Objective four: To infer PSTs development using the measurement

This study has provided the evidence that the subject knowledge for teaching is interconnected with the views reflected in KE, PTE and OBE. In the concurrent validity test for specific subject knowledge of science inquiry skills (i.e. the TISP) , the SETSIS revealed positive but very weak relationships between self-efficacy in teaching using SIS and the subject knowledge tested. The findings also provided a significant emphasis on expectancy of belief in teaching outcomes (i.e. OBE) being weak which is related to the subject knowledge possessed. The findings reveal the important role

of belief in developing teacher’s specific owned knowledge (i.e. in teaching using science inquiry skills), a similar discovery found in Pajares (1992).

The predictive model infers performance of content knowledge with a linear trend and significant to two predictive factors. It explains for the small variability of the response data but indicates that the predictor factors (i.e. PTE and OBE) can provide information on the predictive variable. This information suggests PTE and OBE are among the contributing factors to infer the content knowledge performance with contradicting contribution.The predictive model informs that the content knowledge increased expectancy belief in teaching outcomes but decreased their personal teaching practice.

In the context of the performance of PST’s content knowledge, this predictive model infers that the subject knowledge can increase the belief in outcomes of using science inquiry skills, but this is not reflected in PST’s belief about their personal capability of teaching using the skills in classroom. This finding addressed that the existing assessments of content knowledge used in the current programme, seem to well reflect the belief on the outcomes of teaching but are not enough to reflect the personal belief in teaching capability. It suggests the content knowledge is able to develop belief in good outcomes by using the skills but at the same time increases doubt in personal capability of using the skills in the science classrooms.

This study further investigated the contribution of the SETSIS components in relation to science teaching performance using data of teaching practice assessment provided by the ITE. The findings reveal there is no significant correlations between the teaching practice in all the factors. The correlations were positive except for PTE. Subsequently, it provided further evidence in the context of the teaching practices in Malaysia by the multiple regressions model. The predictive model suggests that the PSTs’ performance in teaching practices is dependent on a positive factor of KE. However, after considering the contribution of the KE, PTE contributes negatively to the practice performance.

The predictive model explains the observed issues in the context of the performance of Malaysian pre-service and novice teachers’ performance in using science inquiries in the classrooms. Thus, PSTs were able to state the importance of using science inquiry skills in the classroom but not incoporating them during classroom teaching a similar outcome were found in the studies of Hairiah and Keong (2011) and Rauf (2013). It seems that PSTs and novice teachers failed to implement the planned science inquiry skills task in the classroom because they personally did not have the belief and self-confidence to use the task (i.e. negative contributor of PTE) even

though they have the belief that they had the knowledge about it (i.e. positive contributor of KE). Thus, this study seems to inform the lack of factors for the unsuccessful implementation of PST knowledge in the teaching practice of using science inquiry skills in the classroom.

The findings from this current study have drawn attention to the extent that subject knowledge and practice knowledge growth in PSTs mirrors their growth of self- efficacy. This study has highlighted differences and similarity in results which from previous literature related to self-efficacy and the relationship of the subject knowledge and practice knowledge of teachers. Thomson et al. (2017) for instance found that there are a strong link between self-efficacy in teaching science to subject knowledge, and instructional knowledge in PSTs’ education; yet the practice performance is a better predictor of future self-efficacy. In the other hand, Wyatt (2010) found that they are unevenly developed growth of teacher knowledge and TSE in a PST partly because of the constraints imposed by the curriculum and its context.

In the context of the new curriculum implementation in Malaysia, the findings call for some explanations about belief in personal teaching capability in using science inquiry skills. PSTs’ perceived belief in the knowledge possession and belief in the value of the outcomes of using inquiry skills in teaching science.This is well reflected with their growth in the teaching task and the subject knowledge, but it is not the same direction as their growth of belief in their personal capability of teaching. It seems that the two types of assessments used by ITE enable to develop the growth of the teacher’s belief in knowledge efficacy and their belief in outcomes efficacy, nevertheless shows negative results on the belief of the their personal efficacy.

The findings in the predictive of the SETSIS reveal that the SETSIS model in this study is able to predict the content knowledge performance (i.e. the TISP) and the teaching practice assessments of pre-service teachers. However, the results in this study has a weak association with the findings Bandura (1977) had conceptualised. Bandura discovered the association between PTE and OBE as the predictive factors to explain the specific performance. Nevertheless, the models developed in this study had significant information in the contribution of perceived personal teaching capability (i.e. PTE) and the belief in the outcomes (i.e. OBE) to infer the content knowledge performance in difference directions.

Even though Bandura (1977) has conceptualised the role of self-efficacy within the two factors (i.e. PTE and OBE) to infer future behaviour, noticeable results found in the predictive models using multiple regression model were only able to explain the association of PTE and OBE in the specific content knowledge performance. There

were weak association but, the models have given significant information in the contribution of perceived personal teaching capability (i.e. PTE) and the belief in the outcomes (i.e. OBE) to infer the content knowledge performance in different

directions.

This results may support the findings of in Riggs & Jesunathadas (1993) and Riggs et al. (1994), where they uncovered PTE contributed with the higher performances and OBE reacted only with the weak believe. In this study, the content knowledge tested (i.e. knowledge of SPS in teaching science) were fundamentally knowledge learned during school days and not during the programme. The PSTs might

performed in the fundamental knowledge of SPS but still develop their belief of the outcomes of the teaching science using the knowledge.Thus, in order to infer content knowledge of the teaching programme, this study suggests PTE and OBE to be used as a measure factors in TSE.

In the other hand, the model revealed that the two factors of self-efficacy, KE and PTE significantly inferred teaching practice performance. This supports the idea suggested in Robert & Henson (2000) to measure TSE based on the concept of PCK. Likely that the two factors of KE and PTE are consistent with the teacher knowledge model used in the teacher training programme. KE and PTE are able to infer the teaching performance among PSTs. Nevertheless, the findings were unable to explain the significant contribution of OBE and inferred the teaching practice performance. Since the teaching performance were assessed towards the end of BoTP, the OBE might have been self-developed and too strong to be considered in the model. Thus, in order to infer teaching practice performance, this study suggests KE and PTE to be used as a measure factors of TSE.

To conclude, this study presented valid evidence of the three factors as the general construct of the SETSIS instrument. Through a rigorous process, the construct framework of the measure was validated with the main pilot study. It has explained the SETSIS as a measurement model that seeks to explain three factors

(knowledge, belief and practice) underpinning self-efficacy in teaching using science inquiry skills. This study was able to provide validity for the SETSIS through

evaluation of the psychometric properties of the instrument. The findings

acknowledged that the three factors extend the model of teacher efficacy, which informs the self-efficacy in teaching using science inquiry skills but the models utilise different sets of factors to infer performance in context of knowledge and practice of teaching. However, the limit has been set, based on the interpretation of theory and findings in the context of PST education in Malaysia. The validation of the score

interpretation was based on the context rather than the usage of the score in general.