Development of trainer competency model: a case study at Thailand's Department of Skill Development

In this research, the needs for trainer competency development at Thailand's Department of Skill Development (DSD) were determined based on a person-oriented approach. It was found that there were high needs for the development of trainer competencies in terms of knowledge, skills and attributes because the trainer competency levels were just average. To improve the DSD trainer competencies, a new competency model for DSD trainers was designed and evaluated using a task-oriented approach. The resulting trainer competency model contained seven main units of competency including investigation and diagnosis of problems and needs, training course design, training procedure design, training techniques, training measurement and evaluation, career expertise and productivity improvement. Moreover, the specific competencies for training in workplaces were found to include diagnosis of problems and brainstorm/seminar techniques in workplaces. The model evaluation results indicated that the model was effective for the improvement of DSD trainers' skills in five industrial workplaces and could be applicable to other kinds of industrial workplaces.