Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices about Implementation of Updated Curriculum:
A Qualitative Case Study in one Mainstream School of West Kazakhstan Albina Kalenova
Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science
in Educational Leadership
Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Education May, 2021
Word Count: 13850 words
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Ethical Approval
53 Kabanbay Batyr Ave.
010000 Nur-Sultan, Republic of Kazakhstan October 2020
Dear Albina Kalenova,
This letter now confirms that your research project entitled: “Teachers’
beliefs and practices about implementation of updated curriculum in a mainstream public school of West Kazakhstan” has been approved by the Graduate School of Education Ethics Committee of Nazarbayev University.
You may proceed with contacting your preferred research site and commencing your participant recruitment strategy.
Yours sincerely
Duishon Shamatov
On behalf of Zumrad Kataeva Chair of the GSE Ethics Committee Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Education
Nazarbayev University Block C3, Room 5006
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CITI training certificate
Acknowledgments
So, I am already completing a two-year academic journey. It seems like recently I was very happy to become a member of the GSE community. During this two-year trip, I was able to inherit the experience of the best educators at Nazarbayev University that I really appreciate. Each professor has a different teaching style, invaluable knowledge and motivating qualities. I was very pleased. The consistent and systematic courses of master’s program guided us to write scientific papers successfully.
Especially, I would like to express sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Duishon Shamatov for help in writing my thesis. It was great luck for me to be his supervisee, as Dr. Shamatov always found time to give me constructive feedback, always offered his ideas and instantly commented via WhatsApp messenger or by email, despite his busy schedule.
I would also like to thank Dr. Anna Cohen Miller and Dr. Naureen Durrani for sharing some of the literature on my research topic.
I am very thankful to my colleagues at school and the head of the department as well, who helped and supported me to combine study with work.
I am also grateful to my father, who has a positive attitude towards all my efforts, as well as to my husband and sister Nurgul, who are always ready to help and take care of my children when I leave for a long time to study in another city.
Abstract
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan began to gradually reform the education system to the level of the most developed countries in the world. In other words, after gaining the independence, the education system has experienced many challenges, for example, the content of the old curriculum focused on memorization rather than the formation of life skills for school leavers. As a result, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the main problems of education system in Kazakhstan were revealed, as the lack of equal access to quality education for students, limited independence of educational institutions, low levels of funding and lack of effective student lending. To address these issues, the introduction of an updated content program in Kazakhstan began in the 2016 academic year.
The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the secondary school teachers’
beliefs and practices of implementation of the updated curriculum in one mainstream school of West Kazakhstan. In-depth study of teachers' practice in implementing the new curriculum, individual interviews were conducted with each participant, their opinions were discussed in detail, and common beliefs were identified. As each participant had different working experience, they had different opinions about the content of the new program, so it made possible to study their beliefs in more detail.
Based on study findings, it was found out that teachers basically have a positive attitude towards the updated curriculum. In particular, the results of the interviews show that with the implementation of the program, teachers had opportunity to participate in various professional development courses, improved their knowledge, developed in all directions, aspired to be inquisitive and innovative. It was also discovered that the program has a positive effect on students. For example, a student taught based on a new content program can gain all the life skills necessary for the 21st century: critical thinking, decision-making, problem-solving, the ability to express themselves freely. However, it was also clear that the lack of the necessary educational resources, increased paperwork, the lack of the necessary technical equipment in some classrooms, and the ineffectiveness of active-learning methods with a large number of students hindered the implementation of the new program.
Key words: updated curriculum, curriculum changes, teachers’ views and beliefs.
Убеждения и практики учителей относительно внедрения обновленной учебной программы в одной из средних школ Западного Казахстана
Аннотация
После распада Советского Союза Казахстан начал постепенно реформировать систему образования до уровня самых развитых стран мира. Другими словами, после обретения независимости система образования столкнулась с множеством проблем, например, содержание старой учебной программы было ориентировано на запоминание, а не на формирование жизненных навыков у выпускников школ. В результате, по данным Организации экономического сотрудничества и развития (ОЭСР), были выявлены основные проблемы системы образования в Казахстане, такие как отсутствие равного доступа к качественному образованию для студентов, ограниченная независимость учебных заведений, низкий уровень финансирования. и отсутствие эффективного кредитования студентов. Для решения этих проблем в 2016 учебном году в Казахстане началось внедрение программы с обновленным содержанием.
Целью этого качественного исследования было изучение убеждений учителей средней школы и практики внедрения обновленной учебной программы в одной общеобразовательной школе Западного Казахстана. Для углубленного изучения практики учителей по внедрению новой учебной программы, индивидуальные интервью были проведены с каждым участником, их мнения подробно обсуждались, и были выявлены общие убеждения. Поскольку у каждого участника был разный опыт работы, у них были разные мнения о содержании новой программы, что позволило более подробно изучить их практики.
По результатам исследования выяснилось, что учителя в целом относятся положительно к обновленной учебной программе. В частности, результаты интервью показывают, что с реализацией программы учителя имели возможность участвовать в различных курсах повышения квалификации, совершенствовали свои знания, развивались во всех направлениях, стремились быть любознательными и новаторскими. Также было обнаружено, что программа положительно влияет на студентов. Например, учащийся, обучающийся по новой содержательной программе, может получить все жизненные навыки, необходимые для 21 века: критическое мышление, принятие решений, решение проблем, способность свободно выражать
свои мысли. Однако было также ясно, что отсутствие необходимых образовательных ресурсов, увеличенное количество бумажных волокитов, отсутствие необходимого технического оборудования в некоторых кабинетах и неэффективность методов активного обучения с большим количеством студентов препятствовали реализации новой программы.
