Lecturer Receptivity to a major planned educational change in a centrally-controlled system at Rajabhat Universities in Thailand

Abstract

Thailand passed the National Education Act (1999) which introduced the largest educational change there in over 50 years. This study investigated Lecturer Receptivity to that change at four Rajabhat Universities in the second year of the implementation stage during 2002. Receptivity was conceptualized as relating to eight aspects of the change. Data were collected by questionnaire (N = 659) with 50 stem-items answered in three perspectives. These were (1) how I expect the change to be planned, (2) how I think the change was really implemented, and (3) what my actual behavior was. Data were analyzed with a Rasch measurement model and 18 of the 50 stem-items fitted the measurement model. A linear scale of receptivity was created where the proportion of observed variance considered true was 95% and data were considered to be valid and reliable. The easiest aspect was comparison with the previous system and the hardest was participation in decision-making. For most items, the perspectives were found to be ordered from easy (perspective 1) to hard (perspective 3) as conceptualized.