A Descriptive Study of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) Faculty Members’ Perceptions of Teaching
(By Nurahimah Mohd. Yusoff (Ed.D)
University Teaching and Learning Centre, Universiti Utara Malaysia)
Paper presented at the Higher Education Close Up Conference 2, Lancaster University, 16-18 July 2001
Introduction
The Malaysian education philosophy and the missions of the universities in Malaysia place emphasis on high quality teaching. In line with the education philosophy and the missions of the Malaysian universities, a first step is to better understand the perceptions of the university faculty members about teaching, their experiences in teaching, and the gaps and/or deficiencies they perceive as lacking in their classroom teaching. Investigating these factors can be a first effort to improve teaching among the Malaysian university faculty members. In addition, teaching is an interactive, dynamic process in which both the teachers and the students are discovering and constructing knowledge as they proceed. Thus, there is a need to investigate the process of teaching as perceived by the university faculty members.
Universiti Utara Malaysia
Currently, there are twelve public universities and twelve private universities in Malaysia. Universiti Utara Malaysia was established in 1984 for the pursuit and development of management education. There are ten schools: School of Cognitive Science and Education, School of Economics, School of Management, School of Accountancy, School of Social Development, School of Information Technology, School of Tourism Management, School of Quantitative Science, School of Finance and Banking, and the Graduate School.
There are approximately 968 instructors and 21,000 students in UUM. The breakdown of the faculty members according to their respective schools and their teaching ranks is shown in Table 1.
Rank/School / SE / SPK / SP / SSKP / STM / SS / SWB / SPS / SPP / SSK / TOTALProfessor / 3 / 1 / 5 / 2 / 2 / 2 / 1 / 3 / 1 / 20
Assoc. Prof. / 6 / 9 / 12 / 7 / 8 / 5 / 2 / 17 / 2 / 5 / 73
Lecturer / 62 / 64 / 122 / 73 / 79 / 2 / 32 / 84 / 15 / 20 / 553
Lang.teacher / 23 / 23
Tutor / 21 / 49 / 39 / 22 / 51 / 1 / 25 / 49 / 8 / 34 / 299
986
Teaching ranks include professors, associate professors, lecturers, tutors, and language teachers. Since UUM is a newly established university, there are currently not many professors and associate professors. The largest group of faculty members is lecturers. What distinguishes the lecturers from the tutors and language teachers is that the lecturers have at least a master’s degree while the tutors and the language teachers have bachelor’s degrees. The tutors are usually new graduates who have been selected by the university to pursue a master’s degree. Their status is considered temporary until they have earned their master’s degree. Many of the UUM faculty members gained their qualifications overseas, namely from the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada. Full-time faculty members are expected to teach between 6 - 12 hours per week.
Review of the Literature
To understand teaching, it is useful to look at it from different angles. This study attempts to look at teaching from three angles. In the first part, I discuss related literature on the meanings of teaching, which includes discussions on the goals of teaching, the roles of teachers in the classroom, and the attitudes and beliefs about teaching. In the second part, I treat the topic, knowledge in teaching, which covers the kinds of knowledge and the sources of knowledge of teaching. In the third part, I look at effective teaching, which concerns the elements and criteria that define success in teaching.
The three sections reviewed should not be seen in isolation. They are interrelated. Teacher thinking and the role of experience in learning to teach are important to understand how teachers construe their roles in the classroom teaching. How they perceive their roles in the classroom echoed their goals of teaching and informs us about the meanings they attach to the term “teaching.” Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs influence their behavior in the classroom. Furthermore, how teachers think, which is shaped by past experience, is responsible for much of what happens in the classroom. Moreover, successful teaching is said to be dependent upon teacher’s feelings, attitudes, and beliefs.
The summary on the meanings of teaching, knowledge in teaching, and effective teaching, provided an overview and a set of ideas that served as the background for this study. A discussion of the meanings of teaching focuses on understanding how teachers view teaching. An examination on teacher thinking and the role of experiences unfolds the kinds of knowledge that teachers believe are important in their teaching career and the sources of their knowledge. Generally, the examination of this literature informs about how teachers have learned from their teaching experiences. An analysis on effective teaching not only describes some of the characteristics of good teachers, but also indicates elements and criteria that define successful teaching. Thus, the summary of the three sections above, provides information pertinent to issues in teaching. The literature specifically provides guidance in seeking answers to the three research questions of this study.
