Preparing Quality Teachers: Coherence and Connectedness

• In Event: Unpacking the Conception of Coherence in Teacher Education: International Perspectives

Abstract

Teacher quality is recognized as a lynchpin for education reforms in Malaysia and the rest of the world. The Ministry of Education, through their Malaysia Education Blueprint 2013-2025, have turned their attention to teacher preparation. Nevertheless, educators and educational stakeholders have lamented that new teachers have difficulty applying pedagogical theory learnt at university to actual classroom practice (Zachariah, 2013). The practicum is designed to provide teacher candidates and new teachers opportunities for integration of theory and practice. Yet teacher candidates in their field experiences report lacking the skills needed to work effectively with their students and feeling unprepared to help students learn. Beginning teachers too have voiced their dissatisfactions that teacher preparation involves too much emphasis on theory and highlights a concerning lack of practical interaction between theory and practice (Author, 2011). They are not able to move beyond superficial teaching towards using more sophisticated skills to promote high quality training in their actual classroom practices (Author, 2014). Education stakeholders have voiced fears that teacher preparation programs have become ‘patchwork quilts’ with traces of old and new stitched together at the expense of coherence and integrity between theory and practice (Zachariah, 2013).
As a response, ‘situated learning’ has been initiated into some university settings through the integration of school experiences and university learning. It is an experiential pedagogy requiring teacher candidates to apply course theory by working on projects in the school during their semester and a few days per week when semester commences. Although situated learning holds great promise for teacher education, it has generally been recognized that research into the need for situated learning is lacking. There is still a need to accurately measure the ‘theory-into-practice’ view of current teacher education. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to gain more insight into the relationship between teacher candidates’ conception of their ability to link theory into practice and various teaching outcomes.
The revised Malaysian language Coherence and Assignment Study in Teacher education (BM-CATE) was used to measure how 466 teacher candidates (age M= 23.7; SD=0.85) enacted practice, used theory learned, and experienced coherence in their teacher education program. Teaching outcomes through pre-service teachers’ teaching efficacy and academic performance were measured using the Malaysian language Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale (BM-TSES) and their Grade Point Average (GPA) scores. Correlational analyses were used for our initial findings.
Initial findings suggest that teacher candidates, who conceived that they are able to enact practice, used theory learned, and experienced coherence in their teacher education program, have shown positive association with teaching efficacy and academic performance. They also show a positive association with academic achievement and teaching efficacy: teacher candidates who perceived coherence and connectedness in their teaching preparation program had better academic achievement and also a stronger sense of teaching efficacy. Given that teachers with high efficacy demonstrate greater resilience when confronted with the complexities of teaching and are better placed to resolve teaching difficulties with appropriate problem-solving skills, this finding is encouraging (Gordon & Debus, 2002).

Authors

• Pauline Swee Choo Goh, Sultan Idris Education University, Malaysia

• Qismullah Yusuf, Sultan Idris University of Education

• Amir-Hasan Dawi, Sultan Idris University of Education

• Kung Teck Wong, Sultan Idris University of Education