Abstract:
The objectives of the research were : 1) to study the level of management of the administrators of the Private Vocational Colleges in supporting the instructors to conduct classroom research, 2) to investigate the instructors level of knowledge, understanding, and attitude in conducting classroom research, 3) to examine the relationship between the administrative factors in supporting the instructors and the performance of the teachers in conducting classroom research. The sample group consisted of 122 teachers who were working at Private Vocational Colleges in Phuket, Phang-nga, Krabi, Ranong, and Trang in 2011. Questionnaires were used to collect the data. The statistics employed to analyse the collected data included frequency, means, S.D, Correlation Analysis, and Multiple Regression.
The results of the study revealed that :
1. The management level of the administrators at the Andaman Private Vocational Colleges in supporting the instructors for classroom research was found to be moderate. The areas of management were ranked from most supported to least supported as follows: the policy of the colleges, systems and mechanisms, and follow-up and evaluation.
2. The level of understanding and attitudes of the instructors regarding classroom research was found to be high. However, the level of the teachers skills in conducting classroom research were found to be moderate.
3. The administrative factors in supporting the instructors were found to be positively related to the teachers performance in conducting classroom research. The factors which mostaffected the teachers performance were their knowledge and understanding, followed by their skills.
Through the predicting equation analysis, the factors of management support of classroom research and the teachers attitudes were found to predict the performance of the teachers in conducting classroom research. The predicting equations can be shown as the following :
General Equation Y = 0.696 + 0.121 (X1) + 0.132 (X4)