Differences between In-Field and Out-of-Field History Teachers Influence on Students Learning Experience in Malaysian Secondary Schools

doi:10.4236/ce.2013.49B002

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Creative Education

2013. Vol.4, No.9, 5-9

Published Online September 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.49B002

Differences between In-Field and Out-of-Field History Teachers

Influence on Students Learning Experience in Malaysian

Secondary Schools

Umi Kalsum Mohd. Salleh1, I Gusti Ngurah Da rmawan2

1Department of Curriculum and Instructional Technology, Faculty of Education,

University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

2School of Education, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Received April 2013

The focus of this study was to investigate whether there were differences between the way in-field and

out-of-field teachers in Malaysian secondary schools perceived and practiced History education, and the

way their students perceived the teaching and learning of History. Both, teacher and student data were

examined. A statistical analysis was conducted to validate the survey and test the relationships between

variables. The results showed that there were significant differences between in-field and out-of-field

teachers in the teacher characteristics of experience and student variables of classroom climate and His-

tory learning outcomes, but not on teaching approaches and methods.

Keywords: Teachers’ Qualification; History Education; Measurement in Education; Teacher’s Education;

Learning Approaches

Introduction

History is one of the compulsory subjects in Malaysian sec-

ondary schools. Making History a compulsory subject was

important in recognizing its vital role in developing a sense of

belonging to one Malaysian nation. History education was rec-

ognized as a tool to infuse the ideas of belongings, the spirit of

patriotism, love of country, and the commitment to the Malay-

sian nation. There were two practical issues in relation to the

teaching of History emerged. The immediate practical problem

was to have enough teachers for all the History classrooms.

Since there were not enough History education graduates to fill

this need, teachers unqualified in History had to be assigned to

many classrooms. There was great concern that this temporary

expedient would lead to a lowering of standard in the teaching

of History, the very subject that was regarded as vital to the

development of the emerging nation. While the National Edu-

cation Blueprint (2007) aims to provide higher quality and bet-

ter trained teachers in secondary school, the fact is that many

teachers in Malaysian secondary schools have been required to

teach subjects for which they have better prior knowledge and

no prior teacher training.

Many teachers in Malaysian secondary schools were required

to teach subjects for which they have better prior knowledge

and no prior teacher training. Term “out-of-field teaching” re-

fers to the practice of teaching in a subject, field or level of

schooling for which a teacher has neither a major or minor te-

tiary qualification (McConney & Prince, 2009). The issue of

out-of-field teaching is prevalent in Malaysia, with the numbers

dramatically increasing in a rapidly expanding school system.

So the employment of History teachers who are not specialists

in the subject of History, or are minimally qualified in this tea-

ching area, is quite common in Malaysia. This study investi-

gates the possible differences between out-of-field teachers and

in-field History teachers with respect to teachers’ conception of

teaching, teaching approaches, and teaching methods. Moreo-

ver, this study also investigates the students’ views of the class-

room learning environment, learning approaches and the objec-

tives of the teaching and learning of History.

Out-of-Field Teachers

There are several reasons why out-of-field teaching occurs in

education. Ingersol l (1998, 1999, 2000) stated that lac k of agree-

ment between is teacher teaching qualification and a teacher’s

teaching assignment; teachers union; and the shortages of tea-

chers at particular field were factors that caused out-of-field

teaching.

Ingersoll (2001) claimed that out-of-field teaching had been a

problem in the United States but was largely unrecognized, be-

cause there was no accurate information on the situation. In-

gersoll argued that secondary school teachers should have both

formal education and teacher training in the subject that they

taught. Since Ingersoll’s (1999) early work, a number of studies

have been carried out to investigate the issues surrounding out-

of-field teaching. Jerald (2002) used the same data as Ingersoll

(1999.) His findings indicate that a high percentage of out-of-

field teachers teach the core subjects and not their specialized

subject, in the secondary schools in the United States. He ar-

gued that this problem became much worse between the periods

1993-1994 and 1999-2000. Jerald (2002: p. 1) added that there

were higher rates of out-of-field teaching in the nation’s low-

est-income and highest-minority schools.

