Abstract

This study highlights teachers’ involvement in professional development (PD) activities teachers in the Darussalam Modern Islamic Boarding School (DMIBS), East Java, Indonesia. It evaluates the implementation of PD programs by identifying teachers` perception toward PD they participated in. The study used a survey research approach to investigate professional development and the level of teacher`s self-efficacy at the boarding school. The majority of teachers have a high level of satisfaction toward the implementation of PD activities in DMIBS in terms of course content, instructor, relevancy to teaching practice and course management. Also, teachers reported that the school had given them an adequate opportunity to participate in different types of PD activities. However, the study did not find significant differences between the length of teaching experience and teachers’ academic qualifications in teachers` perceptions towards PD activities. Some studies found that teachers with higher levels of academic qualification, showed higher and increased levels of efficacy. However, the current study did not show similar results as teachers with degrees and DMIBS qualifications respectively showed no significant differences in their levels of efficacy. This indicates that having different academic qualifications did not affect the increase in teachers` efficacy.

Keywords: professional development, teacher’s self-efficacy, modern Islamic boarding school

Abstract

Research has shown that most young and inexperienced faculty members require assistance in developing their career and meeting their teaching quota through mentoring. However, academic mentoring has not been effective in many research universities, especially those in the developing world. This study has investigated the factors that facilitate academic mentoring in a typical research university. The study adapted a quantitative methodology by drawing from a sample of 244 senior and junior teaching staff of a public research university in Ghana and used Multiple Regression as the basis for the study analysis to test the hypotheses. Findings showed a strong positive relationship between institutional career support and the process of mentoring. Findings also showed a strong positive mentoring relationship between senior faculty and inexperienced faculty, as well as between colleague faculty. Similarly, findings showed a very low presence of academic mentoring in the University of Ghana. This work contributes strongly to academic mentoring and discovers some legitimate antecedents of mentoring in institutions of Higher Education. By this, the work provides HE institutions with the value of developing their internal human capital asset that can leverage their performance.

Keywords: mentoring, determinants of mentoring, institutional career support, co-worker support, higher education, human resource capabilities

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to describe the process of student interaction in solving problems through cooperative learning. The subject of this research are 7th grade students of a junior high school in Malang, Indonesia. Data were collected by recording directly when learning takes place especially when pairing or forming small groups. This interaction is built with heterogeneous student skills. The results showed that the interaction that occurs in students provides an understanding of the concept of opportunity. Consequently, the students solved the problem correctly. This interaction is known as productive interaction.

Keywords: small group, student interaction, cooperative learning, productive interaction

Abstract

Satisfaction of student has been viewed as a vital factor regarding quality of learning approach and a key factor in the success of learning programs. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how students perceive the environment, quality, and services they are offered at a Turkish university and how satisfied they are with them. The analysis utilized structured questionnaire and use SPSS for determining correlation among different factors of satisfaction. Also it applied step wise multiple regression to manifest the degree of factors that satisfied international students of Turkish universities. The study concentrated on the insight into how international students perceive and experienced about environment, quality and services they offered and how they satisfied are. The research consider eight factors as satisfied with academic and education quality, image and prestige of the university, administrative support, future career and retention reason, personal influence, financial and economic consideration, and environment and safety. Among the factors five factors as students self preparation, academic and education quality, administrative and staff support, personal influence, and environment and safety had found significant from the analysis. The findings are expected to provide useful guidelines to the academic institution while improving students satisfaction.

Keywords: student satisfaction, education quality, self preparation, safety

Abstract

The purpose of this descriptive study is to explore the relationships between teachers’ critical thinking dispositions and their perceptions of occupational professionalism. The sample of the study has consisted of 242 teachers specified from the population of upper-secondary school teachers working in Mentese, Mugla, Turkey. The data of the study were collected through the administration of the UF/EMI Critical Thinking Dispositions Assessment scale and the Teachers’ Occupational Professionalism scale. In the analysis of the data, descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA and multiple regression analysis were employed. The results of the study revealed that: (1) Teachers have a high level of critical thinking disposition which does not significantly change for the variables of gender, school type or seniority, but it does for education level; (2) Teachers have a high level perception of their own professionalism within professional awareness and emotional labor dimensions of occupational professionalism. They have a moderate level perception of their own professionalism within contribution to organization and personal development dimensions of occupational professionalism. Their total perception scores do not sinificantly change for the veriables of gender, education, school type or seniority. (3) The dimensions of critical thinking dispositions of teachers together predict a significant part of their occupational professionalism perceptions. In short teachers’ critical thinking dispositions seem to be an important component of teacher professionalism.

Keywords: critical thinking, critical thinking dispositions, teacher professionalism, occupational professionalism, teachers