The State of Instructional Management of Teachers in the Social Studies Based on the National Standard-based Curriculum, Thailand

This study aimed to investigate the current state of social studies instructional management of teachers based on the current standard-based National Basic Education Curriculum B.E. 2551 of Thailand, including its obstacles and limitations, and the proposal for further development. It was a mixed-method research: quantitative method consisted of 150 participants obtained by systematic random sampling. They were educational supervisors and teachers teaching in the Social Studies, Religion and Culture Learning Area in public schools. Statistics for data analysis were the percentage, mean, and standard deviation. In the qualitative part, the key informants were 18 social studies teachers and educational supervisors purposively selected for in-depth interviews. The research findings were as follows: (1) the current practice of teachers regarding social studies instructional management was not in accordance with the underlying concepts and expectation as prescribed in the national core curriculum, even though social studies teachers and educational supervisors had high level of comprehension in it. The teachers tended to organize their social studies lesson plans based on guidelines in textbooks published by private publishers rather than compile them based on the curriculum itself; the prevalent method of instruction was the lecturing method while integrated teaching was rarely practiced; also, evaluation of learning outcomes tended to focus on knowledge rather than on thinking skills and performance; (2) the teachers and educational supervisors agreed at the high level with the principles of standard-based curriculum which had been responsive to the present information-based society rather than the former content-based curriculum prescribed by the Ministry of Education as in the past; thus, they were highly satisfied with the national core curriculum in the Social Studies, Religion and Culture Learning Area; (3) the main obstacles and limitations in social studies instructional management were those concerning the curriculum itself, curriculum implementation, roles of educational supervisors and school principals, all of which contributed to the weakening of the school academic system and the relatively poor student achievements; and (4) regarding the guidelines for further development of social studies instruction management, the following points were addressed: (4.1) the schools should seriously and continuously develop the teachers and support them on their teaching performance; and (4.2) the curriculum itself should be reviewed for further development including the continued emphasis on the enhancement of standard-based curriculum, and the reduction of some overlapping contents within and among the learning areas.