The recent massive education disruptions post the pandemic have led to a significant shift on postgraduate education endeavours. Obtaining a postgraduate qualification as a form of professional development is not new. However today, it is seen in a different light. As such, this qualitative study was designed to provide a fuller narrative of 11 teachers’ views of postgraduate education as a form of their professional development post-pandemic. Findings suggest that teachers’ reasons for undertaking postgraduate education was very much tied to their self-gains rather than becoming research and empirical-driven professionals. Such a finding seemed contradictory to the theories of teacher professional development that emphasize the outcomes of effective professional development on teacher effectiveness. The findings also imply a notable shift in teachers’ preferred mode of learning post-pandemic, with online study emerging the most preferred option. The implications drawn from this research accentuate the necessity for policymakers and educational leaders to implement a more nuanced and flexible approach to teacher professional development.
Purpose: The study’s first objective was to investigate whether the utilization of the cooperative learning method can enhance Chinese college students’ performance and motivation in English communicative competence. The second objective was to explore students’ views on the cooperative learning method in learning communicative competence. Methodology: This study employed a quasi-experimental design using quantitative and qualitative data. The sample was 80 first-year non-English majors from two polytechnic colleges in Guangdong, China. The Experimental Group and the Control Group, respectively, consisted of 40 students. The Experimental Group was taught using the STAD (cooperative learning) method and the Control Group was taught using the conventional method for eight weeks. Before the intervention, both groups were given a pre-test and after the intervention, they were given a post-test to gauge their performance in English communicative competence. Following that, 8 students from the Experimental Group were interviewed, using semi-structured interview questions to explore their views and experiences on the STAD method. Findings: Results from the post-test indicated that the Experimental Group significantly outperformed the Control Group in their overall score for communicative competence and motivation. Thematic analysis from the focus-group interview showed that the STAD method was a very effective teaching tool in enhancing students’ English communicative competence and facilitated them to improve their fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, pronunciation, and listening skills. Conclusion: This study has crucial pedagogical implications because it suggests that the STAD method can enhance students’ English communicative competence.
The current study explores perceptions and effectiveness of online professional development (OPD) opportunities at higher education institution, thus closing a substantial gap in current literature about the OPD preferences among English as a second language (ESL) lecturers. Professional development is a cornerstone approach to enhancing teacher competence and has gradually moved from traditional face-to-face sessions to online platforms particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although vast research is available on teacher professional development in Malaysia, study into the experiences of language lecturers at higher education institutions with OPD remains scant. This qualitative study which involved seven lecturers from a private university utilized semi-structured interviews to obtain fuller narratives of their perceptions of OPD. In general, findings indicated that although most lecturers had little experience of online professional learning, they held a positive attitude to the possible benefits it could offer. Further analysis identified four major themes for discussion, namely the relevance and effectiveness of OPD, the role of facilitators in enhancing OPD outcomes, the importance of classroom engagement and interaction, as well as professional development effectiveness and growth through OPD. The findings from the study highlighted the usefulness, trials, and room for improvement within OPD programs and suggests that future initiatives should be specifically tailored to consider the ever-evolving needs of diverse groups of teachers in order to maximize the effectiveness of any professional development initiative.
Analyzing the relationship between leadership satisfaction and reward satisfaction in primary schools can offer valuable insights for enhancing management and performance. This study aims to determine if there are significant differences in reward satisfaction and leadership satisfaction among Tamil primary school teachers in Melaka, based on their gender and teaching experience. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Stratified random sampling was employed in choosing 60 Tamil Primary School teachers in Melaka as a sample. This study used Leadership Satisfaction and Rewards Satisfaction Questionnaire (LRSQ) as instruments to collect the data. A pilot test was conducted among 30 randomly selected teachers to obtain the reliability of the instrument. The findings of the pilot test showed that the instrument is highly reliable and can be used for data collection. The key findings of the study revealed, that the reward as well as the leadership satisfaction of the male teachers were significantly higher than those of their female counterparts. On the other hand, there is no significant difference between senior teachers and junior teachers in the area of reward satisfaction. Similarly, the findings also indicated that the leadership satisfaction of the senior teachers is significantly higher than those of the junior teachers. This study has crucial pedagogical and practical implications because leadership and reward satisfaction can effect teachers’ performance in schools.
This study aims to examine whether there is a correlation between parental involvement in preschool and children’s academic performance. The study also investigated whether parental involvement (home-based, school-based and home-school conferencing) have an impact on pre-school children’s academic performance. In addition, this study also investigated the effects of parents’ gender, level of education and income on young learners’ academic success at school. This study employed a descriptive research design and used questionnaire to collect the data. The sample consists of 400 parents from five preschools in Henan district, China. Stratified random sampling was used in choosing the sample. The data of the study were analyzed using independent correlation, regression, independent samples t-test and one-way ANOVA. The results revealed that there is a significant positive correlation between parental involvement (home-based involvement, school-based involvement and home-school conferencing) and preschoolers' academic performance. The findings also showed that female parents were more engaged than male parents at preschool. Results of the ANOVA test revealed that parents with higher level of education and higher income were significantly more involved in preschool compared to their counterparts with lower level of education and lower income. These findings are crucial for policy makers to take the right measures in enhancing parental involvement in preschool.
Given that Malaysia is still a developing country with a predominantly middle-income population, understanding the dynamics of homeschooling within this economic context was critical. The objective of this study was therefore to explore the factors influencing middle-income Malaysian parents’ decisions to homeschool their children. This study which was a qualitative case-study, was conducted through in-depth interviews with three middle-income parents’ whose children were currently homeschooling in Malaysia. The self-designed instrument achieved a Kappa score of .74, ensuring reliability of instrument for data collection. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis approach integrated by Miles et al.’s (2013) three-cycle analytical coding was utilized in analyzing the data. The results from the in-depth interviews revealed four major themes which discussed factors influencing middle-income Malaysian parents’ decisions to homeschool their children. Flexibility and individualized learning, discontent with traditional schooling, children’s ability and disparity in classroom instructions and cultural independence have led many middle-income parents to explore home-schooling as an alternative educational option. The findings in this study uncovered that many parents perceived the home environment as a perfect setting for education. This study has practical implications as it highlighted the importance of creating a more inclusive and effective educational environment within the traditional school environment, hence decreasing the need for parents to choose homeschooling as an educational option.
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