FACTORS AFFECTING PRE-SERVICE TEACHER’S SUCCESS ON TEACHING PRACTICUM ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT UMY
Factors Affecting Pre-service Teacher’s Success on Teaching Practicum
English Education Department UMY
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
In a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Siti Nur Paddilah
20120540046
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
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Abstract
Teaching practicum is a teaching practice program for future teachers to
get a vision about what and how teaching is. Teaching practicum has some factors
which influence practicum to be successful or failed. The goal of this research is
to find out the influencing factors of teaching practicum at the English Education
Department (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY).
The design of this research is qualitative approach. The data were
collected by interviews. The researcher used face to face interview and phone
interview. The participants of this research were three students of different batch.
There were two female pre-service teachers and one male pre-service teacher.
The results of this research showed that there were three factors affecting
teaching practicum success, namely personal, school and university factors.
Personal factors consist of gender and personal pressure. Both of them are
influence on pre-service teacher’s success on practicum. School factors consist of
mentor, background of the school, classroom and assignment. Then, university
factors consist of supervisor and teamwork. According to all participants, the most
influencing factor is the school factors.
Keywords: Teaching practicum, teaching practicum factors, teaching
practicum success.
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Chapter One
Introduction
This research discussed factors affecting pre-service teachers’ success on
teaching practicum at English Education Department (EED) of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). The researcher was conducted to find out
teaching practicum in every class of each batch. This chapter presented five
points. The first point is the background of this research. The second point is the
problem of the topic. The third point is the research question. The fourth is the
purpose of this research. The last one is the benefits of this research.
Background of the Research
A professional teacher is the basic need of every country because the
central of education is teachers (Naz, Abida, Munir, & Saddiqi, 2010).
Professional teachers need to improve their teaching quality. Professional teachers
will be able to manage classroom activity, but only high-quality teachers are
capable of being the central of education. Naz et al. (2010) argued that improving
quality of a teacher can be done by improving the quality of education. A trained
teacher can be a high quality teacher if the training is successful.
Practicum or practical experiences are the oldest way to assess college
students as pre-service teachers (Mundalamo & Sedumedi, 2013). Mundalamo
and Sedumedi (2013) argued that pre-service teachers need to be assessed. The
way to assess pre-service teachers is practicum. Mundalamo and Sedumedi (2013)
found that the practicum will help pre-service teachers to explore their teaching
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ability and themselves. The assessment will also give the pre-service teachers
more teaching experiences which will help them to be the professional one.
Practicum is needed by pre-service teachers. Practicum will help preservice teachers to be the professional one (Walshaw, 2009). Practicum will give
pre-service teachers more chances to experience directly a class environment.
During practicum, pre-service teachers will practice what they got from their
college into a real class environment.
Vanslyke-Briggs, Hogan, Waffle and Samplaski (2014) said that
practicum has some advantages for pre-service teachers and the university or
institution. The first advantage is for pre-service teachers. Practicum provides an
experience and an idea of pre-service teachers’ future occupation through
interaction with the faculty supervisor and students. Pre-service teachers are able
to apply their teaching ability, compose lesson plan, and manage effective and
efficient meetings.
Teaching practicum is important preparation of pre-service teachers before
they apply what they already got from their college into real work environment
(Goh, Wong, Choy, & Tan, 2009). Teaching practicum can be the field work for
the pre-service teacher to imagine their future job. It helps them to get some vision
about how teaching looks like.
Teaching practicum experiences influence students’ success or failure.
Rees, Pardo and Parker (2013) found that every pre-service teacher’s class, grade
and material or topic will affect their experience. They, who have ever had
teaching practicum, will understand and are able to estimate what they will do in
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the next teaching practicum. Rees et al. (2013) gave a note that pre-service
teachers who teach in the same grade in previous teaching practicum will be better
than those who did not. In this situation pre-service teachers already know the
characteristics of the students, the topic or material which will be delivered, and
time management. They know everything about the class from the previous
teaching practicum.
Teaching practicum gives visual learning for pre-service teachers (Chien,
2013). In this time, pre-service teachers will practice what they already got from
the college and apply to the school. There are some factors of teaching practicum
that can help pre-service teachers to be successful, namely the location and
background, stress levels, teaching experience, and confidence levels.
Gregory (2014) found that the location and background of the students
will affect teaching practice. The accesible is related with the school sondition and
location. Then the background is related with the students condition. How is the
accesible of the school, how is the facilitation of the school and the background /
condition of the students are affect on teaching practicum. Accessible and
facilitated school will accelerate teaching processes as it will help pre-service
teachers perform their practicum.
Teaching is a stressful profession (Alemu, Kebede, Teshome, & Regassa,
2014). This profession has a lot of tasks to do such as making a lesson plan,
assessing students, practicum class activity, managing students and curriculum
meeting. Those mentioned task are the important things to do. They can be factors
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that can help pre-service teachers finish their practicum smoothly if they can
handle their stress on doing that.
Stress levels, according to Geng, Midfort and Buckworth. (2015), is one of
influencing factors that can affect into pre-service teacher. Geng et al. (2015)
found that early childhood, primary or secondary school gives lower impacts to
the stress level. The successful practicum will affect the future job. Geng et al.
(2015) also found that teaching practicum is the most stressful activity during preservice teachers’ study. When pre-service teachers are stressed, they are unable to
control their mind and the situation.
Teaching practicum has some influencing factors. Stress is one of the
factors (Celix, 2008). There are some factors caused by stress such as personal
factors, communication factors, evaluation factors, external factors, lesson
preparation factors and teaching itself. According to the result of Celix’s (2008)
research, the most influencing factor among those is personal factors.
Celix (2008) showed some reasons why personal factors become the most
stressful. There are eight reasons about it; they are: sticking balance between the
practicum and personal commitment, fear of failing during practicum, fear of
using superior approach, fear of using different methods (approach or techniques),
personal pressure (expecting too much about the class), having better or worse
pronunciation that the real teacher (mentor), imitating another teaching style, and
limit sources. Those are the factors on personal area that make pre-service
teachers stressed.
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Goh et al. (2009) mentioned teaching practicum is an effective way to
increase students’ confidence. Goh et al. (2009) also found that second practicum
will increase students’ confidence from the previous practicum. This way helps
students’ preparation to face the real work after graduating. They are more
confident after having practicum in a class.
Identification of the Problem
The English Education Department (EED) gives pre-service teachers the
teaching practicum activity. This department provides three stages for three
batches. Every stage will take place in different year and location or school. For
example, teaching practicum at the first year will take place at an elementary
school. The second year will take place at a junior high school. Then, teaching
practicum in the third year will take place at a senior high school.
In fact, the current researcher is one of pre-service teachers at the EED of
UMY. The researcher already got teaching practicum in all stages. Based on the
observation and the experience of the researcher, the researcher found that preservice teachers at the EED of UMY had different experiences. Every teaching
practice gave different profits and showed different factors for pre-service
teachers. The researcher also faced some factors that have been mentioned in the
background of this research.
The first practicum for the researcher was at the second semester. At that
time, the researcher did the practicum without firstly being coached. The
supervisor told nothing about coaching and teaching practicum. The practicum
day was a couple days after the announcement. Then, the researchers and the other
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students directly taught at elementary schools. Thus, the first teaching practicum
seemed lack of communication between the supervisor and pre-service teachers.
There was no coaching or some explanations about teaching practicum. The
researcher and other pre-service teachers did the practicum blindly.
The second practicum was at a junior high school. There was a coaching at
the beginning. The communication among the supervisor, a mentor from the
school of practicum, and students was good. The coaching was conducted for two
months. It was quite clear and satisfying. The rule, lesson plan, and even the
teaching materials were discussed better. Everything was running well except the
teaching practicum itself.
Junior high school students were not interested in learning English. The
English class that pre-service teachers held did not run well. The students who
attended were only about ten students of each class. The students were lack of
motivation, lack of interest, as well as uncontrolled class, and they seemed like
avoiding the English class. They did not even bring a note book and dictionary.
Teaching practicum at this time was a bit frustrating for pre-service
teachers. Indeed, the mentor told us backgrounds and characters of the students at
the beginning of coaching. When this second teaching practicum was over, preservice teachers shared their experiences. Most of them felt that this teaching
practicum ran better than the previous teaching practicum. Pre-service teachers
got new experiences about managing class and assessing students.
The third teaching practicum was at a senior high school. Like the
practicum before, pre-service teachers got coaching at the odd semester. The
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coaching ran well. Everything about teaching was discussed better. Even the
lesson plan, materials, and students’ characteristics were discussed better with the
mentor. The mentor explained really well. The mentor even gave a consultation
section.
Similar to the teaching practicum before, there was no big problem during
coaching. The problem came during the teaching practicum. The students were
lack of discipline. As the researcher’s own experience, the first class was at 7 a.m.
to 8.30 a.m. but the students did not come at that time. They came at 7.30 a.m. so
that the first meeting was totally ruined. There were a lot of materials that cannot
be discussed at that day.
At the second day of teaching practicum, there was miscommunication
between me and the mentor. The mentor made a new schedule for pre-service
teachers, and I did not get the newest one so that the mentor was calling me
directly at that day. Fortunately, I already made the lesson plan and the material,
but I was 30-minute late. Although it was quite late, the class ran better than
before.
