management and school-based management and the levels of
focusing on educational standards outcome and process standards in Thailand’s basic-education
schools, as well as the levels of student-centered instruction, in the 2011-2018 educational reform
era;
2. to study the causal relationships among standard-based management, school-based
management, and student-centered instruction; 3. to study the causal relationships among
outcome standards, process standards, and student- centered instruction, particularly examining how
much standard-based management in Thailand’s contexts support the concept of Outcome-based
Education.
Conceptual Framework
1.
Standard-based management is an
approach of centralization in that school administrators and teachers are required to follow
the rules and regulations; school management is systematized, and operating patterns and
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organizational structures are clearly specified and fixed. As a result, educational quality and outcomes
are consistent in every school. Based on this concept, school policies focus on educational
quality control as specified in the national standards Steiner, n.d.; Willms, 2000.
2.
School-based management SBM is
an approach of decentralization in that school administrators and teachers have more freedom and
control in educational management; schools are self-managing organizations; managements and
operations within school are flexible and adjustable to changing situations, as well as suitable for the
school characteristics and the local community needs Elliot, 1997; Marsh Heng, n.d.
3.
Outcome-based education is based on
William Spady’s concept Killen, 2000; McNeir, 1993. Under this concept, school administrators
are able to control educational quality by specifying only educational outcome standards
student achievement, whereas teachers have full autonomy to select and adjust knowledge contents
and instructional approaches suitable for every student and help them reach their own learning
achievement as specified in the standards.
4.
Student-centered instruction is a
concept that learners construct their own knowledge through thinking processes, learning by
doing, and discovery learning, rather than rote learning and drills Ormrod, 2004; Bonk
Cunningham, 1998. This concept, actually, is based on the theory of constructivist learning.
Thus, teachers are not commanders who require students to follow the orders and rules, and they do
not transfer their knowledge into the students’ heads; but teachers should advise, support, and
stimulate the students to get engaged in their own learning process Airasian Walsh, 1997.
Research Method
This quantitative research collected primary data derived from a survey and opted for a
cross-sectional study.
Sample and Sampling. The unit of
analysis is school, so the sample is a group of basic education schools in Thailand, and the participators
are groups of school administrators and teachers. The sampling frame is basic education schools in
Surat Thani province. The sampling method is a multi-stage random sampling, in which a sample of
200 schools were randomly selected and stratified by the school districts in Surat Thani province, and
then in each school the principal was selected and 2 teachers randomly.
Research instrument. The instrument is 2
questionnaires that the researcher developed by analyzing and synthesizing relevant academic
documents and research papers. The first questionnaire is to measure levels of
administrators’ school management, and the second one is to measure teachers’ instructional
management, adapted from the questionnaire in the Haruthaithanasan’s 2010 research paper. All the
questions’ responses are a 5-level Likert scale 1: the lowest level and 5: the highest level.
Validity and reliability of the instrument. To examine and approve the validity
of the questionnaires, the researcher invited 2 sets of relevant experts, consisting of 3 professors from
the department of Educational Administration and 3 ones from the department of Curriculum and
Instruction at Prince of Songkla University. They reviewed and provided comments to improve the
questionnaires. From the Index of Consistency table, all the questions have accepted consistency
values .67-1.00. In addition, to examine and approve the reliability of the questionnaires, the
researcher randomly selected 2 groups of non- target eligible respondents to try out the
questionnaires. Both groups consisted of a group of 30 school administrators and the other of 30
teachers in basic education schools in Pattani, Yala, and Narathivat provinces. From a reliability test of
each variable, most variables of the constructs have somewhat high levels of the internal consistency
Heppner Heppner, 2004, with the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients between .542 and .878.
Data analysis. The researcher analyzed
demographic data of the respondents and levels of school and instructional management with a
statistical analysis software package SPSS, such as, calculating percentages, means, and standard
deviations; then, using a criterion Dechpichai, 1992, 531-532 to translate the variables’ means
into levels of overall management. To analyze a relationship model of the variables, the researcher
used the technique of Structural Equation Modeling Kline, 2005, which analyzes linear relationships
among school management approaches, educational standard focuses, and student-centered
instruction. In the model, there are 5 main variables and 8 control variables. Among the main variables,
3 constructs latent variables consists of 1 standard-based management, 2 school-based
management, and 3 student-centered instruction; the others are observed variables: outcome standard
focus and process standard focus. Control variables consist of school administrators and teachers’
demographic data gender, educational level, work experience and school data school size, school
location. The researcher opted for the statistical analysis software packages, called “R”, specifically
a Structural Equation Modeling SEM package, “lavaan” Rosseel, 2012. In this SEM Analysis,
the method of estimating free parameters of the best fitting model is Maximum Likelihood ML
estimation.
Research Findings Demographic data of the respondents.
In the sample of 173 schools with the response
Education and Leadership in Glocalization : What does “think globally, act locally” mean for education around the world?
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rate of 86.50 , most are small and medium in size 42.20 and 49.10 respectively and in
rural areas 83.81 . Most school administrators are male 85.50 , attain above bachelor degrees
92.80 , and have more-than-5-years-old administrative experiences 91.30 , whereas
most teachers are female 74.60 , attain bachelor degrees 89.00 , and have more-than-5-years-old
teaching experiences 94.20 .
Levels of school management. In the
construct of standard-based management see Table 1, specifying educational standards
x̄ = 4.71, and
educational quality assurance
x̄ = 4.54 are at the
highest level, whereas following the orders and rules
x̄ = 3.94 are lower than the others at just a
high level. In the construct of school-based management, SBM see Table 2, work autonomy
x̄ = 4.17, participative administration among
teachers, parents, and community
x̄ = 4.13,
adjusting the administration fitting the local contexts
x̄ = 4.07 are at a high level, and the latter
are lower than the others. Comparing 2 overall school management approaches, the mean of
standard-based management is higher than that of SBM. Moreover, the sample of schools had the
level of focusing on outcome-based standards
x̄ =
4.71 similar to that of process-based standards
x̄ =
4.75, specifically focusing on student-centered instruction.
Levels of student-centered instruction.
In the construct of student-centered instruction see Table 3, all variables are at a higher level.
Comparing all the variables, the means of designing instruction fitting every student’s nature
x̄ = 4.44, collaborative learning x̄ = 4.42, and
teacher scaffolding
x̄ = 4.42 are higher than those
of the others, whereas the mean of problem solving and knowledge inquiry
x̄ = 3.69, as well as High-
