The development of student leadership training program for the early adolescent students in Kanchanaburi province, Thailand

Abstract

The research aimed to explore an intervention student leadership training program for early adolescent students to enhance students’ leadership in school; to evaluate the effectiveness of a student leadership training program for the early adolescent students; and to integrate the student leadership training program into student development activities in school. This study was conducted by using a mixed-methods explanatory sequential design with a pre-test and post-test control group and experimental group to demonstrate the effectiveness of the program. The sample group consisted of 50 adolescent students whose age was 10 to 14 years old. They were assigned to 2 groups with 25 students in an experimental group and 25 students in a control group by simple random sampling method. Focus group discussion with six key informants was used to identify the way to incorporate the student leadership training program into student development activities in school through content analysis. The quantitative results showed that the intervention student leadership training program, which consisted of an online course and an on-site course with 12 activities for 24 hours over a 7-week, resulted in a statistically significant (p < .001) increase in student leadership skill. The qualitative findings suggested that the program could be integrated into (1) all subject areas, (2) student development activities or counselling activities, and (3) an additional course. The findings of the study suggested that the student leadership training program and the student leadership training manual should be modified according to the contexts of each school, students’ education levels and learning time allotment, and to accommodate measurement and evaluation based on the integration.