The next day until the last day the practicum ran better. There were peer
observations and sharing about teaching practicum among the pre-service
teachers. There result was good. Some of pre-service teachers found the new
techniques about controlling students and managing time. Some of them found
another fun during teaching. This practicum was the best practicum during preservice teachers’ practicum.
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These personal experiences happened to other pre-service teachers. They
shared their practicum experiences among them. Then, they found a lot of
similarities happened during the practicum. Based on those experiences, the
researcher wants to know deeply the factors that influence students’ success in the
teaching practicum.
This topic has relations with EED students. The first relation is the EED of
UMY provides teaching practicum which always takes place in the even semester.
The second relation is that the researcher is one of students at the EED of UMY
and she did the practicum too. Those are the reasons why the researcher chose this
topic and the setting.
Limitation of the Research
There are lots of factors that have been mentioned in the background. To
make it more specific, the researcher focused on teaching practicum at the English
Education Department of UMY. The reason why researcher took the limitation on
teaching practicum at the EED UMY is that the researcher wants to make the
research more focus. Besides, in another university, teaching practicum has
different techniques and rules.
Question of the Research
Based on some explained problems, the research question is: What are the
factors affecting students’ success on teaching practicum at the EED of UMY?
Purpose of the Research
The purpose of the research is to find out the factors affecting pre-service
teachers’ success on teaching practicum at the EED of UMY.
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Significances of the Research
This research will help other pre-service teacher to know teaching
practicum deeper. Here are the benefits of this research for different sides.
Pre-service teachers. This research will help pre-service teachers to know
more about teaching practicum and some factors affecting pre-service teachers’
success on teaching practicum. They can get a little description about what and
how they will do the practicum. Besides, pre-service teachers can develop the
successful factors so that they can handle the negative factors on teaching
practicum easier.
Mentors and supervisors. This research will give a little description of
how the mentors and supervisors influence pre-service teachers. Therefore, the
mentors and supervisors can evaluate the teaching practicum by the factors that
the researcher mentions in this researcher.
University. This research can become the program evaluation for the
university. The university can revise some rules or something related to teaching
practicum to make a better program in the next year.
Other researchers. This research can inspire other researchers about
teaching practicum. It will help them who have concerned with teaching
practicum for their research paper.
Outline of the Research
This research has five chapters. The first chapter discusses the background
of the research. It consists of the introduction of the research problems, research
question, research purpose, and benefits of the research. Second chapter is
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literature review of this research. The third chapter talks about the methodology
that the researcher uses for the research. Four chapter finding and discussion. The
fifth chapter is the conclution. Those are the outline of this research.
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Chapter Two
Literature Review
This chapter shows some literatures that are related to the title of this
research. There are three topics in this chapter. The first one is literature about
teaching practicum. Second one is the other one is literature about the factors of
teaching practicum. The third one is conceptual framework.
Teaching
Teaching is carrying a responsible to help pupils learn. This responsible
lead a teacher to give an acitivity inside or beyond classroom. There are some
acitivity on teaching such as leading a discussion, review material, listening and
assessing students, explaning, evaluating student’s papers, planning and creating
and supporting environtment for learning (Ball & Forzani, 2009).
In other hand, teaching is creates a situation to challenge students t test
their knowledge by solving some problem, make a product, performance and
reporting or anlyzing a topic, concept or idea (Buttoms, Presson and Jhonson,
1992 as cited in McTighe and Seif, 2004).
Teaching Practicum
A teacher is an important profession in every country (Naz, Abida, Munir,
& Saddiqi, 2010). A teacher is the basic things that we need to improve education
system. A teacher needs to get more opportunities for practicing what they get
before. The opportunity for practicing is called teaching practice (Walshaw,
2009). Teaching practice is the important phase for pre-service teachers to get
more values from practice. Practicum is the right time for pre-service teachers to
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complete their teaching practice (Mellvile, Campbel, Fazio, Stefanille, &
Tkaczyk, 2014). Mellvile et al. (2104) also found that a biography factor is the
most powerful factor that influences the practicum. At that time, practicum can be
the alignment between practical knowledge and reform-minded.
Practicum is the only way in which pre-service teachers are able to have
their own experience in real class (Aydin, Demirdegon, & Tarkin, 2012). At that
time, pre-service teachers learn how to teach carefully for the next teaching
practicum. It helps them to be more experienced in teaching. Their own
experiences will guide them to teach better. They will able to handle, estimate and
evaluate their own practicum.
Teaching practicum as pre-service teachers’ experiences is a key for
improving educational system (Asplin & Marks, 2013). This key should be
supported by all educational system. It starts from school partnership, internship
(coaching and teaching practicum at the EED of UMY), pre-service teacher
placement, and field experience which should be considered by both university
and department.
Pre-service teachers show different result in managing class. It happens
among them who got practicum class and them who did not. Sokal, Woloshyn,
and Funk-Unrau (2013) found that there are significant benefits in all dependent
variable from their pre and post practicum. Those who got practicum show that
they were greater teacher efficacy in managing classroom than those who did not
take practicum.
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Sinclair as cited in Walshaw (2009) said “successful pre-service teachers
are those who work within a professional community of shared knowledge of and
shared thinking about pedagogical practice, and who are assisted both practically
and emotionally through personal and systematic support” (p. 555).
Additionally, based on the researcher’s experiences, successful pre-service
teachers are they who enjoy teaching, can explain clearly, and can control the
class. They are the pre-service teachers who got support and guidance from the
mentor and the supervisor. They have a good team work among pre-service
teachers as well.
Teaching Practicum Factors
Personal factors. Pre-service teachers’ distress influences the individual
who will be a teacher, the profession, and the educational system (Gardner, 2010).
There was a higher level of stress in all age groups, but no significant result from
gender. The thing that influences them to be stressed is age. The research shows
that the pre-service teachers who are over 24 years old had higher levels of stress.
Deasy, Coughlan, and Mc Namara (2013) found that teaching is kind of
stress job. Kyriacou cited in Gardner (2010) reported that “37% of teachers were
stressed. Their investigation, conducted with a large sample of teachers in
Western Australia, revealed that 45% of Australia secondary-school teachers were
psychological distressed” (p. 19-20). Deasy et al. (2013) found some stress
problems including workload, exam, assignments, teaching practice and financial
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reassures. They rank those factors; workload is the first stressor, exam is in the
second rank, and it is followed by assignment in the third one.
The others factors of stress during teaching practicum is caused by some
factors such as being afraid of failure, being afraid of using different method or
technique, having personal pressure, thinking of being better or worse than the
English teacher or mentor, and having too much campus project and personal
commitment (Celix, 2008). Those fears will lead pre-service teacher to be failed.
Bullock (2012) argued “most teacher candidates seemed to feel the heavy
burden of the marks they felt they would receive on official practicum assessment
forms” (p.153). Bullock (2012) found that pre-service teachers assume that the
theories they got can be applied in teaching practicum in a short time. Thus, this
expectation makes them frustrated when it is not as quick as they think.
The next factor is gender as it influences the psychology. Contrary to
Gardner (2010), Denhere (2011) found that female pre-service teachers are more
stressed during teaching practicum rather than the male ones. It is because females
are more emotional when they face some problems during teaching practicum.
They solve the problem emotionally while male students focus on strategies. This
study took place at Zimbabwa Ezekiel Guti University. There were 72 male and
81 female respondents for this study.
School factors. Hirschkorn (2009) argued that the key of successful preservice teachers is their mentor. A mentor is the one who guide pre-service
teachers. The role is as a model teacher to be copied by pre-service teachers. The
Mentor’s job is to support pre-service teachers and to make sure that pre-service
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teachers are capable of teaching. The mentor gives a limit to do or to avoid some
action. Good communication between the mentor and pre-service teachers can
decrease stress and some teaching problems such as controlling class, managing
time, and delivering materials.
The role of the mentor here is to help pre-service teachers face the real
work place. The mentor can be the best supporter for pre-service teachers at the
beginning of their profession (Kell & Forsberg, 2014; Chandler, Chan, & Jiang,
2013). The mentor is the one that already know the school and teaching. That is
the reason why pre-service teachers need to keep good communication with the
mentor.
Pre-service teachers can ask some helps about implementing curricula,
managing class, managing time or another issues related with teaching to the
mentor. The mentor can also share negative or positive experiences about the
practicum, and this experience also affects the result of teaching pre-service
teacher (Tarman, 2012).
Ssantamu-Nambiru (2010) said that a good communication between preservice teachers and supervisors will help pre-service teachers to be the successful
one. Pre-service teachers can discuss problems that they face during their teaching
practicum time. Supervisors can share what they have already got from their
teaching experience before. They can give some suggestions about teaching
practicum.
Additionally, location of the school is one of affecting factors that can
influence the teaching. Tarman (2012) stated that the distance between school
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where they have field experience and university affects the enthusiasm of preservice teachers. Inline with Tarma (2012), Ryan, Jones and Walta (2012) found
that rural and regional show different benefits for pre-service teachers. The
regional places have more facilities or staffs that can support teaching practicum
itself rather than rural location.
Ryan, Jones, and Walta (2012) also found another factor that helps
teaching practicum to be successful. Ryan et al (2012) metioned that the other
factor is communication. The study explained that the communication among preservice teachers should be good too. Being connected is good for pre-service
teachers. They can share their experiences and get another experience by sharing
it.
