Abstract:
The purposes of this study were 1 ) to study teaching competencies of Thai history teachers at the lower secondary educational level in the aspects of knowledge, characteristic and skills 2 ) to study needs for competency improvement of Thai history teachers at the lower secondary education level, and 3 ) to study the guidlines for competency improvement of Thai history teachers at the lower secondary educational level . The researcher used the questionnaire to obtain the data from 312 social studies teachers at the lower secondary educational level and interviewed 15 history teachers. The data were analyzed by means of frequencies, percentage , arithmetic means and standard deviation.The research findings were as follows :1. Thai history teachers at the lower secondary educational level had low competencies in the aspects of knowledge and skill but had high competencies in the aspect of skills. 2. Thai history teachers at the lower secondary educational level expressed the needs for competency improvement at high level in the aspects of knowledge,characteristic and skills especially at the highest level in the items of the knowledge of historical methods , history projects and computer skills in developing CAI for history lessons. 3. The guidlines for competency improvement of Thai history teachers were as follows :Thai history Teacher : Teachers study Thai History books and historical document, attend the workshops and seminar, experiment with various teaching methods, study from history resources , and exchange views with history experts. School : School administrators support teachers to attend in service program and seminar, support an invitation of resource person, the provision of new books, the production of instructional material, and expenses for teachers' field studies. The principle Organization providing historical data. The Department of Fine Arts : The Department of Fine Arts Organizes the workshops and seminar, serves as historical resource , produces instructional materials, books, and documents and provides resource person for schools.