A Study of Problems in Teaching and Learning in the Field of Humanities of Teachers and Students at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Thonburi

Abstract

The objective of this research is to study the problems to teachers and students in teaching and learning in the field of Humanities at King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Thonburi. The results will be used for the improvement of the effective teaching and learning of the subject in this area at KMITT. The subjects in this study are divided into two groups : 7 teachers who teach Humanities courses and 755 students from the faculties of Science, Engineering and Architecture who were taking or had already taken Humanities courses. The results of the study show that: both students and teachers rated problems with the curriculum and the use of teaching aids as moderate for there were no optional courses for them to choose, the time set was 3 hours continuously, the teaching aids were not appropriate due to the classroom environment,the lack of visual equipment due to the lack of budget, the library had less supportive sources in this area, the teachers’s teaching load did not give any apportunity to produce effective teaching aids; teachers rated problems with courses content as low whereas students rated them as moderate for the course content which involves moratjty and social awareness is difficult to achieve the objectives, it is more theoretical than practical; for teaching methods, Science students rated problems as low, but teachers and Engineering and Architecture students rated them as moderate for the teaching method should gear towards cognitive learning with examples and practical activities,the outline of the course was not given and there should be more self study; and fore valuation, students rated problems as moderate, but teachers rated them as high for the evluation concerning the measurement of understanding and application, giving opinions, analysis and reasoning was problematic, the evaluation on the learning objectives was not clear.

Concerning relationships within the results, a significant positive correlation(~‘0.05) was found between students’ attitudes and their opinions towards teaching and learning. There was also a significant positive correlation (~~0.05) between student’s opinions and levels of problems regarding course content, teaching methods, teaching aids and evaluation. There was, however, no relationship with the level of problems concerning curriculum.