U. K. M. SALLEH, I. G. N. DARMAWAN
Copyright © 2013 SciRes.
conduct of their students through their History teaching.
In terms of preferred classroom climate, there was a signifi-
cant difference between students of in-field teachers and those
of out-of-field teachers on four out of the five dimensions. This
means that students under in-field teachers preferred class-
rooms where they experience investigation, personalization,
participation, and differentiation. On the fifth dimension of in-
dependence there was no difference between the two groups of
students, suggesting that the authority of the teacher in the
classroom was recognized, whether they were fully qualified or
not.
In the actual students’ classroom climate (CCA), out of five
dimensions used for this factor, only personalisation showed
any significant d ifference between stude nts under the two g roups
of teachers, with students of in-field teachers experiencing
greater personalisation. This result can be explained by the
greater experience of in-field t eachers in the Malay sian c ontext.
In particular, they are more likely to have been teaching longer
in the same school and even to have taught the same class for
two or more years. They thus have had a greater opportunity to
gain personal understanding of the students they are teaching. It
is possible, that out-of-field teachers who were younger and
less experienced, would be able to develop a more personalised
dimension to their classrooms, as they gain more familiarity
with the History syllabus and get to know the students in their
classes better. An out-of-field teacher whose efforts are con-
centrated on subject content which is new to them, has less time
to focus on understanding students’ needs and interests. The
chance for professional development in the teaching of History
may help them to become more familiars with the content and
assessment, so that they are able to direct more of their atten-
tion to the individual students in their class.
There were four variables which showed no significant dif-
ference on the t-test results in this study, namely; teachers’
teaching approach, teaching method, students’ approaches to
learning, and learning outcomes. This is an important finding
itself in that it indicates not only that in-field and out-of-field
teachers were using much the same teaching approaches and
methods, but also that the students under each group of teachers
were adopting similar approaches to learning and perceived
much the same learning outcomes in their history classroom.
These results can be seen to be consistent with expectations that
teachers in Malaysia are expected to follow the set of objectives
and lesson plans laid out in the history syllabus. In addition,
out-of-field teachers are after all fully trained in another area of
specialization and can be expected to adapt their knowledge
and teaching skills to the teaching of History.
Conclusion
To conclude, comparison between out-of-field and in-field
on students’ and teachers’ characteristic and perceptions are
also discussed in this chapter. The results show that the in-field
teachers had more experience in teaching History compared to
the out-of-field teachers. In term of teaching conception, the
ConDance (conduct guidance) dimension was found to differ
significantly, but not other dimensions. This indicates that the
in-field teacher had a higher level of presenting a good role mo-
del of conducting to the students compared to the out-of-field
teacher. In addition, the results reported that students under
in-field teachers preferred to have classrooms with higher level
of investigation (INV), personalization (PERSO), participation
(PARTI) and differentiation (DIFFER) activities. Meanwhile,
in the actual classroom the personalization (SPer) dimension
was found to differ significantly, indicating that students under
in-field teachers employ the personalisation activities at higher
level in the actual classroom climate compared to the out-of-
field History teachers.
In general, the findings have developed our knowledge on
the issue of out-of-field teaching in the learning process, in par-
ticular in History teaching. Much literature had focused on the
macro impact of out-of-field teachers on teaching at the school
or state level. What remained unclear was how teachers with
out-of-field qualifications actually taught in the classroom, and
whether there were any differences in students’ learning be-
tween classes taught by out-of-field and in-field History teach-
ers. This study has improved our understanding by pinpointing
the importance of teachers’ experience, conduct guidance as a
conception of History teaching, personalization in the class-
room climate and students’ History learning outcomes, as de-
fined by the syllabus objectives. In relation to all the above va-
riables, there were differences between in-field and out-of-field
teachers.
The phenomenon of out-of-field teaching is still prevalent in
education and has stimulated many researchers to investigate
this issue. However, this is the first study in the field conducted
in Malaysia. Although there are differences between schools in
the various states and rural regions which may affect the appli-
cation of these Kuala Lumpur findings to other parts of Malay-
sia, some useful implications can be drawn for the teaching of
History generally at secondary level in Malaysia. In addition,
the findings can be used as a basis for future research.
Furthermore, this study has provided empirically based ana-
lytical procedures for testing and extending existing frame-
works and models of the relationships between the many va-
riables which can impact on and interact with classroom learn-
ing and teaching in general. Overall, these findings provide a
better understanding of the relationships between out-of-field
qualifications and other teacher and student factors in the pro-
cess of learning in History in the Malaysian classroom.
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