The Internationalisation of higher Education in Thailand
Case Studies of Two English-Medium Business Graduate Programs
Ms. Supaporn Chalapati Ph. D. in International Education
RMIT University Melbourne, Australia
Her thesis investigates the challenges of internationalisation in Thailand’s higher education system. She examines internationalisation of Thai higher education as an aspect of globalisation and ‘global’ practice observable in the policies, statements, actions and intentions expressed by political leaders, government officials, university administrators, teachers and students. The purpose of her study is to examine the role of English-medium business graduate programs in the internationalisation of Thailand’s higher education. Being an international postgraduate student in Australia and observing the development of international education in Thailand has helped her understand the phenomenon from the perspective of a non-English speaking student. Her attitude towards English is that of a ‘means’ to access international education and to work in international business.
Reviews related literatures in regards to the dynamic relationship between the process of internationalisation of higher education and economic globalisation. Leading Western and Thai scholars viewed globalisation and Thailand in relation to global economic development from different perspectives. She gathered together the diverse strands of reasoning and research relevant to the internationalisation of education in Thailand, from international management to cross-cultural teaching and learning and the importance of English as the global ‘lingua franca’.
She gave a particular attention to government policy on internationalisation of higher education and its implementation, autonomous universities, social and cultural values and practices as evidence in higher educational settings in the nature of English-medium instruction, international teaching and learning. Her research design became structured into what Burns (1997) described as ‘a funnel’ in which questioning proceeds from the general to specific and where ideas were initially cast in very broad terms and then narrowed as more research data was collected.
“Educational research traditionally followed the empirical "objective scientific model" (Burns, 1997, p.3) which utilised quantitative methods of data collection, analysis and reporting modes. In the 1960s there was a move towards a more constructivist approach which allowed for methods which were "qualitative, naturalistic and subjective" (p.3) in nature. It would appear that at the time there was considerable debate regarding the introduction of this form of data collection. This philosophical debate "left educational research divided between two competing methods: the scientific empirical tradition, and the naturalistic phenomenological mode" (Burns, 1997, p.3).”
A combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques were selected, but with emphasis on the qualitative approach. Quantitative data was collected from surveys but only as a supplement to data collected from interviews, focus group, literature research and observation. Qualitative data are likely to take the form of the language of images, feelings and impressions; as respondents describe the qualities of the events under study. Research questions of this study required mainly qualitative-type data, but some quantitative data were also collected using questionnaires to help her clarify their meanings logically. She also added that a case study was one of helpful qualitative research strategies to improve educational policy and practice in the field of international education in developing countries according to Crossley and Vulliamy(1984) cited in Crossley and Watson (2003). The two institutions participated as case studies in this research study were referred to as ‘Institution A’ and ‘Institution B’. Institution A is a private institution and B is a self-funding independent college within a public university. The method of data collection and analysis included questionnaires, interviews, non-participant observation and analysis. There were four phases of the research project; the first three were conducted in Melbourne, Australia and the fourth phase was conducted in Bangkok, Thailand.
