A DEVELOPMENT OF VILLAGE HEALTH VOLUNTEERS’ COMMUNICATION ABILITY AT MUEN VAI TAMBON ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION, MUEANG DISTRICT, NAKHON RATCHASIMA PROVINCE

Abstract

    This research had three aims: 1) To study the communication ability of Village Health Volunteers (VHV); 2) To develop a communication ability training curriculum for this group; and 3) To evaluate training effectiveness for communication ability in this group.This research consisted of 3 stages.Stage 1 analyzed the communication ability of VHV.The convenience sample group consisted of 100 VHV.The research instrument was a questionnaire collecting respondents’demographic data and communication ability whose components were communication process knowledges, communication skills, self-awareness and communication motivation. The level of confidence was high at 0.98. Descriptive statistics were used, including frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Stage 2 was a communication ability training curriculum development and 5 experts’assessment on the appropriateness and feasibility of this curriculum, while Stage 3 was the training arrangement and evaluation of the VHV’s communication ability from the achievement test, training satisfaction and learning outcomes from the training. The results of the research revealed that: 1) Communication ability of VHV was generally at a high level. Considering individual communication components, the highest means were in communication motivation, followed by self-awareness, communication skills and communication process knowledge respectively; 2) Communication ability training curriculum for VHV results from experts’ assessment on appropriateness and feasibility produced the highest means in all training topics; and 3) The post-test means of VHV were high at 8.69 from a possible total of 10. Training satisfaction means were generally at a high level. Finally, the learning outcomes were generally at a high level.