Besides communication among pre-service teachers, the communication
between school and university also influences pre-service teachers. Widen,
Mayer-Smith, and Moon cited in Sokal, Woloshyn, Funk-Unrau (2013) reviewed
97 reports on teacher education programs and found that high quality practicum
experiences by high levels of collaboration between the university and school
were essential to foster conceptual changes in pre-service teachers.
Barney and Pleban (2006) categorized four relevant keys of pre-service
teachers’ teaching practicum such as classroom management, classroom
preparation, student leaning, and enjoyable experience. Classroom management is
about controlling the students. Pre-service teachers are to guide and help the
students to focus on what the pre-service teachers deliver. Classroom management
is about pre-service teachers’ teaching preparation. It is such as the tool or media
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that will be used. Student learning is about physical education that pre-service
teachers give to the students. Enjoyable experience is a long term memory about
what they get and have fun during class.
Workload is one of many factors that influences on teaching practicum
(Deasy et al., 2013; Garder, 2010). Most of the interviewees said that they have a
lot of tasks to do in teaching practicum such as making the lesson plan, arranging
the material, and managing time. Everything should be well-prepared for the
teaching practicum.
University factors. One of many factors influencing the teaching
practicum of pre-service teachers is the supervisor from university (Chandler et
al., 2013). Chandler et al. (2013) mentioned the supervisor’s roles for pre-service
teachers. The supervisor can be the guide to prepare what pre-service teachers
need for teaching practicum.
Paulo (2014) found:
“The supervisor has the following functions: i) to participate in the design
of the curricular project for the training; ii) to be responsible for the
implementation of the curricular project in his/her training group; iii) to
monitor the
Practicum process in his/her training group (needs
assessment, guidance of the Final Report of Supervisor Teaching Practice,
support of planning, observation of activity, analysis and feedback of
student performance, mediation of personal and professional development,
formative and continues assessment); iv) to mediate between the
Education Centre and the Higher Education Institution; v) to participate in
mentoring students of students of his/her Training Group; vi) to promote a
climate of communications and collaboration among members of his/her
training group; and vii) to propose to the Internship Committee the final
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grade of the students, taking into account his/her on own and the
Cooperating Teacher’s assessment, and the grade awarded in the public
defense of the Final report of Supervised Teaching Practice.” (p. 19)
Pre-service teachers who have a good relationship with the supervisor and
are known as a knowledgeable person by other pre-service teachers tend to use
teaching method or any ideas they learned from university rather than pre service
teachers who are not getting close enough to their supervisor (Asplin & Marks,
2013). It proves that supervisor can be an advisor for their pre-service teachers.
The pre-service teachers should feel free to share their confusion during teaching
practicum. In this situation, the supervisors can be called as “the expert” because
they got the experience first.
There next influencing factor is tewamwork. Teamwork is the factors
came from university. this factors is different with the previous factor. This
factors were affected by pre-service teacher ot the supervisor. Teamwork showed
how the relationship, teamwork and communication among pre-service teacher.
As mentioned by Tarricone and Luca (2002), teamwork is some people who are
working together in coopoerative environtment to achieve a team goal by sharing
knowledge and skills. In line with Tarricone and Luca (2002), pre-service teacher
in were place as a team. They were asked by university to teach in a group not
individually.
Conceptual Framework
Teaching Practicum is a kind of a section for pre-service teachers to
practice and apply what they get in the real activity. In this section, pre-service
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teachers are asked by the university to teach in a school. They will be supervised
by the lecturer from the university and guided by the mentor. The mentor is a
teacher from the school who asked by university to guide pre-service teacher.
There should be a good communication among pre-service teachers, the
supervisor and the mentor.
Teaching practicum probably takes place during the students’ study. At the
English Education Department of UMY, teaching practicum takes place during
their full-time study. Usually, this program is conducted at the middle or the end
of even semester. They will firstly be coached by the mentor/guide from the
school in the odd semester.
There are some factors influencing the teaching practicum. The factors are
personal factors, school factors, and university factors. The personal factor is a
factor faced by pre-service teachers and coming from themselves. As mentioned
by the previous study, stress is one of the problems caused by the personal factor.
The other factor is school factors. School factors are the factors caused by
the school or the place where the pre-service teachers conduct the teaching
practicum. The study has mentioned some problems on school factors, such as the
mentor, the students, location and condition of the school and the students, and
workload.
The other factor is university factors that the problem is originated from
university; usually comes from the supervisor and pre-service teacher. The study
shows that the relationship between the supervisor and pre-service teachers, the
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relationshp among pre-service teacher, and relationship between the supervisor
and the mentor really influence the pre-service teachers during their practicum
There is a figure to draw the factors of teaching practicum below. The
figure explains the causes of personal factors, school factors and university
factors. This figure explains the factors and the cause of the factors.
Figure 1. Teaching practicum factors.
Teaching
Practicum
Factors
Stress
Mentor
Location
Rural
Regional
Personal
Preasure
workload
University
School
Personal
Communication
Classroom
Managing
Class
Class
preparation
Students
Experiences
Assignments
Lesson
Plan
Material
Supervisor
Pre-service
teacher
Communication
Managing
Time
Communication
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Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology used in this research. This chapter
consists of four sub-chapters. There are research design, setting of the research,
participants of the research, data collection method and data analysis. Research
design discusses the design and the reasons why the researcher used this design.
Setting and participants of the research discuss where the research was conducted
and who the participants in this research were. Data collection method describes
the way to collect the data. Data analysis explains steps of analyzing the data.
Research Design
This research used qualitative research method. According to Garson
(2001), qualitative approach is an empirical approach. It means that qualitative
approach can be used as a method for an experience research. The reason why
researcher choose this aproach is because the researcher want to dig out preservice teachers experiences as well. The point of this research is to know some
possible factors affecting pre-service teacher success on teaching practicum that
are shown up during pre-service teachers’ practicum experiences.
Setting and Participants of the Research
Setting. This research was held at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. There are some reasons why the
researcher chose the department. First, the English Education Department
provides teaching practicum so that all of students in this department are preservice teachers. They are doing teaching practicum in their internship. Based on
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the researcher’s experience and observation, the researcher faced some problem
during practicum. The researcher was curious about the possible problems faced
by other pre-service teachers. The second reason is this research is under
researched. It will be the first research teaching practicum in this department.
Participants. The participants of this research were three students of
English Education Department. There were two requirements for the participants.
The first requirement was each participant should have finished teaching in
different levels to make more reliable interview result. Second requrements was
the participant should in different batch.
The participants were use pseudonym. Pseudonym is the fake name, so all
of participants was namely fake. The reason why the participants used fake name
was the researcher want to keep the participant’s privacy. They were Rita, Dina,
and Toni.
The first participant was Rita. She was at the 6th semester and she had
finished her teaching practicum. She taught at elementary, junior and high school
already. The second participant was Dina. She was in 4 th semester and she has not
finished her teaching practicum yet. She only had practicum at elementary and
junior high school when the researcher interview her. The third participant was
Toni. He was in semester 2 nd. He is the youngest among all participants. He has
finished his practicum at elementary school only. He was the only male
participant
.
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Data Collection Method
The data were collected by interviews. According to Sharma (2010),
interviews are more accurate than another data collection method because
interviews can reveal lines of thought that often miss while doing survey data. In
line with Sharma (2010), Creswell (2012) said that interviews provide information
that can be found directly while you are doing an observation. Also, interviews
allow the participants to describe the detail of the information.
The interviews used 6 guidelines. There were a couple follow-up questions
which were unlisted in the interview guideline. The follow-up questions were
different in each participant/interview. The follow-up questions depended on the
participants’ answers to the researcher question. Hence, the follow up questions
were the development from interview guideline in which the researcher felt it was
necessary to ask deeper.
As mentioned in the first requirements before, the interviews were done
after all the participants finished their teaching practicum at some levels. The
reasons from the requirements were because the researcher wanted to make the
data more reliable and valid. Besides, the researcher wanted to make the
participants’ score their teaching practicum from the first up to the last day, to
judge which one was more successful.
The first and third participants were interviewed by phone and the second
participant interviewed face to face. The interview was on long holiday and the
participants were stay at their home in other province, so that some participants
were interviewed by phone because the researcher could not meet or doing the
26
face to face interview. According to Cresswell (2013), interviews could be done
by phone, mails or face to face. Interviews can reduce the time and both of the
researcher and participants do not need to travel to meet up (Irvine, 2010).
Considering that the first and third participants stayed in a different province so
that this type of interview as really helpful for the researcher.
Before the interview, the researcher made an interview guideline and
prepared some possible tools needed while doing the interview. The interview
guideline consisted of some questions related to the teaching practicum. The
possible tools were notebook and a voice recorder. The notebook used to write list
of the questions to be asked to the participants. Voice recorder used to record the
proses of interviews. The interviews were conducted in the Indonesian language
because it is the first language of the interviewees and interviewer. Thus, it is
understandable for both of them.
Data Analysis
After the data were collected, the researcher analyzed the data. This step is
called data analysis. There were some steps in data analysis. First, the researcher
transcribed the interview. Transcribing means transforming the audio or record of
the interview or conversation into a written script (Hancock, Ockleford, &
Windridge, 2009).
The second step was member-checking. Member checking is a section
where the participants were shown the transcribed interview by the researcher.
