TRAINING CURRICULUM FOR COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES DEVELOPMENT IN LAMPANG PROVINCE, THAILAND

Abstract

            The purposes of this research were to develop and evaluate the training curriculum for community leaders in Lampang Province, Thailand by using research and development methodology. In this research, a purposive sampling was used to select 40 community leaders and 20 potential leaders from 4 communities in Lampang that were awarded at the provincial or national level between 2008 and 2018.  The focus group was used to develop a training curriculum.  Twenty potential leaders were then trained in order to develop their leadership competencies.  The research instruments included focus group form, curriculum evaluation form, as well as satisfaction form for participants.  Content analysis was used to analyze qualitative data.  Statistics used in analyzing quantitative data were percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The results showed that the content of community leader curriculum comprises of 5 categories, including knowledge, community leadership skills, special leadership capability, effective collaborative skills, and great personality and character traits. Additionally, an evaluation on the appropriateness of community training curriculum reveals an average of 4.46 out of 5 points. Training participants had increasing their knowledge and understanding in leadership and management.  They had an overall satisfaction from attending the curriculum training at the highest level.