Ключевые слова: обновленная учебная программа, изменения в учебной программе, взгляды и убеждения учителей.
Батыс Қазақстандағы жалпы орта білім беретін мектеп мұғалімдерінің жаңартылған оқу бағдарламасын іске асырудағы сенімдері мен тәжірибелері
Аңдатпа
Кеңес Одағы ыдырағаннан кейін Қазақстан мемлекеті білім беру кешенін әлемдегі ең дамыған елдердің деңгейіне дейін дәйекті реформалауды бастады.
Басқаша айтқанда, Қазақстан тәуелсіздік алғаннан бастап, білім беру жүйесі көптеген қиындықтарды басынан кешірді, мысалы, ескі оқу бағдарлама мазмұны мектеп түлектеріне өмірлік дағдыларды қалыптастырудан гөрі, жаттанды дағдыларға бағытталған болатын. Соның салдарынан, Экономикалық Ынтымақтастық және Даму Ұйымы (ЭЫДҰ) зерттеулері бойынша қазақстандық білім беру жүйесінің негізгі проблемаларының қатарында студенттер үшін сапалы білімге тең қол жетімділіктің болмауы, білім беру ұйымдарының дербестігінің шектеулілігі, оларды қаржыландыру деңгейінің төмендігі және студенттерге тиімді несие беру жүйесінің жоқтығы анықталды. Осы мәселелерді шешу үшін 2016 оқу жылынан бастап, Қазақстанда жаңартылған мазмұнды бағдарламаны енгізу қолға алынды.
Бұл сапалы зерттеудің мақсаты - Батыс Қазақстанның жалпы орта білім беретін мектебіндегі мұғалімдердің жаңартылған оқу бағдарламасын жүзеге асырудағы сенімдері мен тәжірибелерін зерттеу. Мұғалімдердің жаңа бағдарламаны енгізудегі тәжірибелерін терең зерттеу үшін, әр қатысушымен жеке сұхбат жүргізіліп, олардың пікірлері толық талқыланды және ортақ сенімдері анықталды. Әр қатысушының еңбек тәжірибесі әртүрлі болғандықтан, жаңа бағдарламаның мазмұны туралы ой пікірлері де әртүрлі болды, сол себепті олардың сенімдерін жан жақты зерттеуге мүмкіндік туды.
Зерттеу тұжырымдамасына сүйенетін болсақ, жалпы мұғалімдердің жаңартылған бағдарламаға деген көзқарастары оң екені анықталды. Әсіресе олардың бағдарламаны енгізумен қатар, әртүрлі кәсіби даму курстарына қатысып, өз білімдерін көтергендерін, жан жақты дамып, ізденімпаз болуға, жаңашыл болуға ұмтылғандарын сұхбат нәтижелерінен көруге болады. Сонымен қатар, бағдарламаның оқушылар үшін де жақсы әсері бар екені анықталды. Мысалы, жаңа мазмұнды бағдарлама бойынша білім алған оқушы бойынан 21 ғасырға қажетті барлық дағдыларды кездестіре аламыз: сыни тұрғыдан ойлау, тез шешім қабылдай алу қабілеті, мәселені шешу жолдарын анықтай алуы, еркін өз ойын жеткізе алуы. Алайда,
қажетті білім беру ресурстарының тапшы болуы, қағазбастылықтың көбейіп кетуі, кейбір сынып бөлмелерінің қажетті техникалық құралдармен қамтамасыз етілмеуі, белсенді әдіс тәсілдерді көп санды оқушылармен өткізудің тиімсіздігі жаңа бағдарламаны енгізуге кедергі болатыны да мәлім болды.
Түйінді сөздер: жаңа мазмұнды бағдарлама, бағдарлама өзгерістері, мұғалімдердің пікірі мен сенімдері.