After the participants finished their checking, they returned the transcript to the
27
researcher. All the participants agreed with the transcription sent back to the
researcher.
The third step was coding. “Coding refers to the process of assigning
numerals or other symbols to answers so that responses can be put into a limited
number of categories or classes” (Kothari, 2004, p. 123). There were three coding:
open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The steps were used to classify
the results of interview.
Each coding had different points. Open coding was organizing the
transcript to be in line with the question list. Sometimes, the participants answered
the question randomly or unorganized. Thus, the function of this step organized
the data. Axial coding was the next step after open coding. In this step the
researcher categorized the data based on the answer of the guideline only. Then
selective coding was the proses of selecting the point of all result that could be the
answer of research question.
28
Chapter Four
Findings and Discussion
This chapter presents about findings and discussion. The findings report the
interview results from the participants. Then, the discussion contains the
researcher’s discussion of the findings related to the literature review. This
chapter reveals the answer of the research question. The research question is what
the factors affecting pre-service teaches’ success on teaching practicum at the
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta are.
Findings
In this chapter the researcher present how is the participants answer the
question that asked by the researcher to get the research question answer.
Therefor, the result from the enterview had been categorized by the researcher
into some finding. There were 8 findings that would be explained by the
researcher. The research has categorized the finding into 3 categorized, which is
personal factors, school factors and university factors.
Factors affecting pre-service teachers’ success on teaching practicum.
This research was conducted at the English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. All the participants were from different batch. They
were asked by the researcher about their practicum experiences. They answered
the researcher in different response. Considering that the first participant has
already completed the teaching practicum, it seemed that she had a lot of
experiences to tell. She passed the practicum in every stage. She took the
29
practicum program at the elementary, junior and senior high school. It was
different from the second participant. She has not completed the practicum yet.
She only taught at an elementary and junior school. Then, the third participant
was the youngest among the participants. He took the practicum program only at
an elementary school. Thus, his experience was not as much as the elder one. For
more information, the data will be discussed below.
Finding 1: Pre-service teacher’ stress. This finding reported the result of
interview related with stress. There were two participants who were respond this
part. They are Rita and Toni. Rita and Toni gave different respond about stress.
Rita is female pre-service teacher and Toni is male pre-service teacher. Rita was a
bit stressed and Toni was relaxed.
She argued that she was not stressed as she mentioned “No, it is fine. I did
not feel stressed” (R.1.26). However, when the researcher clarified her statement,
she changes her mind as she said “I feel a bit stressed when I taught at an
elementary school. The kids were uncontrolled. They ran everywhere. It was
difficult to deliver the topic,” (R.1.27). Then, when having the teaching practicum
at a junior high school she felt stressed as well. “It was because the time was
limited. I got 3 times only. Usually there should be 4 meetings” (R.1.28). The last
practicum was at a senior high school. Rita felt the stress. This time was caused
by the students. They were not disciplined. “It was the first meeting. It was too
early for them. They ignored the first and second class as usual. Then, the worst
was that my class was the first and the second class so that there were 6 students
only” (R.1.29). Those are the response from Rita.
30
The third participant was Toni. He was the only male among the
participants. He argued that the practicum was fun. Indeed, he liked it. “I did not
feel any stress. It was fine” (R.3.12). He told the researcher that the practicum was
fun. “It was fun. Teaching elementary kids was easy but sometime it was difficult
too. It was good” (R.3.1).
Those respond reported that they have different feeling about their teaching
practicum. Rita was stressed and Toni was relaxed. They also mentioned the
reason why she / he is stressed or relaxed. Even Rita has completed her teaching
practicum at all level but she was stressed still. This condition is quite different
with Toni. He has not completing his teaching practicum at all levels. He was
finished teaching practicum at one level only and it was Elementary school.
Finding 2: Mentors. Mentor was second finding. This finding was
reported how far mentor was influence on teaching practicum. All participant
were responded this section. Rita, Dina and Toni responded this section quite
same. All aof them agreed that mentor was quite influence in their practicum.
She said that the mentor was incredible. “The coaching was good enough.
The mentor told us how to teach elementary students. The mentor guided us well”
(R.1.13). “The mentor was not good enough. The mentor did not observe us while
we were teaching. The mentor taught us how to make the lesson plan only”
(R.1.14). “The mentor at the senior high school was good. The mentor guided us
really well and taught us how to make a good lesson plan as well. The mentor
even observed us while we were teaching” (R.1.15). Dina gave a positive
31
response as well. She said, “The teachers were enthusiastic” (R.2.13). “The
relationship with the junior high school was not good. I felt that the mentor was a
bit ignoring us” (R.2.16). “The Elementary mentor told us school’s condition, the
facilities and the students’ condition as well” (R.3.15).
Those response was reported that mentor was quite influence for teaching
practicum. Teaching practicum could be good if the mentor have a good
communication and guide pre-service teacher well, but the practicum could be
failed if the mentor have bad communication and the pre-service tacher were not
guided well.
Finding 3: Location and Background. Location and background was
related with school condition, which is rural or regional, accessable or not,
facilitated or not. Sometimes the school in rural have limited access and not
facilitated as well. The accesible and facilitation were influences on teaching
practium. Accessible school and facilitated school will ease pre-service teacher.
“One of the problems comes from school was that we needed more rooms
for practicum” (R.2.9). “The class was outdoor” (R.2.10). “There was not any
white board for teaching. Pre-service teachers needed to talk a loud, like
screaming, to make the students hear while they were teaching” (R.2.12).
There was one respond from one participants only. She was Dina, second
participant. Rita and Toni have no respond about location and background. They
do not have any problem, but Dina was mentioned that she was placed in school
that have limited roo. It kinds of limited facilitation. She was teaching in outdoor,
32
without any facilitation. She tought with no white board or other facilitated. This
experiences told that if the school facilitated well the teaching practicum could
run well. Facilitation was really influence on teaching practicum, teaching
practicum coud be failed when teaching practicum were did like Dina
experiences.
Finding 4: Classroom. This finding reported how was classroom could
influence on teaching practicum. This finding were collected by all respond from
all participant. Even they have different experienes but,they agreed that
classroom was quite influenced on teaching practicum.
“Each practicum gave me different experiences because I taught different
students in different batch, teaching at an elementary school, a junior high school,
and a senior high school was different” (R.1.1). “Pre-service teachers went around
controlling each group of junior high school students” (R.1.6). “I had different
experiences. I was teaching at an elementary school for my first teaching
practicum and there were so many kids. I taught them in a group. There were
about four to five pre-service teachers handling 20 s students at a class.
Meanwhile, at a junior high school I taught 10 students only with other 2 preservice teachers” (R.2.1). “Then, at a junior high school, the students were
guidable. But, sometimes they were still hard to be guided. They were busy with
their own activity when I commanded them to do a task or when I gave them
discussion time which was working in a group. They discussed the other thing out
of my topic” (R.1.3). “Teaching kids was fun. The topic should be delivered but
33
they were still kids. It was the hardest thing but fun” (R.3.2). “The problem was
that they liked running and they cannot seat quietly. It was the problem” (R.3.4).
This response were reported that classroom is influence by some factors,
such as class management, student’s condition, class experiences and class
preparation. This finding is categorized into classroom factors because all caused
was happend in a class. From this respond pre-service teacher could learn how to
manage the class, the students, and class preparation by the previous experiences.
Learn from the experiences and try to do somthing better for the next teaching
practicum.
Finding 5: Assignments. This finding reported that assignment could be
one of factors in teaching practicum. Thi finding related with pre-service teacher
task to attract students in class. The way or the method and teaching material that
pre-service prepare before the class is begin.
“Elementary students are happy while playing. I designed the class with
singing, playing games, or doing something. Thus, they got the materials while
playing. Alhamdulillah, it worked so that I just stressed at the first meeting”
(R.1.30). Then, second participant explained, “It might come from us, the preservice teachers. We should prepare the material better, maybe with ice breaking”
(R.2.24).
Assignments actually consist of some tasks that should be done by preservice teachers. It is about teaching materials, lesson plan and time management.
Rita and Dina responded this question by explaining the way she taught in the
34
class. The teaching practicum could be the success teaching practicum if the preservice teacher did the assignment well. They could prepared teaching material,
lesson plan and managing time a long day before teaching practicum. They could
discussed with the mentor first, so teaching practicum could be really help to be
success. In other hand, if pre-service teacher could not have a good preparation
about the lesson plan, taching material and time management, they could be
failded on their teaching practicum.
Finding 6: University Factors. The next finding was how far university
influences teaching practicum. This finding was responded by all participants
differently. Some of the respond university role in pre-service teacher practicum.
There were participants agreed that university was influence on their teaching
practicum, and there is one participants who stated that university role was not
influences.
“Yes, they did. They did not give any problem actually. It was just about
scheduling, the schedule on submitting assignment and the date of practicum”
(R.3.16 -17). , “Yes, if university did not exist, we (pre-service teachers) would
not teach too. Everything about practicum was taken care by the university such
as looking for the school and arranging all licenses. We just came and taught”
(R.3.21). “For me, teaching practicum is kind of field experience, University did
not have any relation so that it is all on us. We created the lesson plan and taught
by ourselves” (R.2.14). “Emhh from university, I think the university did the best.
It was good that the university gave coaching and observation” (R.1.12).