Methodology
Purpose of the Study
This study was an investigation of one Malaysian university faculty members’ perceptions about teaching. Specifically, it aimed to seek these three research questions:
- How do UUM senior faculty members view teaching?
- How have UUM senior faculty members learned to teach?
- What do UUM senior faculty members view as successful teaching?
Significance of the Study
The findings of the study served as a foundation to offer a proposal for faculty development programmes for UUM faculty members. Moreover, this study contributes to the field of education as a study of cross-cultural comparison of teaching. Responses from UUM senior faculty members in this study were analyzed and compared to some of those responses in studies done by Dunkin and Precians (1992) and Clawson (1994). Dunkin and Precians studied twelve award-winning teachers at the University of Sydney. Clawson’s study focused on tenured professors at the institutions of West Virginia.
Design of the Study
A qualitative design was chosen for the study because it allowed for detailed and complete descriptions of the participants, their teaching contexts, and their views concerning teaching. A purposeful sampling was conducted in selecting the eight senior UUM faculty members. They were selected based on these criteria: full time academic staff, teaching rank, teaching experience, ability to converse fluently in the English language, and willingness to tell stories about their teaching experiences. They were interviewed twice, for approximately one hour in each session. The first was open-ended interview, and the second was semi-structured. In the interviews, they told their stories about their teaching experiences, primarily about how they viewed teaching, how they have learned to teach, and what they viewed as the characteristics of good teaching.
The interview data were transcribed and then analyzed using content analysis. The findings were reported using case-by-case analysis presentation in the first section,
followed by a cross-case presentation in the second section.
Trustworthiness of the Study
Trustworthiness of the study was established through four criteria: credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability (Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
The first criterion of trustworthiness addresses the questions of how credible are the particular findings of the study and by what criteria can we judge them? In this study, credibility was established through peer debriefing, member checking, and negative case analysis. I also established credibility of the study through what is referred to as “a researcher as instrument statement.”
The second criterion of trustworthiness concerns how transferable and applicable is the findings to another setting or group of people. In qualitative research, the use of “thick description” will allow readers to understand and draw their own interpretations (Patton, 1990). In this study, I have attempted to provide a detailed description of the context in which the research takes place so that the readers would be able to make judgments as to how well the findings are transferable to other situations.
The third criterion of trustworthiness is dependability that is to answer the question - how can we be reasonably sure that the findings would be replicated if the study were conducted with the same participants in the same context? Dependability in this study was satisfied by using the technique “audit trail.”
The fourth criterion of trustworthiness concerns how can we be sure that the findings are reflective of the subjects and the inquiry itself rather than a creation of the researcher’s biases or prejudices. In qualitative research, the researcher is interested in providing evidence to allow readers to confirm results of his/her study. In this study, confirmability was provided through audit trail, member checking, and reflexive journal.
Findings
The following summarizes findings from the analysis of the study.
The reasons for faculty members to be involved in the teaching profession seemed to fall under three main categories: family influence, being selected into the program, and own interest. Only one respondent reported her interest as the main reason.
The eight senior faculty members experienced both positive and negative feelings toward teaching. Faculty members who talked about their negative feelings toward teaching were merely relating stories about their early teaching experiences and early expectations about teaching. Thus, in general, all participants have positive feelings toward teaching.
The participants’ accounts of their positive feelings toward teaching tell us much about their attitudes toward teaching. Several of them mentioned the word “like” in relation to teaching. Others noted that they “enjoyed” and felt “comfortable” with teaching. In other words, their attitudes toward teaching can be portrayed as positive.
There was a difference in the participants’ responses as to the meanings of teaching. Female lecturers defined teaching as the sharing of knowledge, while male lecturers tend to regard teaching as imparting knowledge, disseminating information, enhancing knowledge, and making somebody understand.
The participants’ beliefs about teaching and ways to enhance learning were divided into “dimensions of teaching.” Four dimensions of teaching were found from the responses. They were: teaching as structuring learning, teaching as motivating learning, teaching as encouraging activity and independence in learning, and teaching as establishing interpersonal relations conducive to learning.
