This research had/objectives: 1) to explore the status and needs of communities to build up their strength; 2) to develop a model to build up community strength through community participation with educational institution; and 3) to evaluate the quality of the model. The target areas were 3 communities, one in each province of Angthong, Singburi, and Lopburi in Central Thailand. The sample included 30 community leaders, 10 from each community; 180 community members, 60 from each community; and 85 responsible persons of academic services in higher education institutions under the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. The research tools took on a structured interview form and a 5-point rating scale dual-response questionnaire on the current status and needs. The statistical analysis involved percentage, mean, standard deviation, and content analysis. The need assessment used Modified Priority Needs Index (PNI Modified). The research results are as follows.
1. The need assessment suggested the overall PNI Modified of 0.13, with the “Community members mobilize and maximize the effective use of community resources.” ranked first (0.15), followed by the “Community members shared common goals of implementation.” (0.14). The Institute of Physical Education reported the overall PNI Modified of 0.19, with the “Identifying the target community with ongoing services for at least 3 years.” (0.24), ranked first, followed by “Engaging community in service evaluation.” (0.24), and “Conducting the community’s need survey or involving community in defining the service need” (0.22), respectively.
2. The model to build up community strength through community participation with educational institution contained 4
interrelated elements, namely: 1) input 2) process, 3) output, and 4) feedback and utilization of evaluation result. The model demonstrated the overall quality by the 4 standards at a highest level (M=4.54, SD = .47), suggesting that the model being developed provided the propriety, feasibility, utility, and accuracy for implementing the mission on academic services of higher education institution.