35
English Education Department UMY
A Skripsi
Submitted to the Faculty of Language Education
In a Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Siti Nur Paddilah
20120540046
English Education Department
Faculty of Language Education
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta
2016
i
1
Abstract
Teaching practicum is a teaching practice program for future teachers to
get a vision about what and how teaching is. Teaching practicum has some factors
which influence practicum to be successful or failed. The goal of this research is
to find out the influencing factors of teaching practicum at the English Education
Department (EED) of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY).
The design of this research is qualitative approach. The data were
collected by interviews. The researcher used face to face interview and phone
interview. The participants of this research were three students of different batch.
There were two female pre-service teachers and one male pre-service teacher.
The results of this research showed that there were three factors affecting
teaching practicum success, namely personal, school and university factors.
Personal factors consist of gender and personal pressure. Both of them are
influence on pre-service teacher’s success on practicum. School factors consist of
mentor, background of the school, classroom and assignment. Then, university
factors consist of supervisor and teamwork. According to all participants, the most
influencing factor is the school factors.
Keywords: Teaching practicum, teaching practicum factors, teaching
practicum success.
2
Chapter One
Introduction
This research discussed factors affecting pre-service teachers’ success on
teaching practicum at English Education Department (EED) of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY). The researcher was conducted to find out
teaching practicum in every class of each batch. This chapter presented five
points. The first point is the background of this research. The second point is the
problem of the topic. The third point is the research question. The fourth is the
purpose of this research. The last one is the benefits of this research.
Background of the Research
A professional teacher is the basic need of every country because the
central of education is teachers (Naz, Abida, Munir, & Saddiqi, 2010).
Professional teachers need to improve their teaching quality. Professional teachers
will be able to manage classroom activity, but only high-quality teachers are
capable of being the central of education. Naz et al. (2010) argued that improving
quality of a teacher can be done by improving the quality of education. A trained
teacher can be a high quality teacher if the training is successful.
Practicum or practical experiences are the oldest way to assess college
students as pre-service teachers (Mundalamo & Sedumedi, 2013). Mundalamo
and Sedumedi (2013) argued that pre-service teachers need to be assessed. The
way to assess pre-service teachers is practicum. Mundalamo and Sedumedi (2013)
found that the practicum will help pre-service teachers to explore their teaching
3
ability and themselves. The assessment will also give the pre-service teachers
more teaching experiences which will help them to be the professional one.
Practicum is needed by pre-service teachers. Practicum will help preservice teachers to be the professional one (Walshaw, 2009). Practicum will give
pre-service teachers more chances to experience directly a class environment.
During practicum, pre-service teachers will practice what they got from their
college into a real class environment.
Vanslyke-Briggs, Hogan, Waffle and Samplaski (2014) said that
practicum has some advantages for pre-service teachers and the university or
institution. The first advantage is for pre-service teachers. Practicum provides an
experience and an idea of pre-service teachers’ future occupation through
interaction with the faculty supervisor and students. Pre-service teachers are able
to apply their teaching ability, compose lesson plan, and manage effective and
efficient meetings.
Teaching practicum is important preparation of pre-service teachers before
they apply what they already got from their college into real work environment
(Goh, Wong, Choy, & Tan, 2009). Teaching practicum can be the field work for
the pre-service teacher to imagine their future job. It helps them to get some vision
about how teaching looks like.
Teaching practicum experiences influence students’ success or failure.
Rees, Pardo and Parker (2013) found that every pre-service teacher’s class, grade
and material or topic will affect their experience. They, who have ever had
teaching practicum, will understand and are able to estimate what they will do in
4
the next teaching practicum. Rees et al. (2013) gave a note that pre-service
teachers who teach in the same grade in previous teaching practicum will be better
than those who did not. In this situation pre-service teachers already know the
characteristics of the students, the topic or material which will be delivered, and
time management. They know everything about the class from the previous
teaching practicum.
Teaching practicum gives visual learning for pre-service teachers (Chien,
2013). In this time, pre-service teachers will practice what they already got from
the college and apply to the school. There are some factors of teaching practicum
that can help pre-service teachers to be successful, namely the location and
background, stress levels, teaching experience, and confidence levels.
Gregory (2014) found that the location and background of the students
will affect teaching practice. The accesible is related with the school sondition and
location. Then the background is related with the students condition. How is the
accesible of the school, how is the facilitation of the school and the background /
condition of the students are affect on teaching practicum. Accessible and
facilitated school will accelerate teaching processes as it will help pre-service
teachers perform their practicum.
Teaching is a stressful profession (Alemu, Kebede, Teshome, & Regassa,
2014). This profession has a lot of tasks to do such as making a lesson plan,
assessing students, practicum class activity, managing students and curriculum
meeting. Those mentioned task are the important things to do. They can be factors
5
that can help pre-service teachers finish their practicum smoothly if they can
handle their stress on doing that.
Stress levels, according to Geng, Midfort and Buckworth. (2015), is one of
influencing factors that can affect into pre-service teacher. Geng et al. (2015)
found that early childhood, primary or secondary school gives lower impacts to
the stress level. The successful practicum will affect the future job. Geng et al.
(2015) also found that teaching practicum is the most stressful activity during preservice teachers’ study. When pre-service teachers are stressed, they are unable to
control their mind and the situation.
Teaching practicum has some influencing factors. Stress is one of the
factors (Celix, 2008). There are some factors caused by stress such as personal
factors, communication factors, evaluation factors, external factors, lesson
preparation factors and teaching itself. According to the result of Celix’s (2008)
research, the most influencing factor among those is personal factors.
Celix (2008) showed some reasons why personal factors become the most
stressful. There are eight reasons about it; they are: sticking balance between the
practicum and personal commitment, fear of failing during practicum, fear of
using superior approach, fear of using different methods (approach or techniques),
personal pressure (expecting too much about the class), having better or worse
pronunciation that the real teacher (mentor), imitating another teaching style, and
limit sources. Those are the factors on personal area that make pre-service
teachers stressed.
6
Goh et al. (2009) mentioned teaching practicum is an effective way to
increase students’ confidence. Goh et al. (2009) also found that second practicum
will increase students’ confidence from the previous practicum. This way helps
students’ preparation to face the real work after graduating. They are more
confident after having practicum in a class.
Identification of the Problem
The English Education Department (EED) gives pre-service teachers the
teaching practicum activity. This department provides three stages for three
batches. Every stage will take place in different year and location or school. For
example, teaching practicum at the first year will take place at an elementary
school. The second year will take place at a junior high school. Then, teaching
practicum in the third year will take place at a senior high school.
In fact, the current researcher is one of pre-service teachers at the EED of
UMY. The researcher already got teaching practicum in all stages. Based on the
observation and the experience of the researcher, the researcher found that preservice teachers at the EED of UMY had different experiences. Every teaching
practice gave different profits and showed different factors for pre-service
teachers. The researcher also faced some factors that have been mentioned in the
background of this research.
The first practicum for the researcher was at the second semester. At that
time, the researcher did the practicum without firstly being coached. The
supervisor told nothing about coaching and teaching practicum. The practicum
day was a couple days after the announcement. Then, the researchers and the other
7
students directly taught at elementary schools. Thus, the first teaching practicum
seemed lack of communication between the supervisor and pre-service teachers.
There was no coaching or some explanations about teaching practicum. The
researcher and other pre-service teachers did the practicum blindly.
The second practicum was at a junior high school. There was a coaching at
the beginning. The communication among the supervisor, a mentor from the
school of practicum, and students was good. The coaching was conducted for two
months. It was quite clear and satisfying. The rule, lesson plan, and even the
teaching materials were discussed better. Everything was running well except the
teaching practicum itself.
Junior high school students were not interested in learning English. The
English class that pre-service teachers held did not run well. The students who
attended were only about ten students of each class. The students were lack of
motivation, lack of interest, as well as uncontrolled class, and they seemed like
avoiding the English class. They did not even bring a note book and dictionary.
Teaching practicum at this time was a bit frustrating for pre-service
teachers. Indeed, the mentor told us backgrounds and characters of the students at
the beginning of coaching. When this second teaching practicum was over, preservice teachers shared their experiences. Most of them felt that this teaching
practicum ran better than the previous teaching practicum. Pre-service teachers
got new experiences about managing class and assessing students.
The third teaching practicum was at a senior high school. Like the
practicum before, pre-service teachers got coaching at the odd semester. The
8
coaching ran well. Everything about teaching was discussed better. Even the
lesson plan, materials, and students’ characteristics were discussed better with the
mentor. The mentor explained really well. The mentor even gave a consultation
section.
Similar to the teaching practicum before, there was no big problem during
coaching. The problem came during the teaching practicum. The students were
lack of discipline. As the researcher’s own experience, the first class was at 7 a.m.
to 8.30 a.m. but the students did not come at that time. They came at 7.30 a.m. so
that the first meeting was totally ruined. There were a lot of materials that cannot
be discussed at that day.
At the second day of teaching practicum, there was miscommunication
between me and the mentor. The mentor made a new schedule for pre-service
teachers, and I did not get the newest one so that the mentor was calling me
directly at that day. Fortunately, I already made the lesson plan and the material,
but I was 30-minute late. Although it was quite late, the class ran better than
before.
The next day until the last day the practicum ran better. There were peer
observations and sharing about teaching practicum among the pre-service
teachers. There result was good. Some of pre-service teachers found the new
techniques about controlling students and managing time. Some of them found
another fun during teaching. This practicum was the best practicum during preservice teachers’ practicum.
