The Study of Characteristics of Thai Teachers in the 21st Century

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to 1) study of characteristics of Thai teachers in the 21st century and 2) perform a confirmatory factor analysis of characteristics of Thai teachers in the 21st century on hypothesis model with empirical data. The sample consisted of two groups comprised, 12 experts were selected by purposive sampling and 280 teachers in Faculty of Education, Rajabhat Universities, 280 students in Faculty of Education, Rajabhat Universities, 240 teachers in Primary Educational Service Area Office and Secondary Educational Service Area Office, were selected by stratified random sampling technique. The questionnaires of characteristics of Thai teachers in the 21st century were used for data collection. (r = 0.975). Data were analyzed by confirmatory factor analysis using LISREL version 8.72. The results of the research were as following: 1. Regarding the analysis of exploratory factor, it indicated that characteristics of Thai teachers in the 21st century composed of 5 factors with 50 variables namely instructional and teaching leadership (10 variables), knowledge and competency (10 variables), information and technology skills (10 variables), values and attitudes (10 variables), ethics and morality (10 variables). 2. The results of confirmatory factor analysis of model in the characteristics of Thai teachers in the 21st century were found that 50 variables, each variables were positive and at statistical significance level of .01. Arranged 5 factors from the highest factor loading value to the lowest : instructional and teaching leadership, knowledge and competency, information and technology skills, values and attitudes, ethics and morality which the factors were 0.97, 0.91, 0.85, 0.84 and 0.71 respectively. The construct validity of models was consistent with empirical data, with chi-square goodness of fit test at 848.81 with 809 degrees of freedom; p-value = 0.16, Goodness of Fit Index (GFI) = 0.96, Adjusted Goodness
of Fit Index (AGFI) = 0.94, Standardized Root Mean Square Residual (SRMR) = 0.03, and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.01