One of the most important events in education in Thailand is educational reform. According to the second National Education Act of 2002, the processes of teaching and learning have been changed. Schools must now provide all students with training in the thinking process. Teachers should organize activities for students that draw on authentic experience and enable them to think critically and acquire the habit of reading (OEC, 2004b). To accomplish this goal, it is necessary for teachers to know when and how to enhance their students' thinking skills in various and productive ways.
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the instructional practices of Thai reading teachers in terms of whether teachers asked higher-level questions in their practices and on tests. In addition, the study examined the strategies that teachers used to motivate students' thinking skills. Teachers' questions were classified into four levels based on Barrett's Taxonomy of Reading Comprehension: literal recognition or recall, inference, evaluation, and appreciation. The participants of this study were three elementary reading teachers from a selected Laboratory School in Bangkok, Thailand. The data were collected through in-depth interviews, classroom observations, field notes, question profile checklists, relevant documents, photographs, and audio taped recordings.
Results indicated that the majority of questions asked by all three teacher-participants were at a level of literal recognition or recall, which was 53.3 percent; questions asked at the inferential level was 31.4 percent; questions at the evaluation level was 10.5 percent; and questions at the level of appreciation was 4.8 percent, respectively. Of the three participants, Amy engaged her students in higher-level questioning most frequently, followed by Nancy and Pam. The results also revealed that Amy and Nancy asked all types of questions and engaged their students in thinking skills by using a variety of strategies, including asking questions, using graphic organizers, providing group work, and discussing the text. However, Pam used questioning, teacher-led discussion, and whole group instruction in her practice. Factors that had a negative influence on teachers' implementation of thinking instruction were time constraints, teachers' work load, class size, reading materials, and elements of Thai culture.
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