DEVELOPMENT OF BASIC KHAEN PLAYING SKILLS LEARNING ACTIVITIES FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN THE COLLEGE OF MUSIC, MAHASARAKHAM UNIVERSITY, BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF DAVIES

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Khaen is a traditional musical instrument from the Northeast of Thailand, made from a type of bamboo. It has a beautiful sound and a unique playing method that has been passed down from generation to generation. It is taught through wisdom. In the past, students had to travel to become disciples of teachers at home and had to put in effort to learn. At present, Khaen is a traditional musical instrument that is taught at many levels of education. At the tertiary level, it is taught as a major subject for music students, such as the Khaen major in folk music. In addition, there are schools in the Northeast that offer elective courses for interested students. In the past, Khaen was only taught by Thais, but now it is of interest to both Thais and internationals. The College of Music, Mahasarakham University, offers Khaen as a major subject at the undergraduate level and as a core subject for all students. At present, more international students are studying at the college and are interested in learning how to play the Thai Khaen. However, most of the Khaen playing documents are in Thai, so international students do not have documents in English to help them understand the principles of Khaen playing. If they cannot understand the basic principles of Khaen playing, they will not be able to develop their skills to higher levels of Khaen playing techniques. Therefore, it is necessary to create Khaen playing teaching documents so that international students can learn by themselves. Therefore, the researcher conducted a study to develop practical skills learning activities based on Davies’s concept of basic Khaen playing, including effective training sets according to the 80/80 criteria, and to study the practical skills of Khaen playing of international students who study by developing practical skills learning activities based on Davies’ concept of basic Khaen playing, which will enable international students to learn and practice Khaen playing skills by themselves, which will further develop their Khaen playing ability.

Methods: This research is an experimental research study. The researcher conducted an experiment according to the One Group Post-test Only Design research plan. The sample group used in this research was 10 international students studying in the ASEAN Music and Culture course, which was selected by purposive sampling. There were 2 types of data collection instruments: 1) Basic Khaen playing skill training set (for international students); 2) Khaen playing skill assessment form, which had systematic steps in making the instruments and had experts check them before using them for data collection. In collecting data, the researcher used the instrument for an 8-hour experimental teaching session, with the following contents: Week 1: Basic knowledge about the Isan Khaen; Week 2: Training in reading Thai musical notes; Week 3: Training in reading basic pattern notes; Week 4: Basic techniques for playing the Khaen; Weeks 5 and 6: Isan folk songs with the Mekong Toey pattern; and Weeks 7 and 8: Burmese Toey pattern. The experiment was conducted with a selected sample group. The data was then analyzed using various statistics to obtain answers according to the objectives.

Results: The analysis of the effectiveness of the practical skill learning activities based on Davies’ concept revealed that the process efficiency, as measured by students’ formative assessment scores, averaged 82.00%. The outcome efficiency, based on the post-learning practical skill assessment scores, averaged 83.00%. Therefore, the overall effectiveness of the learning activities was 82.00/83.00, which exceeds the standard criterion of 80/80. This indicates that the developed activities demonstrated a satisfactory level of effectiveness. Furthermore, the assessment of students’ practical Khaen-playing skills—after participating in the learning activities based on Davies’ concept combined with a structured training set—showed an average score of 84.80 with a standard deviation (SD) of 3.04, equivalent to 84.80%. This result, which falls within a “good” level, suggests that students were able to effectively develop their Khaen-playing skills through participation in the designed learning activities.

Conclusions: In this research, it was possible to develop practical skills learning activities based on Davies' concept of basic Khaen playing, including a training set, for international students, enabling international students to learn and understand basic Khaen playing more after practicing basic Khaen playing, including a training set, and to evaluate the learners' skills using the assessment form created for the said activity. This research provided a tool that helped international students learn to play Khaen by themselves and be able to practice basic Khaen playing more effectively.