Abstract:

Education research indicated that teaching efficacy influence several significant educational variables, such as student achievement, student motivation, teachers’ attitude toward innovation, superintendents’ evaluation of teacher performance and teachers’ management strategies. Numerous studies have been carried out on the teaching efficacy of trainee teachers that graduated from various universities and training teachers’ college in term of student engagement, instructional strategies and classroom management. The objective of the study is to assess the teaching efficacy among trainee teachers in the classroom environment in their teaching practice. The specific objective is to determine the trainee teachers in pedagogical aspects in classroom. A total of 680 final year Bachelor of Education (B.Ed) students participated in the study. They comprised of students who have previously taught in school and those who have never taught in school. The questionnaire was adapted from various instrument such as Gibson & Dembo (1984); Ashton, Webb & Doda (1983); Ashton & Webb (1986); Guskey (1987); Bandura (1993); Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998); Smith & Huinker (1999); Lim et al. (2003); Lin, Gorrel & Taylor (2004). A structured questionnaire was used to collect the information on teaching efficacy of Universiti Putra Malaysia trainee teachers before they went for teaching practice. Findings indicate that a majority of the respondents have a high level of confidence with their efficacy in terms of student engagement (Mean: 3.97, S.D: 0.29), instructional strategies (Mean: 3.93, S.D: 0.38), classroom management (Mean: 3.90, S.D: 0.32) and computer aided teaching in classroom (Mean: 3.83, S.D: 0.57). Two conclusions are derived from this study. The first conclusion is trainee teachers in term of student engagement, instructional strategies, classroom management and information communication technology is high. The second conclusion of this study is that the teaching efficacy of Universiti Putra Malaysia trainee teachers correlated significantly with gender, CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average), major of study and decision to choose teaching profession as a career but the correlations were considered weak.

Keywords:

Teaching efficacy, teaching and learning, trainee teachers, environment, teaching practice, pedagogical aspect.