Table of Contents
Author agreement ... ii
Declaration ... iii
Ethical Approval ... iv
CITI training certificate ... v
Acknowledgments ... vi
Abstract ... vii
Chapter 1: Introduction ... 1
1.1. Introduction ... 1
1.2. Background of the study ... 2
1.3. Statement of the problem ... 4
1.4. Purpose of the study ... 5
1.5. Research Question ... 5
1.6. Significance of the study ... 5
1.7. Outline of the study ... 6
Chapter 2: Literature review ... 7
2.1. Introduction ... 7
2.2. What is curriculum? ... 7
2.3. The nature of curriculum development ... 7
2.4. The factors that affect teachers’ implementation of the reform ... 12
2.5. Summary ... 15
Chapter 3: Methodology ... 16
3.1. Introduction ... 16
3.2. Research design ... 16
Research site ... 17
Sampling ... 17
3.3. Procedures of the research ... 19
3.4. Data collection ... 20
3.5. Data analysis ... 21
3.6. Ethical consideration ... 22
Summary ... 23
Chapter 4: Findings ... 24
4.1. Introduction ... 24
4.2. Teachers’ views on implementing the updated curriculum ... 24
4.3. Teachers’ views on benefits of the updated curriculum ... 27
4.3.1.Benefits to students ... 27
4.3.2.Benefits to teachers ... 28
4.4. Teachers’ views on challenges of implementing the updated curriculum ... 29
Finding suitable learning resources to cover the lesson objectives... 29
Spending a lot of time on planning lessons ... 30
Accepting new changes in the curriculum ... 30
Increased workload (electronic diary, short-term plans, side meetings) ... 31
4.5. Teachers’ views on how they deal with challenges ... 32
4.6. Summary of the chapter ... 33
Chapter 5: Discussion ... 35
5.1. Introduction ... 35
5.2. Teachers’ beliefs and practices of the new curriculum ... 35
5.3. The benefits of the new curriculum ... 36
5.4. The challenges that face teachers during the implementation... 37
5.5. Summary ... 39
Chapter 6: Conclusion ... 40
6.1. Introduction ... 40
6.2. Revisiting research questions ... 40
6.2.1. What do teachers view about implementation of updated curriculum? ... 40
6.2.2. How do they implement the updated curriculum? ... 41
6.2.3. What are the factors that affect teachers to implement the updated curriculum? ... 41
6.3. Research implications and recommendations ... 42
6.4. Research limitations ... 44
References: ... 46
Appendices ... 51
Appendix A ... 51
Appendix B ... 52
Appendix C ... 54
Appendix D ... 56
Sample of transcripts ... 64
List of Tables
Table 1. Information about the participants ... 18
Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1. Introduction
The school curriculum is a path to academic success for teachers and students, because it involves all learning processes, outcomes in a particular subject matter. As we live in a constantly changing world, the demands of life go on changing, so education system changes as well.
Education system of the country has faced many challenges, such as curriculum was outdated and overloaded, secondary school graduates struggled in finding jobs, due to the lack of basic skills. The curriculum from the Soviet Union focused on memorization, not on life skills, so it was necessary to introduce an updated program.
In 2001 the first President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev noted in his Address to the people that the 12-year-old school should be fully operational by 2020. The main goal of the transition to 12-year education is to teach children 5-6 years old in grade 0 and the introduction of a standard preschool education program.
In his 2005 message, the first President of Kazakhstan said that in order to be competitive with other countries and to make the economy grow rapidly, it is necessary to make changes in the field of education, as the competitiveness of the population is reflected in the level of education (Yakavets & Dzhadrina, 2014). Since, the key documents were developed and educational reforms were initiated regulating state policy in the context of education.
Troudi and Uztosun (2015) stated that curriculum change aims at developing program.
There are several stages of curriculum development process: curriculum design, program implementation, and evaluation. Any changes in school program are focused on improving
the quality of secondary education, although some schoolteachers doubt this and are reluctant to accept new curriculum changes.
1.2. Background of the study
Education in Kazakhstan is a continuous process of education targeting the formation of professional competence through improving cultural awareness, intellectual and physical abilities. The education system plays the main role for the economic diversity of the country (OECD, 2014). However, despite all the efforts of the state, it has an ongoing function to be accompanied by numerous difficulties. Among the main problems of the Kazakhstani education system, the OECD organization indicates the lack of equal access to quality education for different categories of students, the limited independence of educational institutions, their low level of funding, and the lack of an effective student loan system and so on.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan launched a consistent reform of the entire educational complex to the level of the most developed countries in the world.
However, after 1991, the quality of education in the country began to deteriorate rapidly due to lack of funding. It was difficult for the authorities to keep the positive sides of education system from the Soviet Union during the economic and social changes in the newly developing education country.
The educational program acquired from the Soviet Union was characterized as centralized, not adaptable and over-loaded (Yakavets, 2014). During the 1990s, instruction policymakers in Kazakhstan needed to 'nationalize the educational plan to indicate the social and ethnic history, while at the same time there was a focus on "internationalizing" the nation to be ambitious in a world economy. The problems in the education system have been arisen from the shortage of materials, resources, ideas, from the loss of some positive practices of
Soviet model, and from the lack of international encounters. Therefore, it was necessary to make the content of curriculum adaptable in the framework of market economy and the partnership with foreign institutions. Kazakhstan is now experiencing a major change in searching a progressive model of training from global model of education. Thereby, the school curriculum has been one of the areas that recognized for modernization and it was widely discussed in the strategic policy documents and analytical reports, as in OECD, 2014;
NUGSE, 2014; World Bank, 2014. The new national educational program is aiming to build up students’ soft skills, like critical and analytical thinking, management and leadership, functional literacy, decision making and so on. These are the skills that are highly valued in the modern enterprise, to be collaborative with others, presenting ideas and communicating.
Accordingly, the enhancement of children’s competence requires teaching to be shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered or to individualized learning. The adaptable school program takes into account personal characteristics and it tends to be responsive to individual needs and interests. It allows to change the procedures to suit the new conditions as well.
(Mohanasundaram, 2018).
The school curriculum has already been adapted nowadays, updated content has been tested and implemented in Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) and 30 pilot schools across the country.
The actions that have been already taken in the country - the expansion of schooling up to 12 years - mostly by 2016 and to the entire framework by 2019; introduction of new textbooks; introduction of State Compulsory Educational Standards; comprehensive program for in-service teacher training courses aiming innovative pedagogical necessities.
