Abstract:
The purposes of the study were; 1) to develop public mind indicators for lower
secondary school students in Eastern region, 2) to examine the consistency of the public mind
indicators model for lower secondary school students in Eastern region with empirical data,
3) to develop the interpretation criteria of indicator scores for lower secondary school students in
Eastern region, and 4) to study the public mind promotion guide line for lower secondary school
students in Eastern region. The study was dividedly conducted into two phases. The first phase
was the quantitative study. The samples of this phase were 940 students selected from two-tiered
random sampling method. The instrument used was 5 scale rating questionnaires with 99
questions designed by the author. The questions had item discrimination power from .41 to .80,
the reliability from.70 to .90. The statistics used for data analysis were basic statistics, Pearson
correlation analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and the investigation of congruence between
the model and the empirical data. The second phase was qualitative study to investigate the public
mind promotion guideline for lower secondary school students in Eastern region. The informants
in this phase were the school administrators, and the teachers taking charge of public mind
promotion for students of the schools which have the proper public mind promotion guideline.
The informants obtained were from purposive sampling and Snowball sampling method.
The instrument used in the study was semi-structured interview collecting the data from in-depth
interviews with 15 main key informants.
The findings of the study were as follows;
1. The public mind indicators for lower secondary school students consisted of 5
factors with 18 indicators. The factors with their indicators were as follows: 1) Helping others with 4indicators, 2) Public care with 3 indicators, 3) Respecting with 4 indicators, 4) Responsibility
with 4 indicators and 5) Environmental conservation with 4 indicators.
2. The structural validity tests of the model of measuring public mind indicators for
the lower secondary students were consistent with the empirical data when considered from
𝜒2 =250.24, df =99, GFI =0.97, AGFI = 0.95, CFI =1.00, RMR = 0.017, RMSEA = 0.0040,
(
𝜒2
/df)= 2.51 which is not over than 3. This revealed that the model of measuring of public
mind indicators for lower secondary students in Eastern region had consistency in harmony with
empirical data. The measurement of the appropriateness of the model revealed confidence value
of hidden variables (ρc) was between 0.83 to 0.96 and mean of variance extracted (ρv) was 0.56
to 0.82. This means the model has confidence at an acceptable level
3. The development of the interpretation criteria of public mind indicator scores for
the lower secondary school students by interpreting the raw scores into normal T standard score,
and define public mind into 5 levels is appropriate to measure the students level of public mind.
4. The public mind promotion guideline for the lower secondary students in Eastern
region are as follows: The schools should set up clear policy and action plan to promote public
mind, and should announce them to every department. To achieve the successful policy
movement, the school should provide the supports such as teachers training, students training,
community connection building, budget, and students interest-base activities supporting.
There also should be systemic monitoring and evaluation. Besides that, the priority of public
mind promotion should be consistent instilling of moralities and ethics, and sacrifice. The schools
should establish leader students to be the role models. There are various ways of public mind
promotion such as the integration with school subjects, scouts, girl guides, youth red cross, extracurricular activities, students development activities, clubs, and other special occasion activities.
If the schools consistently promote students public mind, it will become the students lifelong
habit permanently.