Seastrom et al. (2002) defined out-of-field teaching more

strictly as “a teacher without major, minor, and certification in a

subject taught”. Seastrom et al.’s (2002) findings ca lculated the

U. K. M. SALLEH, I. G. N. DARMAWAN

percentage and the number of subjects taught by out-of-field

teachers in secondary schools in the United States. The subjects

in the middle school with the most out-of-field teachers were in

the Social Sciences, such as History, as well as Foreign Lan-

guages, English, and Mathematics. Meanwhile, in senior high

schools most out-of-field teachers were assigned to teach Eng-

lish, Mathematics, Social Sciences, Music, Arts and Physical

Education. These findings highlight that out-of-field teachers

teach mostly core subjects. From this research, it appears that

what these teachers tended to teach was based on the textbook.

As a result, student engagement and critical thinking in the spe-

cific subject were very limited (Ingersoll, 1999: p. 29). Teach-

ing based on the textbook could also result in difficulties in an-

swering examination questions, because the standardized exa-

mination includes critical thinking elements (Ingersoll, 1999).

Brown (2003) reported the percentages of out-of-field teaching

in History and the Social Sciences in the United States. He

found that 71 percent of History teachers in middle schools

lacked a college minor or similar qualification in History’ and a

further 11.5 percent lacked a college major in History (Brown,

2003: p. 2). The percentage of out-of-field teachers in middle

schools, History and Social Science subjects was slightly higher

than in the high schools.

McConnel & Price (2009b), continue researching on out-of-

field teaching. The research is an “assessment on the phe-

nomenon of teaching out-of-field in Western Australia” (p. iv).

They state that this study will add more information on relevant

literature on this issue. The result indicates that; (a) out-of-tea-

ching is a common and continuing practice in Australia and in-

ternationally, (b) the issue of out-of-field teaching is occurring

across Western Australia (higher in the non-government schools),

years of teaching experience (p. 96).

Another study was conducted by Dee & Cohodes, (2008) on

out-of-field teachers and students achievement. The focus of

this study was to determine the relationships between subject-

specific teacher certification and academic degree to teacher

quality. Nati onal Educational Longitudina l Study of 1988 (NEL S:

88 cite in Dee & Cohodes, 2008) was used in this research. The

results indicate; (a) there was no significance between subject-

qualified teachers with other teachers in promoting students’

engagement and comfort with their subject, (b) subject-quail-

fied teachers were more likely to view their students pejora-

tively on students’ homework and attentiveness, (c) the mathe-

matics teachers reduce the achievement of the very week stu-

dents (p. 29).

In a recent study carried out by Riordain & Hannigan, (2011)

investigated the level of out-of-teaching in Irish post-primary

mathematics classrooms and the deployment of these teachers

in Irish post-primary (second-level) school. The post-primary is

a six year programme, taken by students aged 12/13 to 18 years

of age. The samples were 324 mathematic teachers from 51

schools, 26,634 students, and 25 principals. The researchers

found that; (a) there was no significant relationship between

gender and teaching qualifications, (b) older teachers were more

likely to have a teaching qualification in Mathematics, (c) out-

of-field mathematic teachers were primarily assigned non-exam

year classes compared to the qualified mathematics teachers (pp.

297-298).

In Malaysia, a research study of out-of-field teaching was

carried out in 2003-2005 under a Ministry of Education re-

search grant, the Intensified Research in Priority Areas (IRPA).

This study involved 401 teachers in their first three years of

teaching experience in the classroom following the completion

of their teacher education program. The study investigated the

relationship between teachers’ subject specialization and the

subjects taught in school. The findings show that History was

one of the critical subjects. Out of 17 (History teachers) respon-

dents only five (27%) had majored in History and 12 (73%) of

the teachers were out-of-field teachers. Thus, out-of-field teach-

ers are prevalent in Malaysia (Aini Hassan & Wan Hasmah Wan

Mamat, 2007). Moreover, lack of subject background influenc-

es the process of teaching and learning in the classroom. Ac-

cording to Ingersoll (2001); “good teaching requires expertise

in at least three areas; knowledge of a subject, skills in teaching

and also pedagogical content knowledge” (Ingersoll, 2001: p.

