عنوان

The quality of teaching and quality assurance in higher education in Thailand :

Number

TLets682236

Title Proper

The quality of teaching and quality assurance in higher education in Thailand :

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Thupa-Ang, Anupap

Title Proper by Another Author

an exploration of academic perceptions and experiences

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Bristol

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2015

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ed.D.

Body granting the degree

University of Bristol

Text preceding or following the note

2015

Text of Note

Thailand's higher education sector was officially founded with the establishment ofChulalongkorn University in 1917 and it has continued to grow ever since. However, theunprecedented increase in competition in higher education worldwide, which is primarilydriven by globalisation and university league tables, makes it essential for Thailand's highereducation institutions (HEIs) to improve their quality and competitiveness. Although aquality assurance (QA) system has been placed since 1999, the quality of Thai highereducation (HE) remains problematic, particularly the quality of teaching. As can be seen ininternational league tables, Thai HEIs are always placed in low ranking positions. Therefore,the aim of this qualitative research study is to investigate how the quality of teaching and theQA system in Thai HE can be improved by interviewing twenty-seven academic staff inthree different kinds of Thai HEIs, namely, an old university, a new university and a privateuniversity.There are four main research questions, namely, how do academics perceive thequality of teaching in Thai HE? How can the quality of teaching in Thai HE be improvedfrom their perspective? How do academics perceive the current quality assurance system inThai HE? How can the quality of the Thai HE sector be improved from their perspective?The findings indicate that the academic staff deem that the quality of teaching ingeneral Thai HE needs to be improved; however, they believe that the teaching in their ownHEI is of relatively good quality. In terms of how to improve the quality of teaching in ThaiHE, the academics gave various answers, which can be divided into two aspects: policyaspect and apparatus aspect. The policy aspect consists of (1) the policy for facilitating theteaching of current academics and (2) the policy for recruiting better qualified andexperienced academics in the future. The apparatus aspect includes: (1) the teachingenhancement apparatuses for supporting and facilitating the academics; (2) the teachingassessment apparatus for assessing the teaching quality; and (3) the teaching rewardapparatus for encouraging and persuading the academics to improve their teaching quality.FUl1hermore, these academic staff expressed neither a positive nor negative perspective ofthe QA system in Thai HE. However, they recommended that the QA system could beimproved by fostering every HEI staff member's awareness of quality, developing andimplementing a transparent and non-bureaucratic performance indicator system, andreducing the dependence on documentation or paperwork. Lastly, they suggest how toimprove the quality of Thai HE by (1) improving the teaching and learning process, (2)improving the academic development system, (3) improving foreign language skills, (4)avoiding political interference, and (5) improving research both quantitatively andqualitatively.

Thupa-Ang, Anupap

University of Bristol

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

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Y