(through Centers of Excellence); introducing new curriculum and assessment system to mainstream schools from the teachers’ experience of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools;
presenting trilingual education to experimental schools first, then to mainstream schools.
(NUGSE, 2014) The 12-year education scheme is based on the 0 grade + 11 grade principles.
The updated educational program has been gradually introduced in accordance with the schedule: (1) 2016 – 1st grade; (2) 2017 – 1 and 2, 5 and 7 grades; (3) 2018 – 1 - 3, 6 - 8 grades; and (4) 2019 – all grades 1-11.
1.3.Statement of the problem
The content of course books, teaching resources, recommendations and methodologies for teachers have been changed respectively with the development of school program (MOES, 2016). In addition, all the mainstream school teachers began to be sent to the in-service trainings to be introduced with the content of updated curriculum and to implement it in their classrooms. As a result, school teachers started to apply new teaching approaches in their lessons, some Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) were opened in different regions of the country on the basis of a new methodology for integration with the best international pedagogical backgrounds. Correspondingly, these intellectual schools are the main centers for transferring the international experiences for other mainstream schools.
However, despite the progress in introducing new school curricula, the experts and policy makers discovered that mainstream school teachers are still challenging in implementing the upgraded program effectively, they struggle with the assessment system, which reflects the students’ priorities and the principles of the education system (MOES, 2014, p.24). In addition, I noticed this problem by myself, when I had opportunities to observe English lessons at mainstream schools. Teachers were struggling especially with developing assessment criteria and assessment tasks. I also realized some English teachers still find it difficult to understand and to implement the changes of school program. Although there is a lot of research in the global arena about the influence of program changes to school teachers and about their perspectives about the curriculum, but I realized that in the context of our country, the number of investigations on public school teachers’ practices of the
updated program is limited.
Therefore, this study aims at examining teachers’ practices about the implementation of school curriculum with an updated content in the context of Kazakhstani educational reforms, namely in the western part of the country.
1.4. Purpose of the study
The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices of implementing the updated curriculum based on their teaching experiences in one mainstream school of West Kazakhstan. Teachers are the implementers of the updated curriculum and therefore it is necessary to investigate their beliefs and practices of the updated curriculum.
1.5. Research Question
This study poses the following specific research questions:
Main research question:
What are the secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices of implementing the updated curriculum in a school in west Kazakhstan?
Subsidiary questions:
1. What do teachers view about implementation of the updated curriculum?
2. How do they implement the updated curriculum?
3. What are the factors that affect teachers to implement the updated curriculum?
1.6. Significance of the study
The study can be significant for several reasons; first, it may discover teachers’ beliefs and practices about implementation of updated curriculum, consequently teachers’ strengths and weaknesses in using curriculum will be identified. In addition, teacher’s voice can be
heard to different stakeholders, such as policy makers, school administrators and professional development trainers to support them in teaching process. According to Hargreavers 1996, (cited in Hanushek, 2011) there has been a shortage of teacher voice in education decision-making. Although, teachers are the people, who know most about school practices, who will improve learning, but unfortunately, they are like the objects of reform, not its’ participants. Second, the study might contribute to the literature and discussions about the importance of teachers’ perspectives on the implementation of new curriculum reform, as the research on this topic is not extensive in Kazakhstani context (MOES, 2014, p.24). Finally, by doing a research I can professionally develop and improve my analytical and research skills.
1.7. Outline of the study
The thesis includes six chapters. Chapter 1 presents the background information about the research topic and states the problem of the research, defines the purpose and the research questions that guided me to study the topic. Chapter 2 introduces the reviewed literature and studies related to the topic. It also gives information about the concepts of the study and discusses the nature of curriculum development followed by the analysis of the factors that affect teachers’ implementation of the curriculum. Chapter 3 discusses the methodology of the research by describing the design, site of the research and sampling procedures. Ethical considerations are also mentioned in this section. Chapter 4 focuses on the study findings that revealed from the analysis of the data collection. Chapter 5 presents the discussion of the results. The last chapter summarizes the whole study, considering the recommendations and suggestions for future research.
Chapter 2: Literature review 2.1. Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to review the literature related to the research topic.
Especially, it defines the main concept of the study, discusses the nature of curriculum development and provides an analysis of the factors that affect teachers’ implementation of the curriculum. The last paragraph provides a summary of the chapter.
2.2. What is curriculum?
The main concepts of the study are related to teachers’ perceptions and practices of implementing the updated curriculum.Teachers’ perceptions of the curriculum derive from teaching experience. The concept ‘curriculum’ is understood in limited and in broad sense.
Some teachers equate it with lesson plans, subject discipline or syllabi, but the broader meaning of curriculum is much more than a statement about the knowledge-content, it does not say about what schools should teach, but it seeks the answer for ‘why students should be taught’. For this reason, Bobbitt (1918, p.42) defines ‘curriculum’ as “a series of things which children and youth must do and experience, by way of developing abilities to do the things well that make up the affairs of adult life”.
The main difference between the concepts ‘curriculum’ and ‘syllabus’ is that the
‘syllabus’ is focused on a specific subject, i.e. the list of topics or units are created by an educator or a professor, while ‘curriculum’ includes the overall content for a particular course which designed by government or institution.
