Teaching and Learning methods of Ethnic Relations Course: Interactive or Destructive?

Abstract

Malaysia comprises of many ethnic groups, hence national unity is the ultimate goal and education is seen as the most effective tool to achieve this goal. Thus, Ethnic Relations course was introduced in the public and private universities in 2005 with the national unity as its goal. However, the aim and content alone are not sufficient to guarantee the success in achieving the goal. The question is what are the good teaching methods for this course in order to meet the demand?. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss alternative teaching methods that can be used. The questionnaire was developed and consists of four parts: perception of students towards existing teaching method, students’ understanding, students’ interest and students’ motivation towards the Ethnic Relations course. Likert scale of 1 to 5 was employed and a total of 172 students responded. The study showed that the use of video, debate and forum in the teaching and learning of Ethnic Relations are among the effective methods.