Beliefs about teaching practices and professional development: a proposed framework

Abstract

An ever demand for educational transformation in Malaysia has given the lecturer more initiative to improve their teaching practices. This situation demonstrates the need to explore alternative teaching beliefs in which lecturers can support, guide, and manage their tasks effectively. The assumption of this study was professional development of lecturers can be characterised by their beliefs on teaching functions and they are influenced by their teaching practices.Thus, this study aims to propose an alternative framework for lecturers’ beliefs about teaching and practices for professional development. This study employed thequalitative research design to explore and understand respondents’ views about their beliefs on their teaching and practices.The sample of this study was 25 lecturers who responded to the interview questions. The qualitative data were analyzed using inductive thematicanalysis and NVivo software.The findings of the study showed that the five components of the proposed framework correlated and aligned with the higher educational institutions’ goals and policies.

The proposed framework on beliefs for teaching functions and practices was recommended to enhance professionalism amongst higher educational institutions’ lecturers based on the findings and it could be implemented for assessing teaching functions on their teaching practices for lecturers at any higher educational institutions.