2.3. The nature of curriculum development
The curriculum development is a planned, a dynamic and a systematic procedure to make positive upgrades in the educational framework. There are changes and advancements every time around the world that influence the school educational programs, hence there is
a need to update curricula addressing to general public needs (Mohanasundaram, 2018). This idea is also supported by Aktan (2018) that the curriculum has to meet the needs and interests of the region, the schools and the students. In fact, the Organization for Economic Co- operation and Development (OECD) countries have begun to switch to such an updated content of school education since 1988. And in 1997, countries agreed on a common measurement standard for updated content. In other words, authors Nan-zhao and Mu-ju (2007) claimed the advancement of the program should be guided by the need for changes in organizational, cultural, economic, methodological, legal and socio-psychological relations that have developed in the field of education.
Yakavets (2014) states the curriculum modification in Kazakhstan has been a significant issue in education, especially after gaining independence. The training framework insufficiently mirror the new instruction standard, which focused on personalization and enhancement to enable them to make decisions between academic learning and professional courses. Similarly, Chinese education relied on centralized curriculum, which had less flexibility for many decades (OECD, 2016). Therefore, a qualitative reform of education could be possibly carried out in the context of dynamic socio- economic changes in society and there was a need for detailed strategy. A strategy takes into account the real situation in the education field and potential paths for the development of society and the state. In this case, a flexible program, which is adaptable to rapidly changing real conditions, had developed based on such a strategy (OECD, 2014). In addition, (McKnight, 2018) described curriculum planning, as it is essential to think about the ways how to include modules or activities rather than just thinking about what to include in it. For instance, teacher should ask the questions by himself like are the activities practical for students?Where can I negotiate something different with students? How do my curricular choices demonstrate my respect and care for my students? In the same manner, curriculum
experts Wiggins and Mc Tighe, (2005) consider the pedagogical approach and methods that guide teachers to provide practical support.
Development of curriculum should be functional and relevant to society’s needs, it is a setting for new educational goals to achieve, new evaluation tools to assess and the development of social, physical and emotional skills in terms of the intellectual aspects of a learner. According to Richards (2001), curricular change includes some stages, such as
‘needs and situation analysis’, ‘developing goals and objectives’, ‘course structure’ and
‘teaching approaches and materials’.
Furthermore, in the context of Kazakhstan, the country is now experiencing a major change in searching a progressive model of training from global model of education.
Thereby, the school curriculum has been one of the areas that recognized for modernization and it was widely discussed in the strategic policy documents and analytical reports, as in OECD, 2014; NUGSE, 2014; World Bank, 2014. The new national educational program aims at building up students’ soft skills, like critical and analytical thinking, management and leadership, functional literacy, decision making. These are the highly valued skills in the modern enterprise, to be collaborative with others, presenting ideas and communicating.
Accordingly, the enhancement of children’s competence requires teaching to be shifted from teacher-centered to student-centered or to individualized learning. Mohanasundaram (2018) believes adaptable school program takes into account personal characteristics and it tends to be responsive to individual needs and interests. It also allows changing the procedures to suit the new conditions. Additionally, it is worth mentioning about the world that belongs to the GRIN technologies: genetics, robotics, information and nanotechnology (Garreau, 2005 as cited in Hord & Sommers, 2008). Therefore, modern school teachers have to meet the requirements of the modern world. Similarly, Benjamen (1939), describes the changes by
giving an example of fish grabbing with the bare hands. The author clearly explains the needs for making amendments in the curriculum depending on the necessary life skills for students.
Altinyelken (2010) in his study relates teaching methodology to children’s activities rather than teachers’ activities, because it enables to get students well performed and well participated in learning. Likewise, the development of strategic directions for education reforms in Kazakhstan for 2015-2020 highlighted that “a) educational program, b) assessment, c) textbooks should be evolved together by the same goals and values, otherwise they will undermine each other” (NUGSE, 2014, p. 24).
a) In terms of educational program, Shamshidinova, Ayubayeva, and Bridges (2014) defined the purpose of the standard curriculum as: achieving the goals and objectives presented in the form of expected learning outcomes; preparing the educational activities taking into account the individual and age characteristics of pupils; building spiritual, moral and socio-cultural skills based on national traditions and universal values; creating psychological and pedagogical conditions of education and training; creating equal opportunities for educating preschool children in the organization of primary education;
developing students’ communicative, cognitive, creative and motor skills, self-learning skills, including young children’s;
b) Correspondingly, the aim of the assessment is believed by Altinyelken (2010) to be diagnostic and remedial. It is considered that appropriate and immediate feedback would help teachers to see the students’ strengths and weaknesses in their academic achievement. As a result, assessment process is functioned on a daily basis; teachers may stimulate some students’ learning or provide support to others in accordance with learning objectives. Likewise, the scholars Karunasinghe, Ganasundara (2000) mentioned about the continuous classroom-based assessment as the best technique, which helps teachers to encourage comparative student achievement.
c) The basic skills that students practice according to the textbooks have to be required by market economy, because students are to get the necessary knowledge from the course books to apply at current jobs. For instance, students may suffer because of deficiency of skills in the sphere of business marketing, banking, entrepreneurship and so on. Therefore, some schools in the country are experiencing various kinds of educational program advancement; each of them strives to build up its own arrangement of student books (NUGSE, 2014).
