MARCO METODOLÓGICO

For the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, research is a powerful method for checking and enhancing social knowledge in addition to increasing a lecturer’s personal development. The area of humanities relates to human understandings and human management, whereas the Social Sciences relate to subjects about human communities and the surrounding environment.

In the past, Case nine informed us that research in this faculty was not as common as it is now. There was not much research productivity during the early stages of development of the faculty, but nowadays lecturers have started to realize the importance of research. Case nine said:

Research plays a part in everything. We have projects to enhance research knowledge. The Dean and administrative staff also support research activities.

The lecturers who want to progress in their career must do research, study about research problems and compare new knowledge with previous theories. The respondent stated that:

They should use conceptual thinking in textbooks to integrate into modern knowledge, also supporting what they have learnt from textbooks. The textbooks are not exactly one hundred percent true and research is something that can be used to support teaching. If knowledge in the textbook is not matched with the results of the research, they can show students the difference.

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences supports staff to do research by providing research funding. The first source of funding falls under the Faculty’s research topics which focus on gaining new knowledge as announced in the university’s strategic policy. The second source is the research funding earmarked for topics that lecturers are personally interested in. This faculty opens

opportunities for lecturers to conduct research by providing supporting resources such as when lecturers need money to search information. The faculty also supports the lecturers by providing plain paper, printer and office assistants as well as granting time release for other duties.

Moreover, this faculty has training programs, such as those concerned with classroom research. The lecturers can learn to do research by starting with small projects then move to bigger ones later. Publication is the next process after finishing a research project. Besides publishing in International journals, this Faculty has two research journals, consisting of Humanity and Social Science Research Journals which publish general articles and a Research Journal which publishes only research articles. However, Case nine stated that it is difficult to separate clearly between general and specific research articles. The faculty now prints only one research journal that has a peer review system. In addition, this faculty also encourages lecturers to offer presentations in research conferences by providing a specific budget.

Case nine remarked of the research situation that:

We have to respond to the changes of the surrounding environment. This faculty is growing fast, but we still insist on our aims to encourage our Eastern region to become a knowledge-based society. We make slight changes to create a flexible process.

However, in future situations, the respondent said:

I cannot guess because it depends on the faculty’s and university’s policy as well as other factors.

There are many factors which affect the quantity and quality of research performance. The faculty manages to raise the amount of research outputs but the outcomes are still not much. Case nine stated that there are two main factors that cause lecturers to do less research. The first relates to personal factors. The respondent said:

Some lecturers finished Masters degrees a very long time ago and the course did not have a research program. They studied only research methods and have never done any research. As a result, they cannot do research topics that they are interested in to increase knowledge for teaching.

From this respondent’s statement, it appears that the lecturers in this faculty lack appropriate researcher qualifications and aptitude. The respondent explained a pertinent point that if lecturers have not got a researcher’s personality, they are hardly likely to become a researcher. Case nine pointed out that:

Some lecturers don’t have a researcher’s personality. A researcher’s personality requites them to be observant, love to search for information, ask questions and use what they are learning for continuing study. Lecturers who didn’t have those characteristics are not interested in doing research.

Beside personal factors, there are some external factors that have a marked affect on low research productivity. The workload is the most important one, because it requires the sharing of available working time between teaching, doing research and anything else. Case nine stated that:

As we know, our staff has the highest teaching workload. We teach general subjects which contain more than 20 credits. We have both major and minor subjects. This faculty has fourteen departments and more than 150 subjects are taught per year. There are more than four thousand students studying Bachelor and Masters degrees as well as special courses excluding those who learn Thai and the English language. That is why our lecturers have a high teaching workload. They have no time to think of doing anything else.

Moreover, this faculty’s research centre has been established for only one year, and there is insufficient office and other support. Case Nine stated that:

We are not yet strong in this area and also we have insufficient officers to assist researchers.

In summary, it is suggested that the lecturers in the Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences do research to develop their teaching performance and in

expectation of rank promotion. Research in this area is seen as a powerful method for checking and enhancing social knowledge.

Case nine informed us that research in this faculty is not a common task because the faculty is in an early stage of development, although it is true that the faculty has provided lecturers with research funding. In addition, this faculty also encourages lecturers to do research tasks by providing a research training program and assists lecturers to gain research experience by allowing them to start with small projects before subsequently moving to bigger ones. At the final stages of research projects, lecturers are informed that they should publish their work in the faculty’s journal or an outside journal in which faculty has a supported publication budget.

However, the research outcomes are, at this time, not great. This faculty has faced similar problems to those of other faculties that have been seen to impact on the research outcomes of staff. For example, some lecturers in this faculty have insufficient research qualifications and aptitude, and generally staff have low levels of research experience and a high teaching workload. In addition, the faculty has an ineffective support system because the faculty’s Research Centre was established only one year ago.