34). Besides this, teacher knowledge and views about the nature

of History are important because these shapes teachers’ views

about what they should teach in the classroom (Wilson &

Wineburg, 1988 cited in Wilson, 2001). In the present study the

focus are on the differences and the similarities between out-

of-field and infield History teachers in relation to students’ per-

ceptions of teaching and learning History in the classroom.

Methodology

This research adopted a quantitative research survey method.

The data collections were gathered by using the survey ques-

tionnaires. Two set of que stionnaire were used, for teac hers’ and

students’ level. Statistics analyze such as t-test was employed to

investigate the differences bet ween in-field and out-of-field Hi-

story teachers in Malaysian secondary schools In addition, the

correlational research design also been employed. According to

Creswell (2008) this design enables the researcher to test and

describe the degree of relationship between two or more vari-

ables or sets of score. In this stud y, the quantitative methods were

used to investigate relationships between the teachers’ concep-

tions methods and teaching approaches, and students’ approa-

ches, to learning History, and the classroom learning climate,

and History learning outcomes.

Findings and Discussion

In this study, there are two groups of teachers involve, out-

of-field and in-field History teachers. The independent two

sample t-tests were used to compare out-of-field and in-field

History teachers on the teachers characteristics (teaching expe-

rience, teaching conception, teaching approaches and teaching

method) and their students’ characteristics (classroom climate

actual, classroom climate preferred, students’ learning approa-

ches and students’ History learning outcomes).

Teachers’ Characteristics

TExperience (Year of Teaching)

To investigate the differences between the out-of-field (OFT)

teachers and the in-field (IF) History teachers, the two samples

independent t-test was carried out. The results showed that

there was a significant (p = 0.002) difference in the average

number of years teaching between the two groups of History

teachers. In terms of the teaching period, the out-of-field teach-

er had an average of seven years and a half of teaching expe-

rience compared to the in-field teachers whom had 14 years

plus of teaching experience. This suggests that in-field teachers

are more experienced in teaching History compared to the

U. K. M. SALLEH, I. G. N. DARMAWAN

out-of-field te achers.

Teaching Conception (TCont)

In terms of teaching conceptions, there are five dimensions

used to reflect the teaching conception (TCont). Namely: Ab-

ilityDev, AttPro, KnowDeli, ExamPrep and ConDance. Table 2

shows the comparison between the in-field (IF) and the OFT

History teacher for the five dimensions. The results show that

there were no significant differences between the two groups

for four out of five dimensions tested, the only significant dif-

ference was found in ConDance (conduct guidance). Con-

Dance is one of the dimensions in teaching conception. This di-

mension is measuring the teachers’ influence as role model in

the classroom. In-field teacher reported a higher level of Con-

Dance. This indicates that the in-field teacher had a higher level

of presenting a good role model of conduct to the students

compared to the out-of-field teacher .

Teaching Approach (TApp)

There were two scales used to measure the constructs of

teaching approaches (TApp), namely: conceptual change/stu-

dent-focused (CCSF) and information transmission/teacher-

focused (ITTF) scale. They are labeled as TConChan and TIn-

foTrans respectively. Even though the differences were not

significant for either scale, the patterns are worth mentioning.

In general, in-field teachers focused more on conceptual change

and less on the information transfer compared to the out-of-

field teachers.

Teaching Method (TMet)

Effective teaching (TEff) and active teaching (TAct) were

the two constructs used to reflect the teaching method (TMet).

The results show that there is no significant difference in the

use of active teaching methods even though in general in-field

teachers had a slightly higher average. However, the results

from t-test shows that the in-field teachers had a significantly

higher level of effective teaching being used in their classroom

(p = 0.004).