9
These personal experiences happened to other pre-service teachers. They
shared their practicum experiences among them. Then, they found a lot of
similarities happened during the practicum. Based on those experiences, the
researcher wants to know deeply the factors that influence students’ success in the
teaching practicum.
This topic has relations with EED students. The first relation is the EED of
UMY provides teaching practicum which always takes place in the even semester.
The second relation is that the researcher is one of students at the EED of UMY
and she did the practicum too. Those are the reasons why the researcher chose this
topic and the setting.
Limitation of the Research
There are lots of factors that have been mentioned in the background. To
make it more specific, the researcher focused on teaching practicum at the English
Education Department of UMY. The reason why researcher took the limitation on
teaching practicum at the EED UMY is that the researcher wants to make the
research more focus. Besides, in another university, teaching practicum has
different techniques and rules.
Question of the Research
Based on some explained problems, the research question is: What are the
factors affecting students’ success on teaching practicum at the EED of UMY?
Purpose of the Research
The purpose of the research is to find out the factors affecting pre-service
teachers’ success on teaching practicum at the EED of UMY.
10
Significances of the Research
This research will help other pre-service teacher to know teaching
practicum deeper. Here are the benefits of this research for different sides.
Pre-service teachers. This research will help pre-service teachers to know
more about teaching practicum and some factors affecting pre-service teachers’
success on teaching practicum. They can get a little description about what and
how they will do the practicum. Besides, pre-service teachers can develop the
successful factors so that they can handle the negative factors on teaching
practicum easier.
Mentors and supervisors. This research will give a little description of
how the mentors and supervisors influence pre-service teachers. Therefore, the
mentors and supervisors can evaluate the teaching practicum by the factors that
the researcher mentions in this researcher.
University. This research can become the program evaluation for the
university. The university can revise some rules or something related to teaching
practicum to make a better program in the next year.
Other researchers. This research can inspire other researchers about
teaching practicum. It will help them who have concerned with teaching
practicum for their research paper.
Outline of the Research
This research has five chapters. The first chapter discusses the background
of the research. It consists of the introduction of the research problems, research
question, research purpose, and benefits of the research. Second chapter is
11
literature review of this research. The third chapter talks about the methodology
that the researcher uses for the research. Four chapter finding and discussion. The
fifth chapter is the conclution. Those are the outline of this research.
12
Chapter Two
Literature Review
This chapter shows some literatures that are related to the title of this
research. There are three topics in this chapter. The first one is literature about
teaching practicum. Second one is the other one is literature about the factors of
teaching practicum. The third one is conceptual framework.
Teaching
Teaching is carrying a responsible to help pupils learn. This responsible
lead a teacher to give an acitivity inside or beyond classroom. There are some
acitivity on teaching such as leading a discussion, review material, listening and
assessing students, explaning, evaluating student’s papers, planning and creating
and supporting environtment for learning (Ball & Forzani, 2009).
In other hand, teaching is creates a situation to challenge students t test
their knowledge by solving some problem, make a product, performance and
reporting or anlyzing a topic, concept or idea (Buttoms, Presson and Jhonson,
1992 as cited in McTighe and Seif, 2004).
Teaching Practicum
A teacher is an important profession in every country (Naz, Abida, Munir,
& Saddiqi, 2010). A teacher is the basic things that we need to improve education
system. A teacher needs to get more opportunities for practicing what they get
before. The opportunity for practicing is called teaching practice (Walshaw,
2009). Teaching practice is the important phase for pre-service teachers to get
more values from practice. Practicum is the right time for pre-service teachers to
13
complete their teaching practice (Mellvile, Campbel, Fazio, Stefanille, &
Tkaczyk, 2014). Mellvile et al. (2104) also found that a biography factor is the
most powerful factor that influences the practicum. At that time, practicum can be
the alignment between practical knowledge and reform-minded.
Practicum is the only way in which pre-service teachers are able to have
their own experience in real class (Aydin, Demirdegon, & Tarkin, 2012). At that
time, pre-service teachers learn how to teach carefully for the next teaching
practicum. It helps them to be more experienced in teaching. Their own
experiences will guide them to teach better. They will able to handle, estimate and
evaluate their own practicum.
Teaching practicum as pre-service teachers’ experiences is a key for
improving educational system (Asplin & Marks, 2013). This key should be
supported by all educational system. It starts from school partnership, internship
(coaching and teaching practicum at the EED of UMY), pre-service teacher
placement, and field experience which should be considered by both university
and department.
Pre-service teachers show different result in managing class. It happens
among them who got practicum class and them who did not. Sokal, Woloshyn,
and Funk-Unrau (2013) found that there are significant benefits in all dependent
variable from their pre and post practicum. Those who got practicum show that
they were greater teacher efficacy in managing classroom than those who did not
take practicum.
14
Sinclair as cited in Walshaw (2009) said “successful pre-service teachers
are those who work within a professional community of shared knowledge of and
shared thinking about pedagogical practice, and who are assisted both practically
and emotionally through personal and systematic support” (p. 555).
Additionally, based on the researcher’s experiences, successful pre-service
teachers are they who enjoy teaching, can explain clearly, and can control the
class. They are the pre-service teachers who got support and guidance from the
mentor and the supervisor. They have a good team work among pre-service
teachers as well.
Teaching Practicum Factors
Personal factors. Pre-service teachers’ distress influences the individual
who will be a teacher, the profession, and the educational system (Gardner, 2010).
There was a higher level of stress in all age groups, but no significant result from
gender. The thing that influences them to be stressed is age. The research shows
that the pre-service teachers who are over 24 years old had higher levels of stress.
Deasy, Coughlan, and Mc Namara (2013) found that teaching is kind of
stress job. Kyriacou cited in Gardner (2010) reported that “37% of teachers were
stressed. Their investigation, conducted with a large sample of teachers in
Western Australia, revealed that 45% of Australia secondary-school teachers were
psychological distressed” (p. 19-20). Deasy et al. (2013) found some stress
problems including workload, exam, assignments, teaching practice and financial
15
reassures. They rank those factors; workload is the first stressor, exam is in the
second rank, and it is followed by assignment in the third one.
The others factors of stress during teaching practicum is caused by some
factors such as being afraid of failure, being afraid of using different method or
technique, having personal pressure, thinking of being better or worse than the
English teacher or mentor, and having too much campus project and personal
commitment (Celix, 2008). Those fears will lead pre-service teacher to be failed.
Bullock (2012) argued “most teacher candidates seemed to feel the heavy
burden of the marks they felt they would receive on official practicum assessment
forms” (p.153). Bullock (2012) found that pre-service teachers assume that the
theories they got can be applied in teaching practicum in a short time. Thus, this
expectation makes them frustrated when it is not as quick as they think.
The next factor is gender as it influences the psychology. Contrary to
Gardner (2010), Denhere (2011) found that female pre-service teachers are more
stressed during teaching practicum rather than the male ones. It is because females
are more emotional when they face some problems during teaching practicum.
They solve the problem emotionally while male students focus on strategies. This
study took place at Zimbabwa Ezekiel Guti University. There were 72 male and
81 female respondents for this study.
School factors. Hirschkorn (2009) argued that the key of successful preservice teachers is their mentor. A mentor is the one who guide pre-service
teachers. The role is as a model teacher to be copied by pre-service teachers. The
Mentor’s job is to support pre-service teachers and to make sure that pre-service
16
teachers are capable of teaching. The mentor gives a limit to do or to avoid some
action. Good communication between the mentor and pre-service teachers can
decrease stress and some teaching problems such as controlling class, managing
time, and delivering materials.
The role of the mentor here is to help pre-service teachers face the real
work place. The mentor can be the best supporter for pre-service teachers at the
beginning of their profession (Kell & Forsberg, 2014; Chandler, Chan, & Jiang,
2013). The mentor is the one that already know the school and teaching. That is
the reason why pre-service teachers need to keep good communication with the
mentor.
Pre-service teachers can ask some helps about implementing curricula,
managing class, managing time or another issues related with teaching to the
mentor. The mentor can also share negative or positive experiences about the
practicum, and this experience also affects the result of teaching pre-service
teacher (Tarman, 2012).
Ssantamu-Nambiru (2010) said that a good communication between preservice teachers and supervisors will help pre-service teachers to be the successful
one. Pre-service teachers can discuss problems that they face during their teaching
practicum time. Supervisors can share what they have already got from their
teaching experience before. They can give some suggestions about teaching
practicum.
Additionally, location of the school is one of affecting factors that can
influence the teaching. Tarman (2012) stated that the distance between school
17
where they have field experience and university affects the enthusiasm of preservice teachers. Inline with Tarma (2012), Ryan, Jones and Walta (2012) found
that rural and regional show different benefits for pre-service teachers. The
regional places have more facilities or staffs that can support teaching practicum
itself rather than rural location.
Ryan, Jones, and Walta (2012) also found another factor that helps
teaching practicum to be successful. Ryan et al (2012) metioned that the other
factor is communication. The study explained that the communication among preservice teachers should be good too. Being connected is good for pre-service
teachers. They can share their experiences and get another experience by sharing
it.
