ความเป็นนักเคมีของนักศึกษาสาขาเคมีในประเทศไทย: การให้ความหมายและอิทธิพลเชิงสาเหตุ

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the definition of becoming a qualified chemist and to study the causal factors influenced becoming a qualified chemist of chemistry undergraduate students in Thailand. An exploratory sequential mixed-method was conducted in this study, For the first phase, the qualitative design was conducted to analyze the definition of becoming a qualified chemist. The semi-structured questionnaire was research instrument. The sample consisted of 32 people who involved in chemistry from school and university level across Thailand; 8 chemistry teachers from secondary school level, 8 lecturers in chemistry from university level, 8 chemists or chemistry researchers, and 8 chemistry laboratory staffs. The results revealed that the definition of becoming a qualified chemist was the ability of person to explain natural phenomenon, nature and phenomenon of matter through using scientific process and skill for inquiring and applying knowledge and express the characters of chemist by using systematic thinking, with positive scientific attitude. In addition, there were 2 factors enhancing towards becoming a qualified chemist; the first factor was the internal factors including (1) positive attitude towards chemistry, and (2) experiences in scientific activities, and the second factor was the external factors that consisted of (1) teaching and learning management model in chemistry subject, (2) encouraging by chemistry teachers at secondary school level, (3) characteristics of a chemical master person, and (4) the role of a chemistry lectures at the university level. The second phase was the quantitative design that to study the casual factor effecting becoming a qualified chemist of graduate students in Thailand. The sample were 550 junior and senior chemistry undergraduate students. There were 586 online respondents; 290 who studying from faculty of education and 296 from faculty of science. The questionnaire consisted of 3 parts: general information, the perspective toward qualified chemist, and the factors that influenced qualified chemists. Hypotheses testing of the structural equation model using PLS-SEM. The results show that the hypotheses support statistically significant at the level of .01 only 2 hypotheses: teaching and learning management model in chemistry, and characteristics of a chemical master person. The results of the Importance-Performance Matrix analysis found that the efficiency level higher than .10 and over than 70% for all factors.