Malaysian geography teachers’ knowledge about environmental concepts

AbstractThis paper is based on a study focused on the geography teachers’ knowledge of environmental concepts. Geography is considered as an ideal discipline to study the environment, as it involves the study of human-environment interaction. The study was conducted in two phases using sequential explanatory mixed-method design. In Phase I (quantitative), a set of the questionnaire was developed and administered to 365 teachers in the state of Kedah, a region north of peninsular Malaysia. Rasch Measurement Model was used to assess internal validity of the items, unidimensionality of each construct, and item arrangement in each scale in the questionnaire. In Phase II (qualitative), interview protocols were developed based on the outcome sequence of items in Phase I. Nine teachers were interviewed and have their teaching sessions video-recorded. The quantitative findings indicated that teachers’ knowledge of concepts of the environment was generally high. However, there were concepts that they highly understood as well as concepts that were less understood. The qualitative results from interview and video-recorded teaching sessions confirmed the results based on the questionnaire, and provide explanations by teachers on their level of knowledge. This study suggests that concerted efforts be made to provide adequate knowledge of environmental education through pre-service and in-service training for geography teachers

Kelemahan Lazim Dalam Persembahan Kerangka Teoretis-Konsepsi Dalam Tesis Sarjana Dan Kedoktoran

Kajian ilmiah adalah berpandukan teori. Oleh yang demikian, sebuah kajian perlu disokong dengan kerangka teori yang daripadanya kerangka konsep bagi kajian tersebut diterbitkan. Namun begitu, menerusi pemeriksaan terhadap cadangan-cadangan kajian oleh pelajar-pelajar sarjana, penulis artikel ini mendapati bahawa kerap kali modelmodel teoretikal yang dipersembahkan tidak bersepadu sepenuhnya dengan kerangka teori bagi menjelaskan fenomena yang dikaji, dari segi saling kaitan antara pemboleh ubah yang terlibat. Dalam penulisan ini, penulis membincangkan empat kelemahan yang sering ditemui dalam cadangan kajian dalam kalangan pelajar sarjana: (1) memahami peranan dan fungsi teori; (2) menghasilkan pautan antara kerangka teori dengan kerangka konsep; (3) menimbulkan perkaitan logikal antara soalan-soalan kajian dengan kerangka teoretikal-konsepsual dan (4) menjelaskan hubung kait antara kerangka teoretikalkonsepsual dengan prosedur kaedah kajian. Penulis merumuskan bahawa kerangka teoretikal-konsepsual yang baik akan membolehkan pengkaji mempersembahkan dapatan kajiannya dengan yakin dan menjelaskan dengan ringkas dan padat jawapan kepada soalan kenapa, apa dan bagaimana tentang kajian yang dijalankan

Primary School Mathematics And Science Teachers' Stages Of Concern About The Implementation Of Lesson Study

In this study, the Japanese model of Lesson Study was introduced as a teacher professional development programme to nine low-performing primary schools in Malaysia. The objectives of this study were to examine to what extent Lesson Study can improve low-performing primary mathematics and science teachers' stages of concern about the implementation of Lesson Study in their schools and their teaching quality as well as student learning performance. The sample consisted of 97 primary mathematics and science teachers from three types of primary schools: the National School (SK); the National Type Chinese School (SJKC) and the National Type Tamil School (SJKT). Before the implementation of Lesson Study, a workshop was conducted in every school to introduce participating teachers to the concepts of Lesson Study and the research procedure. After the workshop, the participating teachers were asked to complete the Stages of Concern Questionnaire (SoCQ) in order to identify their initial stages of concern about the implementation of Lesson Study in their schools. The SoCQ was developed based on the Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM). It consists of 35 items, categorising teachers' concerns into seven stages: Stage 0 (Awareness); Stage 1 (Informational); Stage 2 (Personal); Stage 3 (Management); Stage 4 (Consequence); Stage 5 (Collaboration) and Stage 6 (Refocusing) (George, Hall & Stiegelbauer, Measuring implementation in schools: The stages of concern questionnaire (2006)). The same SoCQ was also given to the participating teachers after every Lesson Study cycle to determine whether their stages of concern changed before and after the implementation of Lesson Study cycles. In this paper, only the data collected from the first SoCQ given were analysed. The results showed that the profiles of the SK, SJKC and SJKT teachers' initial stages of concern about the implementation of Lesson Study in their schools were quite similar. The SK, SJKC and SJKT teachers' concerns were the highest in Stage 0 and the lowest in Stage 4, indicating that these teachers had a high level of concern about a number of other initiatives, tasks, and activities besides Lesson Study and they had quite a low level of concern about the consequences of implementing Lesson Study for their students, respectivel

Pengaruh jenis latihan guru dan pengalaman mengajar terhadap efikasi guru sekolah menengah

This research was aimed to determine the influence of teacher qualification factors, namely type of teacher training and teaching experience on secondary school teachers’ efficacy in Sabah. Data were collected using the Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale which involved 928 teachers from 22 secondary school in four districts. ANOVA analysis found significant mean difference in all dimensions of teacher efficacy according to type of teacher training and teaching experience. Finding also showed that teachers with Diploma in Malaysian Education obtained the highest level of efficacy, compared to teachers from the other programs. Teachers with teaching more than seven years of teaching experience were statistically different in efficacy than those with less teaching experience. The research suggested that well-trained graduate teachers should be given more opportunity to teach in positive teaching environment to enable them to develop positive teacher efficacy