Evaluating a Prototype Curriculum for Specialty Green Coffee Production among Disadvantaged Farmers in Thailand
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Abstract
Background/ problem: Disadvantaged coffee farmers in Northern Thailand face challenges in meeting specialty green coffee quality requirements, particularly in post-harvest processing and quality management. Evidence concerning their production problems, competency needs, learning preferences, and contextual conditions is needed to inform curriculum development.
Objective/ purpose: This study assessed farmers’ production and learning needs, explored stakeholder perspectives on contextual conditions and curriculum development, and integrated quantitative and qualitative findings to derive evidence-based curriculum design requirements.
Design and Methodology: A convergent mixed methods design was employed within the analysis and exploration phase of educational design research (EDR). Quantitative data were collected from involved 15 disadvantaged coffee farmers using a 32-item needs assessment questionnaire, while qualitative data involved 20 stakeholders. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were conducted, and findings were subsequently integrated.
Results: Farmers reported very high production-related challenges (M = 4.41, SD = 0.67), high contextual readiness (M = 3.91, SD = 0.86), very high competency development needs (M = 4.70, SD = 0.76), and very high preferences for practice-oriented learning (M = 4.74, SD = 0.87). Qualitative findings identified technical knowledge gaps, motivation for quality improvement, experiential learning preferences, and context-responsive learning needs.
Conclusion and Implications: Four curriculum requirements emerged: competency-aligned content, experiential learning, expert-guided collaboration, and context-responsive community-based learning. From a behavioral science perspective, the findings emphasize how experiential, social, and contextual processes shape adult occupational learning through practice, interaction, problem solving, and locally relevant tasks. These findings provide an empirical basis for the subsequent curriculum design and construction phase of EDR.
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