CHALLENGES OF MULTIGRADE SCIENCE TEACHING IN SMALL PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN THAILAND

Abstract

In small schools, challenges of multigrade science teaching arise due to lack of sufficient and qualified teachers, which results from an inadequate budget allocated to these schools. This research delved into the challenges faced by 52 multigrade science teachers in Nakhon Nayok province through a survey. These challenges were divided into four main categories: teachers’ behaviors, teachers’ attitudes, student context, and positive and negative support system. The survey revealed that the top five challenges encountered by teachers fell under the categories of ‘negative support system’ and ‘teachers’ attitudes.’ These challenges were: 1) Additional roles besides teaching, often consume teachers’ allocated time for teaching science in multigrade classrooms (57.69%), 2) Teachers feel anxious when teaching science in a multigrade classroom (51.92%), 3) Teachers are assigned to teach subjects that do not align with their major expertise (46.15%), 4) Teachers have not received skill training or workshops on multigrade science teaching (46.15%), and 5) Students in multigrade classrooms tend to be less attentive when learning with peers from different grade levels (46.15%). However, the teachers ranked ‘designing activity’ within the ‘teachers’ behaviors’ category, as the most critical issue impacting their science teaching. It can be inferred that this occurred due to a lack of a support system for teachers, since the top five challenges that the teachers assigned as ‘serious’ were all in the ‘support system’ category. Additionally, the research documented what teaching techniques teachers employed in dealing with students of different grade levels. The purpose is to ascertain the existence of the challenges of multigrade science teaching in small primary schools in Thailand and identify specific challenges that require immediate change to reduce educational inequality.