Teachers’ Self-efficacy to Implement Competency Based Curriculum in Sri Lanka and China: A Comparative Study

• In Event: Teachers, Competencies and Development

Proposal

Competency-based Curriculum (CBC) has become a main driving force of education reform in the world today. It cannot be denied that teachers' self-efficacy in curriculum implementation determines the success or failure of education reform. Therefore, analysing teachers’ self-efficacy will reveal strengths and weaknesses of CBC implementation in schools in Colombo and Shanghai. This comparative analysis, therefore, aims to investigate teachers' self-efficacy in implementing CBC and the factors that may enhance or inhibit on the teaching and learning process by analysing data from primary and secondary schools in Colombo, Sri Lanka and Shanghai, China.
This is one of the first studies to compare Sri Lanka and China in their approaches to CBC implementation. Sri Lanka adopted CBC in 2007 and thus can serve as an example for its successes and failures. Shanghai has been a top performer in education and thus can serve as a good example for CBC implementation. The two countries can learn from each other with regard to implementing CBC reforms. Therefore, investigating teachers’ self-efficacy about CBC and its impact on the process of teaching and learning in Sri Lanka and China will carry significant implications to the two education systems.
The two countries, Sri Lanka and China were selected given the following reasons. Both countries adopt Competency-based Education (CBE) at senior secondary level. Both had knowledge oriented, teacher centred education before the implementation of CBE. The two countries have shared social and cultural values. For instance, they lay emphasis on the communal experience over individual experience. In terms of education, the two countries share common values such as respecting teachers and elders. The countries are also connected by Buddhism as one of the main religious institutions. China and Sri Lanka also have a history of shared trading. For many centuries, Sri Lanka had been an important trade point of the historical Silk Road connecting Europe and China. The two countries have successfully initiated trade agreements ever since 1952 when they signed the Rubber/Rice Pact which is considered one of the most successful and durable South-South trade agreements in the world. These shared social, cultural, political and economic values make a comparison between the two countries viable.
When analysing literature, several common elements were often recognised as those affecting teachers and schools when adopting innovative approaches to teaching and learning: Professional development, school leadership and school culture. Scholars argue that professional development opportunities (PDO) influence whether or not teachers feel comfortable with new curricular implementations. Existing studies agree on the idea that school leadership (SL) and school culture (SC) that are promising incentives for teachers to innovation.
The authors hypothesize pedagogical practices that reflect teachers’ self-efficacy to implement CBC include: Learner-centeredness (LC), Outcome-orientedness (OO), Differentiated Practice (DP), and Formative Assessment (FA). We further hypothesize that the factors significantly affect teachers’ self-efficacy may include PDO, SL and SC. A theoretical framework for examining how PDO, SL and SC would be affecting teachers’ self-efficacy in implementing CBC is proposed in this study.
The current research is a comparative mixed method to examine teachers' self-efficacy in implementing CBC in both Sri Lanka and China. It uses a sequential mixed approach to data collection. The study identified seven subscales that will be measured by survey methods: Learner-centeredness (LC), Outcome-orientedness (OO), Differentiated Practice (DP), Formative Assessment (FA), Professional Development Opportunities (PDO), School Leadership (SL) and School Culture (SC). Self-efficacy of teachers is measured in terms of the subscales of LC, OO, DP, and FA. About 101 teachers from Columbo and 236 teachers from Shanghai took parts in the survey. Afterwards, interviews were conducted to collect data to triangulate the findings from the survey. The interview sample amounted to 12 teachers (N=12), six from each country, and was chosen from the respondents of the survey who expressed their willingness to be interviewed for further discussion on the topic. However, from the survey data, school leadership (SL) was not successful identified in factor analysis, so the theoretical framework is modified in terms of the inter-relationships among the six subscales remained.
The study found that Professional Development Opportunities (PDO) and School Culture (SC) have significant effects on teachers' self-efficacy in implementing CBC-related pedagogical practices in both cities. However, Shanghai teachers were found to have higher levels of self-efficacy in implementing CBC-related pedagogical practices than teachers in Colombo. The study also discovered that PDO could improve teachers’ self-efficacy to implement CBC in both Shanghai and Colombo. The study also investigated how teachers perceive the relation between school culture and self-efficacy in the implementation of CBC in Sri Lanka and China. According to the results in regression analysis, it was found that School Culture has a significant positive effect on self-efficacy to implement CBC in both Shanghai and Colombo.
The results of the Independent Sample T-test revealed that Shanghai teachers have a higher degree of self-efficacy to implement two CBC related pedagogical practices: Learner-centeredness and Differentiated Practice. They also perceived that the current conditions of PDO and SC help them implement CBC. Teachers in Colombo seem to perceive that they need further support in PDO and SC to uplift their self-efficacy in pedagogical practices related to CBC.
In sum, this study investigated school teachers’ self-efficacy to implement CBC in Shanghai and Colombo. The study found that PDO and SC had significant positive effects on the four pedagogical practices–LC, OO, DF and FA. It also found that teachers in Shanghai have experienced higher level of self-efficacy to implement CBC than their counterparts in Colombo. This article concludes with the important findings, implications and limitations of the study.

Authors

• Nicholas Sun-Keung PANG, East China Normal University

• Dilshani Kariyawasam, East China Normal University