Student Characteristic

Classroom Climate Preferred (CCP)

There were five dimensions used to reflect the preferred cli-

mate of History classrooms climate (CCP), namely: investiga-

tion (INV), personalization (PERSO), participation (PARTI),

independent (IND) and differentiation (DIFFER). The compar-

isons between the in-field and the out-of-field History teacher

on the five dimensions are tested using t-test. Out of the five

dimensions tested, four of them showed significant differences

between the two groups, investigation (INV), personalization

(PERSO), participation (PARTI) and differentiation (DIFFER).

This result indicates that students under in-field teachers pre-

ferred to have classrooms with higher levels of investigation

(INV), personalization (PERSO), participation (PARTI) and dif-

ferentiation (DIFFER). For the fifth dimension, the independent

(IND), the differences were not significant.

Classroom Climate Actual (CCA)

Similar to CCP in the classroom climate actual (CCA), there

were five dimensions used to reflect the actual History class-

room climate (CCA), namely: investigation (SInv), personalisa-

tion (SPer), participation (SPar), independent (SInd) and diffe-

rentiation (SDiffer). Out of five dimensions tested, only one of

the dimensions was significantly different between the two groups.

The personalization (SPer) showed a significant difference (p =

0.002), indicating that students under in-field teachers expe-

rience more personalized activities in the classroom. For the

rest of the dimensions, there were no significant differences;

however, the patterns are worth mentioning; with the results

suggesting that students under out-of-field teachers were expe-

rience more investigation, independent, participative and differ-

rentiate activities in the classroom.

Learning Approaches (Learning)

The results show the comparison between the in-field (IF)

and the out-of-field (OFT) History teacher for the six constructs,

namely: students’ surface motive (SSM), students’ surface stra-

tegy (SSS), students’ achieving motive (SAM), students’ achie-

ving strategy (SAS), students’ deep motive (SDM), and stu-

dents’ deep strategy (SDS). There were no significant differ-

ences on any of these constructs, showing that in general stu-

dents under in-field and out-of-field are showing very similar

approaches to learning,

Students Learning Outcome (SOUTCOME)

There are three constructs used in the student learning out-

come (SOUTCOME) namely Country (SContry), Community

(SComm) and Individual (SIndividual). There were no signifi-

cant differences found for the three constructs.

Discussion

The t-test analysis was used to examine the differences be-

tween out-of-field teachers and in-field teachers. On most of the

variables tested, there were no statistically significant differ-

ences between in-field and out-of-field History teachers in Ma-

laysia. The only four variables in which the differences proved

significant were teacher experience, the teaching conception of

conduct guidance, the dimensions of personalization (PERSO),

participation (PARTI), independent (IND) and differentiation

(DIFFER) in the students preferred classroom climate, and the

dimension of personalization in the students’ actual classroom

environment.

In relation to teacher experience (measured in years of tea-

ching) the results indicated that out-of-field History teachers

were less experienced compared to the in-field teachers. Out-

of-field History teachers had less experience, an average of 7

years of service, compared to the 14 years for in-field teachers.

The finding would seem to consistent with the school context in

Malaysia. As student numbers have increased, and schools have

needed more History teachers, there has been a tendency to

make use of less experienced members of staff as out-of-field

history teachers. Staffs with more experience are more likely to

be teaching in the area of their training specialization, in this

case upper lev el History.

Of the five dimensions of teachers’ teaching conceptions

employed, only the conduct guidance (ConDance) conception,

which previous studies had identified as an important aim of

teaching (e.g. Goa & Watkins, 2001; Pratt, 1992; Fox, 1983),

showed significant difference between in-field and out-of-field

teachers. This result indicated that in-field teachers, whom the

previous results have shown to be the more experienced teach-

ers, were more likely to be committed to nurturing the personal

U. K. M. SALLEH, I. G. N. DARMAWAN

conduct of their students through their History teaching.

In terms of preferred classroom climate, there was a signifi-

cant difference between students of in-field teachers and those

of out-of-field teachers on four out of the five dimensions. This

means that students under in-field teachers preferred class-

rooms where they experience investigation, personalization,

participation, and differentiation. On the fifth dimension of in-

dependence there was no difference between the two groups of

students, suggesting that the authority of the teacher in the

classroom was recognized, whether they were fully qualified or

not.