What is more, the content of textbooks shapes the learner’s identity as well. For instance, Nazarbayev University professors presented the findings from different course books how the relationship between gender and schooling depicts learner’s identity.
However, this research is still being investigated, and recent results showed that males are represented more in all texts and their images are given more than women’s across the different subjects, like English, Kazakh, Russian and Algebra. The percentages of gender were provided by six categories/activities, such as leadership, domestic, health, sport, business and science. It became apparent that in our country all the areas are associated with the male domain except domestic. The same situation can be found in all textbooks of other countries as well. It can be proven by the scholars Palandjian, Silova, Mun and Zholdoshalieva (2018) how they examined textbooks of different countries, and discovered that women position is mostly given in texts as both nurturers and reproducers of the nation in comparison with men roles as heroes or protectors of the nation. Accordingly, these gender indicators in textbooks may also affect the future professions of students. For example, male students may prefer going to business or science and girls to nursery spheres.
The content of textbooks or school curriculum can also shape the national identity of learners. Having compared two scientific papers, it became obvious that there is a great influence of neighboring countries on the national identity. For instance, Kyrgyzstan,
Uzbekistan and Russia affected the Kazakhstani education, while Pakistani education was influenced by India and Afghanistan. Therefore, the main concern was the relationship between identity and religion. According to Durrani and Dunne (2010), Indian leaders used Islamic unity as a weapon to destroy Pakistan's identity.
In the context of Kazakhstan, national identity is mostly represented in Kazakh textbooks, but it is not good, because there are different nationalities and religions in our country, and young people are mostly focused on the books with English or Russian instruction, where the content does not represent national identity sufficiently.
To sum up, the studies show that the curriculum development in all nations is focused on how to develop students’ awareness and capacity of life learning, how to educate qualified citizens (Nan Zhao & Muju, 2007). The purpose of any curriculum reforms is promoting the quality of basic education focused on cultural, economic and socio-psychological relations.
2.4. The factors that affect teachers’ implementation of the reform
The curriculum reform is an inseparable process, which includes all learning opportunities. Hence, the learning process should cater to the needs of learners, teachers and society.Thereby, teachers are regarded as the key agents to implement any changes of the curriculum. However, as many studies around the world have shown, there are different challenges that some teachers face in implementing the program successfully. There is an evidence confirming the notion that Stockwell (cited by Rahman et.al., 2018) pointed to as several factors that impacted the curriculum change process concerning teachers, such as the personal characteristics of teachers, and teacher development. On the one hand, there has been an inconclusive debate about whether schoolteachers are ready or qualified enough to accept program innovations. On the other hand, it is believed by Nsibande (2002), understanding the curriculum changes successfully depends on the teacher’s ability. Teacher should have good knowledge, skills and passion for teaching. Nevertheless, Handler (2010)
claims that professional development of teachers is an important factor contributing to the success of the curriculum development and implementation. The government in China regularly provide renewal courses on teachers’ qualification to improve the quality of teachers (OECD, 2016). In this manner, in 2016 Ministry of Science and Education in Kazakhstan created a schedule for teachers’ training on the basis of updated program:
366,574 –teachers, 19,314 – heads of secondary schools, 4,080 methodologists of education departments and specialists of subordinate organizations of the Ministry got introduced with the content of updated curriculum (MoSE, 2016).
However, Ostovar-Namaghi (2017) believes that what often makes education change difficult is a disagreement between policy-makers and teachers. His findings lend support to the belief that the collaborative planning of the curriculum improves the implementability of any educational reform.Accordingly, Grossman, Onkol and Sands (2007), support this idea and state that curriculum implementation is better achieved if more people are involved in and committed to it. It would result in using curriculum effectively by sharing own teaching practices, up-to-date teaching materials and provide with relevant resources.
Therefore, where there is no collaboration, teachers have different perspectives on the curriculum implementation process. In other words, teachers can also contribute to the development of practice in their schools by involving their colleagues in research work, thereby becoming active participants in the reform process, and not just an object of the reform (McLaughlin, McLellan, Frost & Turner, 2013).
Naturally, different teachers perceive any changes of curriculum differently, as Rahman, Pandian and Kaur (2018) highlighted, teachers are people who bring the educational changes into practice in the classroom. It is obvious that they do it in different ways.Therefore, it is necessary to know teacher’s voice about implementing the curriculum.
Hargreaves 1996, (cited in Hanushek, 2011) claims, there has been a shortage of teacher
voice in education decision-making. Although, teachers are the people, who know most about school practices, who will improve learning, but unfortunately they are like the objects of reform, not its’ participants. In other words, they can also contribute to the development of practice in their schools by involving their colleagues in research work, thereby becoming active participants in the reform process, and not just an object of the reform (McLaughlin, McLellan, Frost, and Turner, 2013). In addition, Gyurko (2012) highlights in his study three main categories on teaching and classroom-related issues about teacher’s educational voice:
pedagogy and curriculum; student progress and assessment; professional development and classroom management.
