Curriculum Orientation and Teaching Conception among Islamic Elementary Public School Teachers in Indonesia: A Rasch Analysis Approach

The purpose of this quantitative research was toexamine whether there were statistically significantdifferences in Islamic elementary public schoolteachers’ curriculum orientation and teachingconception across demographic variables of gender,age, and teaching experience. Data were collectedthrough questionnaires from 65 Islamic elementarypublic school teachers. Data were analysed throughRasch analysis and tests of inferential statistics. Theresults of the data analysis show that, over all: 1) theteachers’ curriculum orientation tended to be“technological” and “academic” rather than “socialreconstructionistic”; and 2) the teachers tended toconceptualize teaching as “apprenticeshipdevelopmental”and “knowledge transmission” ratherthan “nurturing” or “social reform”. Tests ofinferential statistics revealed a significant differencebetween male and female teachers’ conception ofteaching. A significant difference was also found in theteachers’ curriculum orientation across thedemographic variable of teaching experience. Nosignificant difference was found across the variable ofage. Correlations were identified between the teachers’curriculum orientation and teaching conception. Thefindings of this study provide evidence for policymakers, school leaders, researchers, parents, andteacher educators that the curriculum orientation andteaching conception of the majority of the teachersseems to be incompatible with the nature of charactereducation that necessitates teachers to be “nurturing”and “social reconstructionistic”. In addition,evaluation and reorientation of paradigms andapproaches in teacher education and educationalobjectives and further research are suggested.