Ab. Rahim Bakar

Counseling Ethics Education for Enhanced Professional Identity and Development: Guidance and Counseling Teachers Lifelong Learning Acquisition Empowered

Counseling ethics competency is an essential part of counselor identity development as required by the counseling profession, and counseling ethics education is one major component of knowledge acquisition in counseling profession training standards. The purpose of this qualitative research was to conduct an interpretive case study to explore, understand, describe, and interpret how guidance and counseling teachers learn, understand, experience, and apply counseling ethics education to their evolving professional identity and development in the counselor education training program. The main author was the primary instrument for data collection and analysis. Coding categories were developed and tentative themes emerged, were refined, and became the five emergent master themes for this research: education foundation, education integration, education application, education assimilation, and education appreciation. The discussion and interpretation are grounded in the principles of effective adult learning in counseling ethics education; to empower lifelong learning acquisition among guidance and counseling teachers toward enhanced professional identity and development.

Clothing Fashion Design Competency Instrument: An Application of Rasch Measurement Model

Clothing Fashion Design Competency (CFaDC) instrument has been developed to measure the knowledge of instructors in order to become an educator who can implement effective teaching processes, as well as master various competencies to deliver the teachings according to the academic standards. This study aims to determine item/respondent reliability index, item/respondent separation index, item polarity, item difficulty level and respondents’ ability, as well as unidimensionality. A total of 330 instructors in the field of fashion and clothing have answered the CFaDC instrument. The instrument consists of 5 constructs, namely design knowledge, clothing construction, clothing selection, clothing care and textiles. The validation of the instrument applied psychometric characteristics of assessment procedures using Rasch measurement model. The findings showed that the item reliability index was high and acceptable. Meanwhile, respondents’ ability level could be divided into two levels in this study. Moreover, it was found that there was no second dimension in measuring the constructs in CFaDC instrument. The results revealed that out of 85 items, 54 items were retained, whereas 31 items were detected as misfits and should be dropped so that this instrument is fair and reliable to all respondents. The results of this study will be pointing towards the stability of standard of competencies for Clothing Fashion (CFaD) program in order for the program to always be updated and in tandem with the needs of today’s clothing and apparel industry.

How confident are vocational trainees in making career decisions

Career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) denotes individuals’ degree of confidence that they can successfully engage in tasks associated with making a career choice and with commitment to a career (Taylor and Betz, 1983). Studies have shown that career self-efficacy plays significant roles in the development of vocational interests, choice, and behavior (Lent et al., 2002). Helping students identify their beliefs about their abilities to both undertake exploration tasks and make decisions appears to be an important requisite to help them identify patterns of interests (Gushue et al., 2007). Thus, a study was conducted using 850 vocational trainees in Malaysian Vocational Institutions. The career decision-making self-efficacy by Taylor and Betz (1983) was used to measure CDMSE of trainees. A 5-point Likert scale ranging from Not Confidence at all (1) to Completely Confidence (5) was used to assess trainees’ CDMSE. The objective of this study was to determine the career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE) among vocational trainees in Malaysia and to compare the trainees’ decision-making abilities between genders. Overall, the career decision-making ability of vocational trainees was high (M=3.96, s.d=.34). However, some aspects of CDMSE need improvement (particularly on problem solving, planning for future, and gathering occupational information). There is a no significant difference in CDMSE between trainees of two different institutions. However, there is a significant difference in CDMSE between genders. Male trainees felt they were more confident in making career decision than female trainees.

Teacher Efficacy Beliefs Among Novice Malaysian Teachers

This article is a presentation of the findings of research conducted on the teacher’s sense of efficacy among novice teachers in Malaysia. A total of 727 novice teachers participated in the study. Novice teachers are teachers who have been in service for three years or less. Teachers’ sense of efficacy was assessed using the Ohio State Teacher Efficacy Scale (OSTES), developed by Tschannen- Moran and Woolfolk Hoy. The level of overall teaching efficacy among novice teachers was moderate (Mean: 3.87; S.D: 0.62). The findings indicated that they were moderately efficacious in terms of student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management. The implication of the study to teacher-education programs in Malaysia is discussed.

Job satisfaction among Malaysian school counselors

The purpose of this study was to identify the level of job satisfaction among school counsellors in Malaysia and factors related to it. The findings uncover moderate level of job satisfaction of school counsellors with mean: 3.52 and S.D : 0.59. Job satisfaction among school counsellors was categorized as satisfaction with rewards, satisfaction with the job itself, satisfaction with leadership of the superior, and satisfaction with co-workers. School counsellors’ job satisfaction has been associated with various aspects such as ethnicity and student numbers in the school.

Decision to Enroll in Post-Graduate Education: What are the Predictors?

The objective of the study was to predict students’ decision to enroll for a doctoral program at the Faculty of Educational Studies. A discriminant analysis was conducted to investigate the predictors that influence a student’s decision to enroll for a doctoral program. The predictors investigated were job factors, personal factors, program factors, social factors, satisfaction, and academic performance. The overall Wilk’s Lambda was significant, Λ = 0.87, Chi-Square (6, n = 117) = 15.99, p = 0.014. This indicated that the predictors were significantly different among groups of student who plan to enroll for a doctoral program (Group 1) and those who do not (Group 2). Of the total 117 students, 90 (76%) were classified correctly.

Educational and Occupational Plans of Rural Youths

The purpose of this paper is to describe the educational and occupational plans of rural youths in rural schools and related students’ educational and occupational choice to the needs of the country. The findings showed that almost all students participated in the aspired for education beyond the secondary schools. The two most popular program students expect to enroll at the tertiary level were accountancy and engineering. All of the respondents have tentatively made their career choices. It also shows that respondents have some knowledge as to subjects important for their educational and career choices.

Student Teachers of Malay Language as a First Language

The objective of the study was to assess the teaching confidence of student teacher who’s specialization is Teaching of Malay as a First Language. The specific objectives were to determine the teaching confidence in terms of student engagement; instructional strategies; classroom management and teaching with computers in classroom. Data were gathered from a sample of 53 student teachers. Findings indicate that a majority of the respondents had a high level of confidence in terms of student engagement (Mean: 3.97, S.D: 0.29), instructional strategies (Mean: 3.93, S.D: 0.38), classroom management (Mean: 3.90, S.D: 0.32) and teaching with computers in classroom (Mean: 3.83, S.D: 0.57).