In addition to the above mentioned factors, which influence teachers to implement programs, there is another category of teachers who really find it difficult to work with a school curriculum with updated content. They are the teachers who start working in schools immediately after graduating from pedagogical universities. As Darling-Hammond and Baratz-Snowden (2007), mentioned in their paper that tens of thousands of beginning teachers have had little or no fundamental information about schools, children and curriculum. Shamatov (2005) also observes that one of the pressing challenges for beginning teachers in Kyrgyzstan is curriculum change, because they may get insufficient support from experienced colleagues. As a result, this may create the teachers’ reluctance of accepting any reforms in education. This indicates that there is no connection between pre-service teaching centers and secondary schools. For this reason, universities in Turkey train future schoolteachers based on the methodology of real schoolteachers (Grossman et.al., 2007).
All things considered, it is noticeable that the future of each individual is formed from the foundation of the school. Many scholars believe that any educational reforms should be first introduced to teachers, as they may reflect on them and give feedback from the classroom practitioner’s perspective. The effectiveness of educational change relies upon
practitioners; therefore, they should be involved in the curriculum development process as well (Bas & Senturk, 2019). After that, the reformers probably get the right understanding and give a correct direction to educate the younger generation.
2.5. Summary
Having reviewed the literature, I understood the significance of the concepts related to my study and examined the importance of curriculum development in general. I also found out what possible factors can influence teachers to incorporate curriculum changes into the teaching process. The following chapters present the methodology and findings of the study.
Chapter 3: Methodology
3.1. Introduction
This chapter presents the methodology of the research that enabled to study secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices of the curriculum with an updated content, to find out the factors that affect the curriculum implementation in Kazakhstan. It includes three sections: the first section clarifies the design of the research, the research site and participants selection. The following section describes the research procedures, instruments and methods in details, which were used for data collection and analysis. The last one discusses the ethical considerations and summarizes the chapter.
3.2. Research design
To address the research questions, I employed qualitative research design.
Qualitative research happens in natural settings, where human behavior and events occur.
The qualitative research focuses on participant’s perceptions and experiences, the way they perceive their lives (Frankel & Wallen, 1990; Locke et.al., 1987 cited in Creswell, 2014).
My study aims at exploring the teachers’ beliefs and practices of the implementation of the new curriculum.
Within qualitative approach, I used the case study in which I can develop an in-depth analysis of a case. Case study is an inquiry design in many fields that enables to do in-depth examination of a phenomenon, often a program, event, process or individuals (Creswell, 2014, p.43).
The rationale of the case study is that it relies on realistic perspectives of the practitioners to provide the effectiveness of implementing the curriculum changes further.
Research site
The study was conducted in one of the mainstream schools in the west part of Kazakhstan. Mainstream schools of the country have been implementing the updated curriculum for almost four years, which is a very short period of time. As mentioned above, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) across Kazakhstan have been using advanced curriculum, which was used as a basis for the curriculum reform for all schools of Kazakhstan. These NIS schools have become models for other mainstream schools in terms of transferring the international innovative approaches. Since, the updated program was experienced at NIS first, only then it was transmitted to the other educational institutions.
This means that NIS project is a great facilitator in modernizing the educational system.
Moreover, the most NIS teachers have been trained abroad to bring the international experience into Kazakhstani classrooms. Moreover, each NIS schools work with two mainstream schools to support with all the changes, and these schools are called “pilot schools”. The teachers of those schools are helped and guided to implement the program by NIS teachers. The NIS teachers have a team-teaching lesson with the teachers of ‘pilot schools’, they meet each other beforehand to make a lesson plan together. However, this study is conducted in a mainstream school, which is not one of the pilot schools, because I planned to see how the new curriculum is being implemented in a typical school that is not receiving any additional support.
Sampling
Participants were recruited on a voluntary basis according to certain criteria for a sampling procedure. Creswell (2012, p.206) claimed, “the research term used for qualitative sampling is purposeful sampling. In purposeful sampling researchers intentionally select individuals and sites to learn the central phenomenon”. According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2011), in purposive sampling researchers build up a sample based on their specific
needs (p.115). So, this type of sampling strategy helped me to choose the participants based on their experience and the appropriate site. Within purposeful sampling strategies, I used maximal variation sampling. As Creswell (2012) suggests that maximal variation sampling enables a researcher to identify the characteristic and then find sites or individuals that show the shape of that characteristic. In my case, maximal variation sampling facilitated to find the teachers of different grades, different ages and different language of instruction.
The following specific criteria were used to select participants:
1. Secondary schoolteachers of different grades (5-11 grades) and subjects (science and language).
2. Their teaching experiences had to be more than 3 years as the new curriculum has been implemented in mainstream schools since 2016.
3. Voluntary participation, I asked those teachers who were really interested in my research topic.
Correspondingly, the research involved five teachers of different subjects (see Table 1.) and seven interviews for this case study:
Table 1. Information about the participants Names of the
participants
Subject Work
experience
Number of interviews
The First Year of implementing the program (still using)
Aiym English 6 years 2 2018
Menslu Biology 12 years 1 2016
Akgul Kazakh
language
15 years 1 2017
Nurlan History 15 years 1 2018
Zhanslu English 26 years 2 2017
Note: The names of participants are not their real names.
3.3. Procedures of the research
The first step for conducting my research was the Submission the Ethics Application Form (October 9, 2020), then after getting Ethics Approval I started to negotiate with the school, for this I made an appointment with a gatekeeper in the beginning of November 2020 to gain the school principal’s permission to conduct my research in the school. It was not hard to meet the school principal for me. I knew a teacher, who works at that school, and she was pleased to help me for that and she introduced me with the principal. So, I explained my situation by handing him a support letter from NUGSE (Appendix A), where the purpose and duration of my study, sampling and data collection procedures were presented. In addition, I also mentioned about the ethical norms and rules which I would follow during my researching activities. Thus, I got the principal’s permission to conduct the study.
