281both in the form of commissioned and academic research. The reason being is that
most of the leading HEIs that are offering degrees in Education are all opening
courses and programmes in this particular area. As mentioned in section “Current
status of programmes offered in the area of education and higher education”,
research topics in this area usually include Classroom Teaching and Learning
Evaluation, Teaching and Learning Resource Management, Web-based Teaching
and Learning Instructions, Information Technology and Teaching, Ethics in
Teaching and Learning and Teaching Strategies in various disciplines that cover a
range of Languages, Arts, Sciences and Social Sciences (Anantasate 2001 ;
Laohacharassang 2002 ; Osathanugrah 2006 ; Phuwiphadawat 2006 ). Recently, apart
from research on Classroom Teaching and Learning Evaluation, which is the main-
stream of Higher Education research in Thailand, research and studies on Curricular
Development and the Qualification Framework has also been on the rise due to the
shifting policy of the OHEC in tightening quality assurance measures in HEIs
(Sinlarat 2009 , 2011 ).
Trends and strategies in teaching and learning are also another area of research
interest among students and scholars, especially when these topics are related to
Teaching and Learning for different cohorts of students in HEIs. This kind of
research reflects the emphasis of Higher Education research in Thailand on the
development of techniques of teaching and learning and in founding an environ-
ment that is conducive to effective learning among students as a result of the quality
assurance measures and Thailand’s qualification framework.
Publication in Higher Education Research
In order to examine the journals in the area of higher education research, the database
available in the Thailand Citation Index (TCI) was thoroughly checked in terms of
scopes and titles of the journals relating to education. When examining a vast array of
publications referenced in the TCI database, journals being published by HEIs and
other research institutes in the area of Education is presently enormous (TCI 2015 ).
However, journals focusing only on Higher Education are probably nowhere to be
found. The features of journals in the area of Education can be summed up as follows.
Firstly, most of the journals in Education are published by HEIs where there is a
Faculty of Education present. Examples of such universities are Khon Kaen University,
Silpakorn University, Chulalongkorn University and Chiang Mai University. Some of
the journals are limited to subareas, such as Research Methodology, Education and
Communication Technology and Teaching and Learning. These subareas are seen in
the Journal of Research Methodology (Chulalongkorn University), the Education and
Communication Technology Journal (Sukhothai Thammathirat University) and
Journal of Rangsit University: Teaching and Learning (Rangsit University), respec-
tively. Other journals have set their objectives and named their titles in a broader
scope and style to offer more room for publication.
15 Higher Education Research in Thailand: Current Trends and Development