Besides communication among pre-service teachers, the communication
between school and university also influences pre-service teachers. Widen,
Mayer-Smith, and Moon cited in Sokal, Woloshyn, Funk-Unrau (2013) reviewed
97 reports on teacher education programs and found that high quality practicum
experiences by high levels of collaboration between the university and school
were essential to foster conceptual changes in pre-service teachers.
Barney and Pleban (2006) categorized four relevant keys of pre-service
teachers’ teaching practicum such as classroom management, classroom
preparation, student leaning, and enjoyable experience. Classroom management is
about controlling the students. Pre-service teachers are to guide and help the
students to focus on what the pre-service teachers deliver. Classroom management
is about pre-service teachers’ teaching preparation. It is such as the tool or media
18
that will be used. Student learning is about physical education that pre-service
teachers give to the students. Enjoyable experience is a long term memory about
what they get and have fun during class.
Workload is one of many factors that influences on teaching practicum
(Deasy et al., 2013; Garder, 2010). Most of the interviewees said that they have a
lot of tasks to do in teaching practicum such as making the lesson plan, arranging
the material, and managing time. Everything should be well-prepared for the
teaching practicum.
University factors. One of many factors influencing the teaching
practicum of pre-service teachers is the supervisor from university (Chandler et
al., 2013). Chandler et al. (2013) mentioned the supervisor’s roles for pre-service
teachers. The supervisor can be the guide to prepare what pre-service teachers
need for teaching practicum.
Paulo (2014) found:
“The supervisor has the following functions: i) to participate in the design
of the curricular project for the training; ii) to be responsible for the
implementation of the curricular project in his/her training group; iii) to
monitor the
Practicum process in his/her training group (needs
assessment, guidance of the Final Report of Supervisor Teaching Practice,
support of planning, observation of activity, analysis and feedback of
student performance, mediation of personal and professional development,
formative and continues assessment); iv) to mediate between the
Education Centre and the Higher Education Institution; v) to participate in
mentoring students of students of his/her Training Group; vi) to promote a
climate of communications and collaboration among members of his/her
training group; and vii) to propose to the Internship Committee the final
19
grade of the students, taking into account his/her on own and the
Cooperating Teacher’s assessment, and the grade awarded in the public
defense of the Final report of Supervised Teaching Practice.” (p. 19)
Pre-service teachers who have a good relationship with the supervisor and
are known as a knowledgeable person by other pre-service teachers tend to use
teaching method or any ideas they learned from university rather than pre service
teachers who are not getting close enough to their supervisor (Asplin & Marks,
2013). It proves that supervisor can be an advisor for their pre-service teachers.
The pre-service teachers should feel free to share their confusion during teaching
practicum. In this situation, the supervisors can be called as “the expert” because
they got the experience first.
There next influencing factor is tewamwork. Teamwork is the factors
came from university. this factors is different with the previous factor. This
factors were affected by pre-service teacher ot the supervisor. Teamwork showed
how the relationship, teamwork and communication among pre-service teacher.
As mentioned by Tarricone and Luca (2002), teamwork is some people who are
working together in coopoerative environtment to achieve a team goal by sharing
knowledge and skills. In line with Tarricone and Luca (2002), pre-service teacher
in were place as a team. They were asked by university to teach in a group not
individually.
Conceptual Framework
Teaching Practicum is a kind of a section for pre-service teachers to
practice and apply what they get in the real activity. In this section, pre-service
20
teachers are asked by the university to teach in a school. They will be supervised
by the lecturer from the university and guided by the mentor. The mentor is a
teacher from the school who asked by university to guide pre-service teacher.
There should be a good communication among pre-service teachers, the
supervisor and the mentor.
Teaching practicum probably takes place during the students’ study. At the
English Education Department of UMY, teaching practicum takes place during
their full-time study. Usually, this program is conducted at the middle or the end
of even semester. They will firstly be coached by the mentor/guide from the
school in the odd semester.
There are some factors influencing the teaching practicum. The factors are
personal factors, school factors, and university factors. The personal factor is a
factor faced by pre-service teachers and coming from themselves. As mentioned
by the previous study, stress is one of the problems caused by the personal factor.
The other factor is school factors. School factors are the factors caused by
the school or the place where the pre-service teachers conduct the teaching
practicum. The study has mentioned some problems on school factors, such as the
mentor, the students, location and condition of the school and the students, and
workload.
The other factor is university factors that the problem is originated from
university; usually comes from the supervisor and pre-service teacher. The study
shows that the relationship between the supervisor and pre-service teachers, the
21
relationshp among pre-service teacher, and relationship between the supervisor
and the mentor really influence the pre-service teachers during their practicum
There is a figure to draw the factors of teaching practicum below. The
figure explains the causes of personal factors, school factors and university
factors. This figure explains the factors and the cause of the factors.
Figure 1. Teaching practicum factors.
Teaching
Practicum
Factors
Stress
Mentor
Location
Rural
Regional
Personal
Preasure
workload
University
School
Personal
Communication
Classroom
Managing
Class
Class
preparation
Students
Experiences
Assignments
Lesson
Plan
Material
Supervisor
Pre-service
teacher
Communication
Managing
Time
Communication
22
23
Chapter Three
Methodology
This chapter discusses the methodology used in this research. This chapter
consists of four sub-chapters. There are research design, setting of the research,
participants of the research, data collection method and data analysis. Research
design discusses the design and the reasons why the researcher used this design.
Setting and participants of the research discuss where the research was conducted
and who the participants in this research were. Data collection method describes
the way to collect the data. Data analysis explains steps of analyzing the data.
Research Design
This research used qualitative research method. According to Garson
(2001), qualitative approach is an empirical approach. It means that qualitative
approach can be used as a method for an experience research. The reason why
researcher choose this aproach is because the researcher want to dig out preservice teachers experiences as well. The point of this research is to know some
possible factors affecting pre-service teacher success on teaching practicum that
are shown up during pre-service teachers’ practicum experiences.
Setting and Participants of the Research
Setting. This research was held at the English Education Department of
Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. There are some reasons why the
researcher chose the department. First, the English Education Department
provides teaching practicum so that all of students in this department are preservice teachers. They are doing teaching practicum in their internship. Based on
24
the researcher’s experience and observation, the researcher faced some problem
during practicum. The researcher was curious about the possible problems faced
by other pre-service teachers. The second reason is this research is under
researched. It will be the first research teaching practicum in this department.
Participants. The participants of this research were three students of
English Education Department. There were two requirements for the participants.
The first requirement was each participant should have finished teaching in
different levels to make more reliable interview result. Second requrements was
the participant should in different batch.
The participants were use pseudonym. Pseudonym is the fake name, so all
of participants was namely fake. The reason why the participants used fake name
was the researcher want to keep the participant’s privacy. They were Rita, Dina,
and Toni.
The first participant was Rita. She was at the 6th semester and she had
finished her teaching practicum. She taught at elementary, junior and high school
already. The second participant was Dina. She was in 4 th semester and she has not
finished her teaching practicum yet. She only had practicum at elementary and
junior high school when the researcher interview her. The third participant was
Toni. He was in semester 2 nd. He is the youngest among all participants. He has
finished his practicum at elementary school only. He was the only male
participant
.
25
Data Collection Method
The data were collected by interviews. According to Sharma (2010),
interviews are more accurate than another data collection method because
interviews can reveal lines of thought that often miss while doing survey data. In
line with Sharma (2010), Creswell (2012) said that interviews provide information
that can be found directly while you are doing an observation. Also, interviews
allow the participants to describe the detail of the information.
The interviews used 6 guidelines. There were a couple follow-up questions
which were unlisted in the interview guideline. The follow-up questions were
different in each participant/interview. The follow-up questions depended on the
participants’ answers to the researcher question. Hence, the follow up questions
were the development from interview guideline in which the researcher felt it was
necessary to ask deeper.
As mentioned in the first requirements before, the interviews were done
after all the participants finished their teaching practicum at some levels. The
reasons from the requirements were because the researcher wanted to make the
data more reliable and valid. Besides, the researcher wanted to make the
participants’ score their teaching practicum from the first up to the last day, to
judge which one was more successful.
The first and third participants were interviewed by phone and the second
participant interviewed face to face. The interview was on long holiday and the
participants were stay at their home in other province, so that some participants
were interviewed by phone because the researcher could not meet or doing the
26
face to face interview. According to Cresswell (2013), interviews could be done
by phone, mails or face to face. Interviews can reduce the time and both of the
researcher and participants do not need to travel to meet up (Irvine, 2010).
Considering that the first and third participants stayed in a different province so
that this type of interview as really helpful for the researcher.
Before the interview, the researcher made an interview guideline and
prepared some possible tools needed while doing the interview. The interview
guideline consisted of some questions related to the teaching practicum. The
possible tools were notebook and a voice recorder. The notebook used to write list
of the questions to be asked to the participants. Voice recorder used to record the
proses of interviews. The interviews were conducted in the Indonesian language
because it is the first language of the interviewees and interviewer. Thus, it is
understandable for both of them.
Data Analysis
After the data were collected, the researcher analyzed the data. This step is
called data analysis. There were some steps in data analysis. First, the researcher
transcribed the interview. Transcribing means transforming the audio or record of
the interview or conversation into a written script (Hancock, Ockleford, &
Windridge, 2009).
The second step was member-checking. Member checking is a section
where the participants were shown the transcribed interview by the researcher.
