Curriculum orientation of lecturers in teacher training college in Malaysia

Abstract

Curriculum development in teacher training college can be facilitated by indentifying the lecturers curriculum orientation. This study focuses on curriculum orientation of lecturer in Teacher Training Colleges (TTC) in Malaysia. Data were collected through questionnaire survey using the Curriculum Orientation Inventory, an instrument developed by Cheung and Wong (2002) which measures five orientations: academic, cognitive process, social reconstruction, humanistic, and technological. A total of 472 lecturers from 9 different TTC were involved in the questionnaire survey. Descriptive statistic and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were applied to analyze the findings. Results show that lecturers generally favor all five curriculum orientations with technological orientation ranked highest and cognitive ranked lowest. There is a significant difference in lecturers’ cognitive orientation based on teaching experience in TTC. Lecturers teaching between 18 to 23 years are more inclined to cognitive orientation compared to those teaching between 12 to 17 years. Results obtained could enhance the understanding of TTC lecturers’ curriculum orientation and help give an input to improve future teacher training curriculum program in TTC.