Development of Ability in Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Volunteers in Phatthalung Province

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to (1) study the necessary abilitydevelopment of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Volunteer Network (NEV-Net) in Phatthalung Province;(2) design a curriculum for ability development of NEV-Net; and (3) study the efficiency of the curriculum. This research used the mixed methods design.The steps for conducting research were as follows; (1) interviewing nine natural resources and environmental protection committees in Phatthalung Province in order to study the guidelines of NEV-Net necessaryability development; (2) designing a curriculum from the interviewing results; (3) studying the curriculum efficiency using pre-test and post-test of 66 Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Volunteers in Phatthalung Province, who were new members in 2018. The samples were divided into two groups, experimental group(33 volunteers) and control group (33 volunteers) using a purposivesampling. The statistics used for data analysis were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and t-test.

The research results showed that the guidelines of NEV-Net necessary ability development were the knowledge and skills about the roles or responsibilities, the current environmental situation in Phatthalung Province, organic waste utilization and building water banks. From this information, it was used to design a course which was divided into 4 activities:  (1) roles of NEV-Net; (2) the current environmental situation in Phatthalung Province; (3) organic waste utilization and; (4) buiding water banks. The curriculum created was examined for pattern, contents, and comprehensiveness from experts. Then the curriculum was used to train 33 volunteers. It was found that the volunteers who attended the training had higher knowledge scores than before entering the training, statistically significant difference at a level of 0.05. The overall satisfaction of the volunteers involved in this study was in high level.