Development of a curriculum for enhancing teacherness by integrating the philosophy of sufficiency economy and self-fulfillment theory for undergraduate early childhood education students

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop and study the implementation results of the curriculum for enhancing teacherness by integrating the philosophy of sufficiency economy and self-fulfillment theory for undergraduate early childhood education students. The research was implemented into 2 phases including phase 1; the development of the curriculum for enhancing teacherness with sub-steps which were 1) to analyze necessary data for designing and developing the curriculum; 2) to design and check the quality of the curriculum by 10 qualified experts; 3) to conduct a pilot study with non-representative samples; and 4) to improve the curriculum in accordance with the recommendations and fact-findings. Phase 2 involved the implementation of the curriculum for enhancing teacherness with sample who were undergraduate thirty-three 1st - 4th year undergraduate students of the academic year 2020 from Early Childhood Education program, the faculty of Education, Suan Dusit University, Lampang Center. The research tools were consisted of 1) the assessment form of quality test of the curriculum; 2) the assessment form of self-sufficiency characteristics; 3) the assessment form of commitment to learn; and 4) assessment form of students' satisfactions in the curriculum. Data were analyzed by finding the average, standard deviations and t-test. The analysis also took into considerations the tendency of results from the curriculum's implementation in each phase. The research results could be summarized as follows: 1. The development of the curriculum for enhancing teacherness which the researcher aimed at developing were comprised of 8 compositions including 1) principles of the curriculum; 2) objectives of the curriculum; 3) learning contents of the curriculum; 4) learning units; 5) learning activities; 6) learning media/ materials; 7) roles of learners and instructor(s); and 8) measurement and evaluation. The assessment of overall curriculum quality was at the highest level. 2. The implementation results of the curriculum for enhancing teacherness revealed that 1) during the implementation of the curriculum, students tended to have higher self-sufficiency characteristics and the comparison between before and after learning revealed that after learning the curriculum, the average was higher than that of before learning at statistically significant level of .05; 2) during the implementation of the curriculum, students tended to have higher commitment to learn and the comparison of before and after learning revealed that the average of after learning from the curriculum was higher than that of before learning at statistically significant level of .05; and 3) students had overall satisfactions in the curriculum at the highest level.