After the participants finished their checking, they returned the transcript to the
27
researcher. All the participants agreed with the transcription sent back to the
researcher.
The third step was coding. “Coding refers to the process of assigning
numerals or other symbols to answers so that responses can be put into a limited
number of categories or classes” (Kothari, 2004, p. 123). There were three coding:
open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The steps were used to classify
the results of interview.
Each coding had different points. Open coding was organizing the
transcript to be in line with the question list. Sometimes, the participants answered
the question randomly or unorganized. Thus, the function of this step organized
the data. Axial coding was the next step after open coding. In this step the
researcher categorized the data based on the answer of the guideline only. Then
selective coding was the proses of selecting the point of all result that could be the
answer of research question.
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Chapter Four
Findings and Discussion
This chapter presents about findings and discussion. The findings report the
interview results from the participants. Then, the discussion contains the
researcher’s discussion of the findings related to the literature review. This
chapter reveals the answer of the research question. The research question is what
the factors affecting pre-service teaches’ success on teaching practicum at the
English Education Department of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta are.
Findings
In this chapter the researcher present how is the participants answer the
question that asked by the researcher to get the research question answer.
Therefor, the result from the enterview had been categorized by the researcher
into some finding. There were 8 findings that would be explained by the
researcher. The research has categorized the finding into 3 categorized, which is
personal factors, school factors and university factors.
Factors affecting pre-service teachers’ success on teaching practicum.
This research was conducted at the English Education Department of Universitas
Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta. All the participants were from different batch. They
were asked by the researcher about their practicum experiences. They answered
the researcher in different response. Considering that the first participant has
already completed the teaching practicum, it seemed that she had a lot of
experiences to tell. She passed the practicum in every stage. She took the
29
practicum program at the elementary, junior and senior high school. It was
different from the second participant. She has not completed the practicum yet.
She only taught at an elementary and junior school. Then, the third participant
was the youngest among the participants. He took the practicum program only at
an elementary school. Thus, his experience was not as much as the elder one. For
more information, the data will be discussed below.
Finding 1: Pre-service teacher’ stress. This finding reported the result of
interview related with stress. There were two participants who were respond this
part. They are Rita and Toni. Rita and Toni gave different respond about stress.
Rita is female pre-service teacher and Toni is male pre-service teacher. Rita was a
bit stressed and Toni was relaxed.
She argued that she was not stressed as she mentioned “No, it is fine. I did
not feel stressed” (R.1.26). However, when the researcher clarified her statement,
she changes her mind as she said “I feel a bit stressed when I taught at an
elementary school. The kids were uncontrolled. They ran everywhere. It was
difficult to deliver the topic,” (R.1.27). Then, when having the teaching practicum
at a junior high school she felt stressed as well. “It was because the time was
limited. I got 3 times only. Usually there should be 4 meetings” (R.1.28). The last
practicum was at a senior high school. Rita felt the stress. This time was caused
by the students. They were not disciplined. “It was the first meeting. It was too
early for them. They ignored the first and second class as usual. Then, the worst
was that my class was the first and the second class so that there were 6 students
only” (R.1.29). Those are the response from Rita.
30
The third participant was Toni. He was the only male among the
participants. He argued that the practicum was fun. Indeed, he liked it. “I did not
feel any stress. It was fine” (R.3.12). He told the researcher that the practicum was
fun. “It was fun. Teaching elementary kids was easy but sometime it was difficult
too. It was good” (R.3.1).
Those respond reported that they have different feeling about their teaching
practicum. Rita was stressed and Toni was relaxed. They also mentioned the
reason why she / he is stressed or relaxed. Even Rita has completed her teaching
practicum at all level but she was stressed still. This condition is quite different
with Toni. He has not completing his teaching practicum at all levels. He was
finished teaching practicum at one level only and it was Elementary school.
Finding 2: Mentors. Mentor was second finding. This finding was
reported how far mentor was influence on teaching practicum. All participant
were responded this section. Rita, Dina and Toni responded this section quite
same. All aof them agreed that mentor was quite influence in their practicum.
She said that the mentor was incredible. “The coaching was good enough.
The mentor told us how to teach elementary students. The mentor guided us well”
(R.1.13). “The mentor was not good enough. The mentor did not observe us while
we were teaching. The mentor taught us how to make the lesson plan only”
(R.1.14). “The mentor at the senior high school was good. The mentor guided us
really well and taught us how to make a good lesson plan as well. The mentor
even observed us while we were teaching” (R.1.15). Dina gave a positive
31
response as well. She said, “The teachers were enthusiastic” (R.2.13). “The
relationship with the junior high school was not good. I felt that the mentor was a
bit ignoring us” (R.2.16). “The Elementary mentor told us school’s condition, the
facilities and the students’ condition as well” (R.3.15).
Those response was reported that mentor was quite influence for teaching
practicum. Teaching practicum could be good if the mentor have a good
communication and guide pre-service teacher well, but the practicum could be
failed if the mentor have bad communication and the pre-service tacher were not
guided well.
Finding 3: Location and Background. Location and background was
related with school condition, which is rural or regional, accessable or not,
facilitated or not. Sometimes the school in rural have limited access and not
facilitated as well. The accesible and facilitation were influences on teaching
practium. Accessible school and facilitated school will ease pre-service teacher.
“One of the problems comes from school was that we needed more rooms
for practicum” (R.2.9). “The class was outdoor” (R.2.10). “There was not any
white board for teaching. Pre-service teachers needed to talk a loud, like
screaming, to make the students hear while they were teaching” (R.2.12).
There was one respond from one participants only. She was Dina, second
participant. Rita and Toni have no respond about location and background. They
do not have any problem, but Dina was mentioned that she was placed in school
that have limited roo. It kinds of limited facilitation. She was teaching in outdoor,
32
without any facilitation. She tought with no white board or other facilitated. This
experiences told that if the school facilitated well the teaching practicum could
run well. Facilitation was really influence on teaching practicum, teaching
practicum coud be failed when teaching practicum were did like Dina
experiences.
Finding 4: Classroom. This finding reported how was classroom could
influence on teaching practicum. This finding were collected by all respond from
all participant. Even they have different experienes but,they agreed that
classroom was quite influenced on teaching practicum.
“Each practicum gave me different experiences because I taught different
students in different batch, teaching at an elementary school, a junior high school,
and a senior high school was different” (R.1.1). “Pre-service teachers went around
controlling each group of junior high school students” (R.1.6). “I had different
experiences. I was teaching at an elementary school for my first teaching
practicum and there were so many kids. I taught them in a group. There were
about four to five pre-service teachers handling 20 s students at a class.
Meanwhile, at a junior high school I taught 10 students only with other 2 preservice teachers” (R.2.1). “Then, at a junior high school, the students were
guidable. But, sometimes they were still hard to be guided. They were busy with
their own activity when I commanded them to do a task or when I gave them
discussion time which was working in a group. They discussed the other thing out
of my topic” (R.1.3). “Teaching kids was fun. The topic should be delivered but
33
they were still kids. It was the hardest thing but fun” (R.3.2). “The problem was
that they liked running and they cannot seat quietly. It was the problem” (R.3.4).
This response were reported that classroom is influence by some factors,
such as class management, student’s condition, class experiences and class
preparation. This finding is categorized into classroom factors because all caused
was happend in a class. From this respond pre-service teacher could learn how to
manage the class, the students, and class preparation by the previous experiences.
Learn from the experiences and try to do somthing better for the next teaching
practicum.
Finding 5: Assignments. This finding reported that assignment could be
one of factors in teaching practicum. Thi finding related with pre-service teacher
task to attract students in class. The way or the method and teaching material that
pre-service prepare before the class is begin.
“Elementary students are happy while playing. I designed the class with
singing, playing games, or doing something. Thus, they got the materials while
playing. Alhamdulillah, it worked so that I just stressed at the first meeting”
(R.1.30). Then, second participant explained, “It might come from us, the preservice teachers. We should prepare the material better, maybe with ice breaking”
(R.2.24).
Assignments actually consist of some tasks that should be done by preservice teachers. It is about teaching materials, lesson plan and time management.
Rita and Dina responded this question by explaining the way she taught in the
34
class. The teaching practicum could be the success teaching practicum if the preservice teacher did the assignment well. They could prepared teaching material,
lesson plan and managing time a long day before teaching practicum. They could
discussed with the mentor first, so teaching practicum could be really help to be
success. In other hand, if pre-service teacher could not have a good preparation
about the lesson plan, taching material and time management, they could be
failded on their teaching practicum.
Finding 6: University Factors. The next finding was how far university
influences teaching practicum. This finding was responded by all participants
differently. Some of the respond university role in pre-service teacher practicum.
There were participants agreed that university was influence on their teaching
practicum, and there is one participants who stated that university role was not
influences.
“Yes, they did. They did not give any problem actually. It was just about
scheduling, the schedule on submitting assignment and the date of practicum”
(R.3.16 -17). , “Yes, if university did not exist, we (pre-service teachers) would
not teach too. Everything about practicum was taken care by the university such
as looking for the school and arranging all licenses. We just came and taught”
(R.3.21). “For me, teaching practicum is kind of field experience, University did
not have any relation so that it is all on us. We created the lesson plan and taught
by ourselves” (R.2.14). “Emhh from university, I think the university did the best.
It was good that the university gave coaching and observation” (R.1.12).
35