A Study on the Desirable Characters of Students Attending Rajabhat MahaSarakham University Demonstration School

Abstract

The purpose of this research was (1) to study the desirable characteristics  of secondary school students at the Demonstration School of Mahasarakham Rajabhat University, and (2) to compare the desirable characteristics of students at the Demonstration School of Mahasarakham Rajabhat University based on gender and grade level, specifically comparing lower secondary and upper secondary students. The sample group consisted of 131 students from grades 1 to 6 in the first semester of the 2024 academic year, selected through stratified random sampling The research instrument was a questionnaire designed to measure the desirable characteristics of students in 8 areas, using a 4-point Likert scale with 36 items. The item-objective congruence (IOC) index ranged from 0.60 to 1.00, the discrimination power ranged from 0.20 to 0.71, and the overall reliability of the instrument was 0.90. The data were analyzed using mean, standard deviation, and independent t-test statistics.

The findings were as follows (1) The overall desirable characteristics of  the students were rated at an excellent level (  = 2.54, S.D. = 0.42). When examined by area, the highest-rated characteristic was Area 5: Living sustainably ( = 2.62, S.D. = 0.50), followed by Area 3: Discipline ( = 2.60, S.D. = 0.59). The lowest-rated characteristic was Area 7: Love for Thai culture ( = 2.38, S.D. = 0.59) (2) The comparison of overall desirable characteristics between male and female students revealed a statistically significant difference at the 0.05 level, with female students showing higher desirable characteristics than male students. Additionally, the comparison between lower secondary and upper secondary students showed a statistically significant difference at the 0.05 level, with upper secondary students exhibiting higher desirable characteristics than lower secondary students