Abstract:
The aims of this research were to (1) study the states and problems of participative management of small schools under Office of the Basic Education Commission. (2) study the elements affecting participative management of small schools under Office of the Basic Education Commission. (3) propose participative management system of small schools under Office of the Basic Education Commission. It was processed by using Mixed Method which include quantitative and qualitative research and consisted of 5 steps: (1) investigation and creation of conceptual framework from documentation and related research, (2) analysis of the systems which field study and interview administrators of 5 best practice schools by purposive sampling, (3) designing the systems which the process of content analysis of the field study and drafted No.1, (4) development of the systems which investigated by qualitative approach using focus group discussion from 10 expert persons by purposive sampling and operated content synthetic and drafted No.2 and quantitative approach which the procedure of appropriate for review and feasibility of drafted No.2 by using questionnaires from 200 small school administrators, derived from multi-stage random sampling. The IOC of questionnaires were 0.80 - 1.00 and the reliability were .99 and (5) improvement and development to be the complete systems. The data were analyzed by using Confirmatory Analysis (CFA) the consistency of the theoretical model with empirical data.The research results were as follow: 1)The states and problems of participative management of small schools under Office of the Basic Education Commission were central authorities designed the policies on the budget and personnel, operating units had no participation on decision making and no participation in operating and solving problems between higher agencies and operating units or Local Administrative Organization. Personal problems were lack of participation, lack of time, level of education and social status differences. 2)The elements that contributed to the participative management system of small schools under office of the Basic Education Commission consists of 5 elements: (1) Input factors: goal, knowledge and technology, psychology and culture. (2) Process of a participative management factors: Planning, Operation, Evaluation and Sharing of benefits. (3) Output factors: achievement, education and complacency. (4) Feedback factors and (5) Environment factors: internal environment and external environment. 3)The participative management system of small school under office of the Basic Education Commission consists of 5 main elements: (1) Input factors (2) Process of a participative management factors (3) Output factors (4) Feedback factors and (5) Environment factors. The results of the qualitative procedure which appropriate and possible were good level and the result of Confirmatory Analysis of the participative management systems of small schools under Office of the Basic Education Commission were appropriate and possible. The model was consistent with empirical data at a good level (c2 = 136.770, df =115, p = .072, CMIN/df = 1.190, CFI = .971, TLI = .966, RMSEA = .036, SRMR = .027). Feedback factors are the most important of the participative management system (R2= .934). The environment factors were secondly important (R2 = .921) and the least important was Input factors (R2 = .799). For the possible system, the model was consistent with empirical data in fairy a good level (c2 = 129.840, df =106, p= .058, CMIN/df = 1.220, CFI = .992, TLI = .989, RMSEA = .034, SRMR= .029). The procedure factors of participative management were the most important (R2 = .996) and the Input factors were secondly important (R2 = .977) and the environment factors were the least important (R2 = .662).