The participants’ goals of teaching determine their roles in the classrooms. The way in which the participants think about their roles in the classroom was related to the levels of their students. As to the responses to the question on the influence of the subject matter, the majority of participants (except for one) stated that the content of what they teach determined the way they teach. In other words, the subject matter does influence their goals of teaching and their roles in the classrooms.
In examining the participants’ views about the kinds of knowledge and skills they gained throughout their teaching experiences, the responses can be categorized as content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge of the learner. Among the kinds of values reported were interest, confidence, trust, responsibility, patience, and friendship.
All participants believed that a lecturer needs to have content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and values such as being interested in his or her teaching career. However, each participant has a different emphasis as to which is more important than the other.
The participants indicated their knowledge of teaching, particularly content and pedagogical, were derived from six sources: teacher education programs, former teachers, professional development courses, readings and research, actual classroom teaching, and interactions with peers and students.
Problems encountered by the respondents can be divided into two categories: administrative and academic matters. Administrative problems included class size, class time table, lack of teaching facilities, and lack of contact hours. Academic matters included lack of teaching skills and content knowledge, nervousness,difficulty in preparingclassroom teaching materials, and lack of sources and references in the library. It is difficult for the respective instructors to deal with administrative problems because the problems needed to be redressed by the higher authorities of the university.
The teaching methods employed in the classroom differ and depend on a number of factors, including the class size and the content of the subject that the respective lecturer teaches.
All respondents agreed that they have improved their teaching in some way or another. Nevertheless, they are eager and keen to develop further those aspects of teaching that they still lack.
Suggestions on teaching offered by respondents for other faculty members derived from their beliefs about teaching and their teaching experiences. The findings also suggested that UUM faculty members have different emphasis on the characteristics of good lecturers.
Students’ reactions and behaviors in the classroom were used as indicators of “a good class,” while students’ performance and feedback were used as yardsticks to gauge “a good course.” It was also found that three lecturers practice self-reflection as a way to improve the course.
Conclusion
This study revealed that there were similarities and differences among the lecturers’ experiences of teaching. The similarities among the lecturers’ responses were exhibited in the following responses. The lecturers reported that their interests in teaching grew after years of experience in teaching. They had positive feelings and positive attitudes toward teaching. Their goals of teaching seemed to determine their roles in the classroom. The content they taught influenced their way of teaching. Their past experiences shaped their beliefs about teaching and this, in turn, influenced their classroom actions. They had similar kinds of knowledge, skills, and values gained throughout their teaching experiences and the knowledge, particularly content and pedagogical, came from similar kinds of sources. They also had similar responses regarding the indicators of what constituted a “good class” and “good course.”
Participants’ responses were different in three respects. Male and female lecturers cited different meanings to the term “teaching.” Participants did not place the same emphasis on the knowledge, skills, and values, in which a lecturer needs to have in his/her teaching career. They also did not place the same emphasis on the characteristics of good lecturers.
Future Research
The results of this study suggest a need for further studies.
Recommendation 1. This study examined the perceptions of teaching among faculty members from one university in Malaysia. It is hoped that other studies would expand and replicate this study to see if the responses of the senior faculty members in other universities in Malaysia, both public and private, would support the findings of this study.
Recommendation 2. Similar studies may also be necessary to find out perceptions of teaching among primary and secondary school teachers in Malaysia. The studies are useful because of teachers’ different orientations of classroom behavior (Hardy, 1976). School teachers may have different foci in teaching than university lecturers.
Recommendation 3. Another important recommendation of this study is to replicate the study and investigate the perceptions of faculty members based on their teaching ranks. This study is only based on the perceptions of the lecturers. The same questions could be used to compare the other four levels of teaching ranks among the faculty members which include professors, associate professors, tutors, and language teachers. The future study could show that there is a relationship between teaching ranks and attitudes and beliefs on teaching.
All in all, the accumulation of a body of research on these topics would be beneficial to all. To the administrators, it would assist in working with faculty members. To the teacher educators, it would help in the training of future teachers. To faculty members, it would promote collegial understanding and support. And last, but not least, to the students, it would result in teachers who will be capable of enhancing the learning process.
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