Author : Chalerm Fakon

Summary : The study sought to determine the effect of school, teacher, and student factors on basic agricultural knowledge and skills development of students at the lower secondary education in Thailand. Four hundred lower secondary school students, 25 teachers, and 10 administrators from 10 secondary schools were randomly selected throughout Educational Region 8 using the stratified random sampling with replacement and systematic random sampling technique. Data on the characteristics of schools, teachers, and students were obtained through questionnaires. The students' knowledge and skills were determined through on agricultural knowledge and skills tests. Percentage, range, mean, frequency, Pearson product-moment correlation, and forward stepwise regression were used to analyzed the data. Results showed that school factors such as class size, teaching aids, and school farm or project had significant effects on the development of students' basic agricultural knowledge development, while school population, class size, library facility, and teaching aids had significant effects on the development of students' basic agricultural skills. Teacher factors such as sex, educational attainment, frequency of training and seminars attended, teaching method, and leadership style had significant effects on the students' basic agricultural knowledge development, while teachers' age, educational attainment, teaching experience, frequency of training and seminars attended, teaching load for both agricultural and non-agricultural courses, time allotment for teaching agricultural courses, teaching method, salary, and incentives and fringe benefits also significantly effected the development of students' basic agricultural skills. Of the student factors, student's time spent in practicing religious rites, academic achievement, number of agricultural courses taken, and parent's occupation also significantly affected the student's basic agricultural knowledge development, while student's time spent in practicing agriculture.