For this week’s blog post, I chose to read more about a learning school created in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand based on Participatory Action Research (PAR). For a brief refresher, PAR helps psychologists and social scientists use their skillset in order to support positive social change with underserved communities/groups. PAR is different than traditional methods of research because “The success of any PAR project depends on the depth of mutual trust and commitment held by all participants” (Brydon-Miller, 1997). The author frames the issue of students in Thailand being challenged due to “soaring social mobilization” causing challenges for education worldwide – particularly how Thailand needs to implement better economics, politics, technology, and education in order to create a quality population for the future. Buddhist scripture schools across Thailand have been known for having problems with quality and even failing nationwide educational standards – the school for this study is Wat Srichan, a Buddhist scripture school. The authors of the article state that PAR is a great process for helping create a better learning environment because both the research participants and the researchers are able to be engaged in the development processes.
While reading more about the objectives of this research and other educational settings where O*Net scores were utilized for a benchmark, I was surprised that the authors cited two online learning organizations. I would think that a traditional, in-person classroom would be significantly different to design and implement a proposal than an online/e-learning classroom. Although I may be a bit nitpicky on the prior point, I appreciate how the authors stated their Ten Moral Codes for framing the research – some of which included:
- Enabling equal accessibility to research approach among the participants
- Enabling full participation from the research informants
- Making results available to the public
- If a participant declined to participate, their decision is respected
The researchers were able to have two phases of gathering data – once per semester – based on an existing framework. This included an in-depth individual interview, focus group interviews, observations, and examination of records. All of which are qualitative data.
The researchers had enabled the ~30 participants to be able to take part in discussions around finding solutions for classroom problems and then present their solutions in front of their entire class. To the researchers’ surprise, teachers were far more open to welcoming new teaching techniques in order to help 21st-century learners grasp concepts. Prior to allowing for more open, free-flowing dialogue between students & teachers, the educational evaluation list that the researchers utilized had all scored well below their speculated 3.50 average. The learning environment was 3.07, teachers were 3.04, and students were 3.03. After PAR was completed, the respective scores were 4.13, 4.10, and 4.45. By involving all stakeholders in the educational system at the Wat Srichan school with PAR, there have been tremendous gains in these metrics.
In conclusion, I appreciated the PAR approach that the researchers had undertaken. I would have been a bit happier if the researchers were students of a Buddhist scripture university as well – instead of being from a traditional Thai University. However, I would think there is very minimal overlap between PhD students studying applied social psychology with participatory action research at a small Buddhist scripture school in the middle of Thailand.
References –
Brydon-Miller, M. (1997). Participatory Action Research: Psychology and Social Change. Journal of Social Issues, 53(4), 657–666.
Chanthago, P. J., Phrakrudhammapissamai, & Jantaragaroon, C. (2020). Development of a Learning School in Wat Srichan School, Khon Kaen Province: A Participatory Action Research. International Journal of Higher Education, 9(1), 11–21.
I was especially intrigued in the focus of your article when I began reading, but your description of the use of PAR to help improve this school is especially interesting to me. Your summary of this study shows how PAR can allow participants to engage in the study through various means, and the increase in scores indicate how effective this method of research was.