In the actual students’ classroom climate (CCA), out of five

dimensions used for this factor, only personalisation showed

any significant d ifference between stude nts under the two g roups

of teachers, with students of in-field teachers experiencing

greater personalisation. This result can be explained by the

greater experience of in-field t eachers in the Malay sian c ontext.

In particular, they are more likely to have been teaching longer

in the same school and even to have taught the same class for

two or more years. They thus have had a greater opportunity to

gain personal understanding of the students they are teaching. It

is possible, that out-of-field teachers who were younger and

less experienced, would be able to develop a more personalised

dimension to their classrooms, as they gain more familiarity

with the History syllabus and get to know the students in their

classes better. An out-of-field teacher whose efforts are con-

centrated on subject content which is new to them, has less time

to focus on understanding students’ needs and interests. The

chance for professional development in the teaching of History

may help them to become more familiars with the content and

assessment, so that they are able to direct more of their atten-

tion to the individual students in their class.

There were four variables which showed no significant dif-

ference on the t-test results in this study, namely; teachers’

teaching approach, teaching method, students’ approaches to

learning, and learning outcomes. This is an important finding

itself in that it indicates not only that in-field and out-of-field

teachers were using much the same teaching approaches and

methods, but also that the students under each group of teachers

were adopting similar approaches to learning and perceived

much the same learning outcomes in their history classroom.

These results can be seen to be consistent with expectations that

teachers in Malaysia are expected to follow the set of objectives

and lesson plans laid out in the history syllabus. In addition,

out-of-field teachers are after all fully trained in another area of

specialization and can be expected to adapt their knowledge

and teaching skills to the teaching of History.

Conclusion

To conclude, comparison between out-of-field and in-field

on students’ and teachers’ characteristic and perceptions are

also discussed in this chapter. The results show that the in-field

teachers had more experience in teaching History compared to

the out-of-field teachers. In term of teaching conception, the

ConDance (conduct guidance) dimension was found to differ

significantly, but not other dimensions. This indicates that the

in-field teacher had a higher level of presenting a good role mo-

del of conducting to the students compared to the out-of-field

teacher. In addition, the results reported that students under

in-field teachers preferred to have classrooms with higher level

of investigation (INV), personalization (PERSO), participation

(PARTI) and differentiation (DIFFER) activities. Meanwhile,

in the actual classroom the personalization (SPer) dimension

was found to differ significantly, indicating that students under

in-field teachers employ the personalisation activities at higher

level in the actual classroom climate compared to the out-of-

field History teachers.

In general, the findings have developed our knowledge on

the issue of out-of-field teaching in the learning process, in par-

ticular in History teaching. Much literature had focused on the

macro impact of out-of-field teachers on teaching at the school

or state level. What remained unclear was how teachers with

out-of-field qualifications actually taught in the classroom, and

whether there were any differences in students’ learning be-

tween classes taught by out-of-field and in-field History teach-

ers. This study has improved our understanding by pinpointing

the importance of teachers’ experience, conduct guidance as a

conception of History teaching, personalization in the class-

room climate and students’ History learning outcomes, as de-

fined by the syllabus objectives. In relation to all the above va-

riables, there were differences between in-field and out-of-field

teachers.

The phenomenon of out-of-field teaching is still prevalent in

education and has stimulated many researchers to investigate

this issue. However, this is the first study in the field conducted

in Malaysia. Although there are differences between schools in

the various states and rural regions which may affect the appli-

cation of these Kuala Lumpur findings to other parts of Malay-

sia, some useful implications can be drawn for the teaching of

History generally at secondary level in Malaysia. In addition,

the findings can be used as a basis for future research.

Furthermore, this study has provided empirically based ana-

lytical procedures for testing and extending existing frame-

works and models of the relationships between the many va-

riables which can impact on and interact with classroom learn-

ing and teaching in general. Overall, these findings provide a

better understanding of the relationships between out-of-field

qualifications and other teacher and student factors in the pro-

cess of learning in History in the Malaysian classroom.

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