Abstract:
The purposes of this study were 1) to analyze the components and indicators of the teachers professional identity of Thai teachers; 2) to analysis and compare levels of the teachers professional identity of Thai teachers whose backgrounds were different in terms of gender, level of education, teaching experience, faculty of graduation, academic position, role of school principal, and working climate; 3) to analyze a latent class of the teachers professional identity of Thai teachers; and 4) to analyze relationships between the latent class of teachers professional identity and the background variables of Thai teachers including gender, level of education, teaching experience, faculty of graduation, academic position, role of school principal, and working climate. This study employed an exploratory sequential mixed-methods research design. The study was divided into two phases. Phase 1 was the qualitative study collecting data from 14 educational experts via interviews. The data were analyzed by content analysis. Phase 2 was the quantitative study collecting data from 625 teachers in OBEC schools. Research instruments included 1) questionnaires with Item-Objective Congruence (IOC) scores 0.57-1.00 and reliability coefficients of 0.601-0.958; and 2) teachers profession knowledge tests with IOC scores of 0.57-1.00, difficulty levels of 0.211-0.789, discrimination levels of 0.235-0.824, and the KR20 for reliability coefficient of 0.741. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyze the data, including mean, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, skewedness, kurtosis, Pearsons correlation, confirmatory factor analysis, latent class analysis, crosstab-tabulation and Chi-square and logistic regression. Research results were as follows: 1. Teachers professional identity consisted of 3 factors covering 26 indicators: Factor 1-Knowledge of teachers profession measured by 10 indicators including the content knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, philosophy knowledge, psychology knowledge, curriculum knowledge, teaching knowledge, research knowledge, Educational Innovation knowledge, Assessment for Educational knowledge, and Quality Assurance in Education knowledge; Factor 2-Ability of teachers profession measured by 9 indicators including the ability of pass on knowledge, ability of apply curriculum, ability of Character Development of learners, ability of apply psychology, ability of teaching, ability of research, ability of Educational Innovation, ability of Assessment and ability of Quality Assurance in Education; Factor 3-Morals of teachers profession measured by 7 indicators including the love and faith of teachers professional, goodwill for learners, act as a role model, discipline responsibility, patience and optimist, and seeking knowledge and develop oneself. The structural model of teachers professional identity fitted well with the empirical data (Chi-square = 183.745, df = 188, p = 0.574, GFI = 0.978, AGFI = 0.959 and RMR = 0.019) 2. Overall, Thai teachers had a moderate level of teachers professional identity with a mean score of 60.287. Specifically, their knowledge of teachers profession was moderate with a mean score of 55.200, while their ability of teachers profession and morals of teachers profession were high with mean scores of 64.105 and 66.502 respectively. 3. The latent class analysis of teachers professional identity classified Thai teachers into three classes: Class 1 consisted of 35 teachers (5.60%) who were without teachers profession, Class 2 consisted of 429 teachers (68.64%) whose levels of knowledge and morals of teachers profession were low, and Class 3 consisted of 161 teachers (25.76%) whose level of knowledge of teachers profession was low. 4. Based on the cross-tabulation and Chi-square test, relationships between the latent class of teachers professional identity and all teachers background variables were statistically significant at the level of .05. In addition, logistics regression results indicated that teachers with positive opinions on their working climate were classified into Class 1 (teachers without teachers profession) more often than into Class 2 (teachers who had low levels of knowledge and morals of teachers profession). On the other hand, female teachers and those who had positive opinions on their school principal were classified into Class 3 (teachers who had low level of knowledge of teachers profession) more often than into Class 2 (teachers who had low levels of knowledge and morals of teachers profession).