Abstract:
Purposes of the Study The purposes of this study were as follows : 1. To study the community leader characteristics of southern teachers college students as perceived by themselves. To compare the differences of student sex, class level major subject, leadership experience and family economic status as factors affecting community leader characteristics. Methodology and Procedures The research was a descriptive research. The samples were selected from students of the southern teachers colleges in the second part of academic year 1982. These samples came from the simple random sampling from Nakorn Srithamraj Teacher College, Yala Teacher College and Surajthani Teacher College. Three hundred students were selected by proportionate stratified random sampling and 288 (96.00 percent) questionnaire were completed and returned. Five aspects of the community leadership : morality, human relationships, responsibility, creative thinking, and faith in community development were included in the questionnaire. The data were analyzed by computing frequency, percentage, arithmetic means, standard deviation, t-test, F-test and Scheff test for multiple comparison. Research Findings 1.The outstanding community leader characteristics that most southern teachers college students possessed was morality; the others were creative thinking, human relationships, faith in community development and responsibility respectively. 2. Male students had more community leader characteristics than these of females. Moreover, it was found out that there were significantly differences in all aspects except morality. 3. Among the respondents of all class levels, the fourth year students had the highest community leader characteristics, especially the faith in community development which was significantly different from those of the first year students, at .01. 4. For all aspects, the students with leadership experience had more community leader characteristics than those who had none. It was also discovered that these two groups of students were significantly different in their morality, at the .05 level of significant. 5. The students with different major fields of study also had different community leader characteristics, especially in creative thinking which was significantly different at .05. 6. There was no differences in all aspects of study among the respondents who has different economic status. Recommendation The results of study revealed that learning and teaching policy should be emphasized the importance of inculcating the faithfulness and responsibility of community development. The vice president for academic affair should coordinate with the instructors and vice president for student affair in any activities which gain the understanding and experience of the students the community development. Moreover, it should be considered the proportion of sex in recruiting students, especially the college which located in the area demanding urgent development. Asides from this, the college instructors should play more important roles in community development work in order to obtain more factual data and gain their experience which is useful in teaching the students to be good teachers with appropriate leadership characteristics.