What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison

across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization

As an article review project, I had chosen the article that written by three researchers.
They are Kamisah Osman, Lilia Halim and Subahan Mohd Meerah, and the tittle of the article is
What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison
across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization. This article focus on the needs of
Malaysian science teacher to improve their science instruction based on Malaysian current
demand in teaching science process. The important of the article are, being a guideline for new
teacher to increase their performance in teaching science subject in difference school location as
well as to add up teacher credibility. Besides, it is also can expand education system in Malaysia
base on global demand. So that is why I chose this article as an article review project. Moreover,
these articles also recover our knowledge to be a good teacher. Hence, I divide my article review
into four part, there are; introduction, summary, critique and conclusion.
Therefore, the summary are; this article conducted by three researchers to analyze the
characteristics need by teacher to improve their performance in teaching science base on the
curriculum system in Malaysia. The participants are around 1,690 of Malaysian secondary
science teacher has been chosen to be evaluated. The participants are selected by randomly. The
variables that they use are gender, school location and area of specialization. Then, based on the
result, they summarize that, gender did not give any impact to teacher performance in delivering
knowledge in teaching process. That is mean, female or male teacher can perform well while
they are teaching in class. However, the effect came from the location of the school and the area
of specialization. For example, when a teacher teach in a rural area, they should to be more
creative to handle a problem like lack of facilities in school and lack of general knowledge
around student. That is because the problem can disturb student understanding about the subject.
Then, to handle that problem, this article come out with eight characteristics of teacher needs to
1

What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison
across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization
improve teacher performance in teaching process. The characteristics are; (i) management of
science lessons, (ii) diagnosing and evaluating students, (iii) generic pedagogical knowledge and
skills, (iv) knowledge and skills in Science subjects, (v) managing science facilities and utilities,
(vi) planning science instruction, (vii) integrating multimedia technology in science instruction
and (viii) using English language in science instruction. (Kamisah Osman, Lilia Halim,Subahan
Mohd Meerah, 2006)
Furthermore, the article also finds that the location of school is more important than the
facility in school. So it means school location give a big effect on teacher teaching. Like in rural
area teacher have a great need on upgrading their knowledge and skill in science subject before
teach a student. Otherwise, teachers also need to plan the class session with interesting activity,
so that can improve student understanding about the subject. Thus, the article also covers up the
percentage of characteristic of teacher need from higher percentage to lower percentage based on
the questionnaire survey from the participant. Based on the percentage, the higher percentage is
using English language in science instruction and the lowest is managing science facilities and
utilities. This case happens because currently Malaysian uses the English language as a medium
of instruction for teaching science but in managing science facilities and utilities become the
lowers because teacher can ask for help them by laboratory assistance when they need to use the
facilities.
However, I generally agreed about the article. But, the article should cover completely
why the eight factors give the impact to the teacher performance. That is because, the completely
cover can increase the value of article to be as a reference article to the future researchers.
Likewise, based on the finding, managing science facilities and utilities have a lowest

What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison
across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization
percentage. So, that mean it is less important than other factor or criteria. Nevertheless, in my
opinion, managing science facilities and utilities should not be the last criteria because managing
science facilities and utilities can work together with generic pedagogical knowledge and skills
to upgrade teacher performance. For example teacher can change instructional delivery by
managing whole-class into a small-group student. So, it can improve instructional effective and
enhance the quality of the instruction. Besides, according to Dr. Vicki Gibson students receiving
instruction in small-groups learned significantly more than students who were not instructed in
small-groups.(Gibson, n/a). Meanwhile, it is show the important of classroom management to
the student understanding.
Other than that, for the first and second higher percentage is using English language in
science instruction and integrating multimedia technology in science instruction. In my opinion,
using English language should not too important as the managing in classroom. Yet we know that
the English language as a medium of teaching in science, but not all the student can understand
when we teaching in English. Like in rural area, English is like an alien to them, so to handle
this, teacher should be creative to teach them like asking them to relate the concept to the
phenomenon around them and guide them to do an experiment to make them more
understanding. Similar to the integrating multimedia technology in science instruction, teacher
should not obviously depend on the technology in teaching process, it is because some area of
school gets not enough technology, so teacher need plan science instruction to be more
interesting rather than using technology, like teacher can made worksheets, science kit activity
and soon.

What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison
across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization
Lastly, I summarize that; the increasing of education demand can improve the education
standard in Malaysia. So the article are already covered the need of teacher to improve their
instruction according to the education demand and I like to share a sentence by Dr. Vicki Gibson
that is instruction becomes differentiated when teaching is individualized, sensitive, and
responsive to needs, both teachers and students. (Gibson, n/a)

What Malaysian Science Teachers Need to Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison
across Gender, School Location and Area of Specialization
References:
1. Gibson, D. V. (n/a). Differentiating Instruction:Making It Happen in Classrooms.
treasures, 3.
2. Imaginative Minds Ltd. (2008-2015, n/a n/a). Imaginative Minds Group Teaching Times.
Retrieved november 18, 2015, from Imaginative Minds Group Teaching Times web site:
http://www.teachingtimes.com/kb/14/secondary-school-science.htm
3. Mangiante, E. S. (2013). Planning Science Instruction for Critical Thinking: Two Urban.
open access education science, 12.
4. Matthew L Davies & David E A Crowther . ( 1995, December n/a). The benefits of using
multimedia in higher education: myths and realities. Retrieved november 18, 2015, from
Active Learning 3: http://www.dlab.irtc.org.ua/edl/Davis.htm.
5. Kamisah Osman, Lilia Halim,Subahan Mohd Meerah. (2006). What Malaysian Science
Teachers Need To Improve Their Science Instruction: A Comparison Across Gender,
School Location and Area of Specialization. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and
Technology Education, 60.