Effects of educational reforms in the 2nd decade (2009–2018) on teacher motivation and student achievement among schools in Southern Thailand

Abstract

This paper studied the effectiveness of four school reforms (instruction reform, teacher reform, learning sources reform, and administration reform) on improving school outcomes. Based on systems theory, this paper explored relationships among the four school reforms and their effects on teacher motivation and student achievement. The quantitative study was a secondary analysis using year 2014 datasets from a sample of 431 public basic schools in 3 southern provinces, Thailand. The researcher used structural equation modeling to explore the models and to verify cause–effect relationships among the variables. The research findings fairly confirmed the theoretical frameworks, and reflected some effectiveness of the 2nd decade school reforms in terms of whole organizational improvement and teacher motivation, although not student achievement. The key findings were discussed with a critical theory lens to depict Thailand as a case study of developing countries borrowing and struggling with global school reforms, and then proposed policy implications to improve the current education reforms as global issues, particularly for Thailand.