CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT ENHANCING COMMUNITY LEADER’S RESEARCH COMPETENCIES THROUGH BLENDED LEARNING: THE CONVERGENCE OF ONLINE AND FACE-TO-FACE LEARNING BY USING THE COMMUNITY-BASED

Abstract

The objectives of this research article were to 1) develop community research’s competency indicators for community leaders 2) develop a curriculum enhancing community research’s competency for community leaders 3) evaluate the effectiveness of a curriculum enhancing community research’s competency for community leaders. Curriculum development using the community-based integrate with blended learning. Research methodology was used in this study which comprised group discussion and expert evaluation. The participants in this study were divided into four groups including knowledgeable and experienced experts in community or local research, community leaders, experts in research, curriculum development and community research, administrators of community colleges by using purposive sampling. The data was analyzed using content analysis, means and standard deviation. The findings revealed that community research competencies for community leaders consisted of 1) knowledge about community research 2) community research skills 3) attitudes towards community research and 4) community researcher qualifications. This curriculum consisted of four learning units referring to community engagement building and community learning process, research problem refinement and research design, community research practice and data management, analysis, learned lesson recording, lesson summaries, and research report writing. According to the results of the curriculum evaluation, it was consistent between the learning units. Training topics and behavioral objectives (IOC = 0.75 - 1.00) and were appropriate at the very highest level ( = 4.00 - 5.00). The overall effectiveness was at the highest level in terms of suitability, consistency and accuracy, benefit and responsibility ( = 4.56 - 4.78) and the possibility was at the high level ( = 4.11).