Conclusion Findings from Qualitative Case Studies

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5.3 Conclusion

Looking at the four cases, the researcher fo und that teacher‘s efficacy beliefs were not simple. They were very complicated and multi facetted, and varied even within individual. Being highly efficacious in one aspect of teaching did not provide a guarantee of being highly efficacious in another. For example, in the case of Putri, although she rated herself as being less efficacious, she showed high level of confidence in the classroom. She was open to innovation and invested greater effort in teaching. Teachers‘ efficacy beliefs were subtly related to aspects of teachers‘ lives that were influenced by many factors. Aside from the sources of efficacy information suggested in the literature, there were other factors influencing teachers, including the gender, age, teaching experience and the school aspects of the teachers and the contexts of the tasks. Furthermore, findings of this follow up study showed that the recognition of possible opportunities and the limitation of the teachers themselves also served as an important function of teachers‘ self-efficacy beliefs. In one case, for example, a teacher‘s recognition of high quality input with potentially high student achievement might serve either as a support or an obstacle. In Tina ‘s case, for example, teaching in a high-ranked school did not boost her confidence. The fact that achieving predetermined standards of student achievement, in this case the national examination, was relatively easy stimulated burden, instead of opportunities. The teacher was so overwhelmed by 187 the guidelines offered by the government that she neglected the possibility of exploring and bringing the students‘ to their optimum achievement. As a result, teaching became somewhat meaningless routines to achieve institutional goals, rather than to help students‘ to arrive at their optimum development. A different situation was faced by Putri, where her recognition of her limitation as well as the limited ability of her students had challenged her to invest more effort into her teaching. Her awareness that achieving the nationally predetermined standards was not easy encouraged her to do her best to help her students push themselves to their limit. Such recognition also served as a starting point to explore even a wider opportunity for the students. Instead of taking the students‘ limitation for granted, she created an atmosphere that provided the students with meaningful contextual learning. By doing this she hoped to explore students‘ potential to their limits, even beyond the academic standards the government set for them. This in turn would help students develop even more in areas she believed to be more fundamental for their own lives. The findings from this study have important implications and consequences for both English teachers and the teaching profession in the region studied in particular, and in the field of teachers‘ efficacy research in general. They also open up further opportunities to explore for example the extent to which high efficacy is ideal for the quality improvement of teachers. In addition, such findings also led to a challenging further inquiry about what factors within and outside teachers that a re possible to elevate teachers‘ potential and performance. 188 Further exploration, discussion, and elaboration on these implication and consequences will be given in the following chapters on the discussion and interpretation of the findings. 189

Chapter 6 Discussion and Interpretation

6.1 Overview

This chapter presents the discussion and interpretation of the findings from the present study. It is presented in a framework that serves to provide answers for the key questions that have driven this study. As a back drop to the discussion I briefly describe the status of the teaching profession from the Indonesian perspective. This description will frame the discussion and interpretation of the findings. In addition, in an effort to provide a comprehensive contextual basis for understanding my interpretation of the findings, I also considered it necessary to present a description of the trends in teaching English in the region at the time the data were collected.

6.2 Teaching profession and the teaching of English in Indonesia

As discussed in the background chapter, being a member of the teaching profession in Indonesia offers teachers high social status. However, this high social status does not provide teachers with high levels of privilege, academic recognition, and good financial returns. Teachers are stereotyped as being those who live modest and simple lives. In addition, the poor salary of teachers very often requires them to take on other jobs to support themselves and their families.