The Importance of Ethics, Moral and Professional Skills of Novice Teachers

Abstract

Soft skills especially ethics, moral and professional skill play an important role in sharpening individual's excellent personality by complementing his/her hard skills to the teacher communities. The complicated nature of teaching, in both practice and preparation, encourages teacher educators to explore the complexity of the novice teachers’ experiences and identify the concerns they face in their induction year. This study aims to examine the ethics, moral and professional skill of novice teachers in secondary schools of Malaysia from the views of their administrators. In addition, findings are triangulated by the self-rating data done by novice teachers themselves on this particular skill. The main purpose of this study is to explain and interpret the practice of ethics, moral and professional skill from the two different perspectives. This study employed qualitative method using focus group interviews to collect data from 31 administrators and quantitative method using self-rating questionnaire from 250 novice teachers. Among the seven soft skills components which comprised of communicative skill, critical thinking and problem solving skills, team work skill, life-long learning and management of information, entrepreneurship skill, ethics, moral and professional skill, and leadership, quantitative finding showed that ethics, moral and professional skill has been rated as second least needed after entrepreneurship skill in the workplace according to novice teachers. However, quantitative finding found to be contradicted with qualitative data. School administrators stated that soft skill components are the most needed and most of the novice teachers are lacking of is ethics, moral and professional skill. In conclusion, keeping abreast of developments in teacher education would ensure that novice teachers remain current and relevant in their profession, and that novice teachers be equipped with necessary ethics, moral and professional skill to survive in an increasingly complex teaching environment.