Enhancing the Efficacy of Lecturers in Educating Student Cohorts Consisting of Culturally Diverse Groups in a Medical University

Abstract

Lecturers exert a potent influence over the achievement of all students, low-income culturally diverse students in particular. Although recent research has confirmed that lecturer involvement is critical for promoting academic engagement of low-income and ethnically diverse students in America and other countries, other literature suggests that lecturers have lower expectations for and fewer interactions with these students. These findings have prompted calls for promoting lecturers self-efficacy for working with students from diverse backgrounds, especially in a country like Malaysia, where there is a coexistence of students of various ethnic diverse groups, such as Chinese, Malays and Indians. The purposes of this article are (a) to summarize briefly the literature that examines the effect of lecturers efficacy on academic and behavioral outcomes of students, especially culturally diverse students; (b) to disseminate the findings of a lecturer-training program designed to promote lecturer efficacy in relation to culturally diverse students; and (c) to provide lecturers, administrators, and lecturer trainers with methods to increase lecturer efficacy when working with culturally diverse learners.