Brunei's teacher education programs: insights into students' coping and help-seeking strategies to challenges.

Lawrence Mundia,Mar Aswandi Mahadi,Rosmawijah Jawawi,Jainatul Halida Jaidin,Masitah Shahrill

doi:10.1186/s13033-016-0091-5

Lawrence Mundia, Mar Aswandi Mahadi + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13033-016-0091-5

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Abstract

BackgroundBrunei started implementing its two main reformed teacher education programs, MTeach and MEd, in 2009. The reasons for these innovations included upgrading the standard of teacher training, increasing teaching effectiveness, and improving the quality of education in the country. The purpose of this study was to determine how student teachers coped with and sought help on the challenging programs.MethodsUsing an online survey design, 76 randomly selected recent graduate teachers responded appropriately to questionnaires administered to them by email. The obtained quantitative research information included demographic, coping, and help-seeking data, all analyzed by SPSS Version 22.ResultsParticipants endorsed both the productive and nonproductive coping strategies. In addition, they depended more on peers, teachers and internet sources for help. Four major findings were obtained. First, task-oriented coping was the most important and significant predictor of success on the MTeach and MEd programs. Second, females had a higher likelihood of success compared to males (OR = 22.760, 95 % CI for OR = 12.848–40.320). Third, students who consulted relevant internet resources had higher odds for succeeding compared to those who did not (OR = 2.237, 95 % CI 1.196–4.183). Fourth, less-able students who collaboratively worked with the more-able peers were nearly two times more likely to perform better than those who did not (OR = 1.982, 95 % CI 1.082–3.630).ConclusionsCoping and help-seeking were positively and significantly related to academic achievement on the two Brunei main teacher education programs. Evidence from the present study suggested that vulnerable and at-risk trainee teachers needed appropriate interventions (educational, counseling and psychotherapy) related to effective use of task-oriented coping and seeking help via cooperative learning, internet sources, and teacher consultations,. Further research with interview probes was recommended to gain additional information on the problem and its solutions.

Highlights

Brunei started implementing its two main reformed teacher education programs, Master of Teaching (MTeach) and Master of Education degree (MEd), in 2009
We briefly describe below the design, participants, instruments, procedures, and data analysis strategies used in the present study
The hierarchical multiple regression analysis with backward elimination The purpose of performing a hierarchical multiple regression analysis with backward elimination was to explore and identify continuous, dichotomous and multicategorical independent variables (IVs) that were related to the dependent variable (DV)

Summary

Methods

We briefly describe below the design, participants, instruments, procedures, and data analysis strategies used in the present study. The present study was conducted as a small-scale, in-house, and none-funded evaluation of the two teacher education programs (MTeach and MEd) to determine the coping styles and help-seeking strategies students were using. For such small exploratory investigations (including graduate students’ research exercise projects), SHBIE administration (via the Dean’s Office) was permitted by UBD to grant faculty-level authorization to do the studies. Raw data from the scales were analyzed by a variety of quantitative procedures: descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation); and inferential statistics, Pearson correlations, hierarchical multiple regression analysis with backward elimination, and the factorial generalized linear regression model (GLM)

Results

Conclusions

Conclusion