Then, for recruiting participants and creating the list of participants, I spent approximately two weeks (November 10, 2020 – November 25, 2020). I asked school administrators to provide me with the email addresses of schoolteachers in order to send them an invitation letter (Appendix B) with the criteria for participation in my study. In the invitation letter, I politely asked teachers to contact me by email or phone call if they were interested in my research. The invitation letter looked like a recruitment flyer. I sent a recruitment flyer to the mail of the school staff with criteria to attract participants to my study. Since the program with updated content was introduced in Kazakhstan for only four years, I needed a teacher who had been practicing for 4 years, but not less. And of course, teachers of any subjects and teachers of middle classes were welcomed. I also asked for a
response by a certain date, and as a result, only five participants wished to participate on a voluntary basis.
Having received their agreement, I shared the informed consent form (Appendix C) with participants. Those teachers who wished to participate signed the two copies of the informed consent letters. One copy was for me as a researcher, another one was given to each participant.
Data collection procedure took almost two months (from the early December, 2020 to the end of January of 2021). The interviews were mostly conducted online because of pandemic situation, and only two teachers welcomed to see me personally, they have decided the time and place for being interviewed.
By signing the informed consent letter, where the participants were informed that I would maintain anonymity and confidentiality, they felt comfortable and confident to answer the interview questions. What is more, participants were asked a permission to be recorded for the purpose of transcription. Additionally, during the process of data collection, I asked some of my interviewees to show me personal documents such as their professional individual plans or short-term lesson plans, which helped me to understand their beliefs and practices of curriculum implementation better.
3.4. Data collection
As the main instrument for collecting data I used semi-structured interviews.
Interviews could yield detailed information about personal feelings and different opinions on the issue. As mentioned earlier, because of lockdown time the interviews were conducted via video-conferencing. Leavy (2016) states video-conferencing and skype interviews make it possible to talk to people whom a researcher might not be able to reach in person (p.142).
In addition, participants’ own words were recorded as a primary source with their
permission. The reason why I used a semi-structured interview, as it involves a series of open-ended questions based on the topic that I want to cover. I developed a list of interview questions and I asked probing and follow up questions during the interviews as well.
According to Leavy (2016), participants are free to use their own language and provide long and detailed responses. The interview questions are provided below (Appendix D). Not all interviews were recorded, as two participants did not want their words to be recorded. In that case, I had to write down the key points of their responses, so I found note-taking process useful for me. Later I used those notes in analyzing the interviews.
I enjoyed to talk with them naturally, most of them were open and friendly, and during the interviews I also discovered that less experienced teachers were very positive about updated curriculum than more experienced ones. Overall, I had administered 7 interviews of 40-50 minutes with each participant. Most of the participants preferred their native language, which is Kazakh, only one teacher was interviewed in English.
At the end of each interview I expressed my gratitude to each participant.
3.5. Data analysis
The analysis of the collected data included three stages. In the first step, all audio recordings were transcribed into a text document. The typing process took a long time.
However, interview transcriptions allowed me to do In Vivo coding where I highlighted statements, words, or chunks as key points in the participants' responses relying on interview questions. This was the second phase of data analysis. The last step was to rearrange the codes according to the suitable themes. Themes were created based on research and interview questions. Consequently, some themes were merged into categories and interpreted in the ‘findings chapter’.
3.6. Ethical consideration
The most important aspect of conducting research that a researcher should know is adherence to ethics during the research. To do this, the researcher have to get ethics approval from the NUGSE Ethics Committee in order to conduct the research. However, there were several steps, which I had to cover to get an ethics approval. The first step was to complete a Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative Program (CITI program) in order to get aware of all the ethical regulations for conducting research. By completing the program successfully, I received certificates of program completion. Only after that, I prepared my Ethics Application and by sending it to the Ethics Committee I had a chance to get an Ethics Approval from NUGSE Committee (Appendix E).
Fortunately, everything went better than I thought, having received the approval immediately, I confidently went to the research site to make a negotiation with a gatekeeper.
During the data collection process I promised my participants to keep the ethical standards.
The details of researching process were given in the informed consent form including anonymity and confidentiality. The participants were free to choose any of three languages to be interviewed (Kazakh, Russian and English), which was most suitable for them. Even, one of English language teachers preferred to be interviewed in native language, which is Kazakh. This surprised me a little, since I conducted my research in English, so it would be a little easier for me to analyze and draw conclusions in English. Additionally, it took time to translate her words afterwards. Each participant was interviewed individually and in different dates, thus they did not know each other who participated in the study, although they were from the same school.
However, there was a risk that the study participants might be known by other school members. Therefore, I created conditions not to harm the personal life and work of the participants. For example, I used pseudonyms and coded numbers instead of their real names
and the information shared by them was confidential, also their audio recordings are in a protected file of my laptop with a password. In addition, the participants were informed that the data provided by them would be destroyed by the researcher after defending the thesis.
Glesne (2011),suggests to get rid of any copies of the data collection after the research completion.
At the end of each interview, I expressed my gratitude and respect for my participants’ time dedicated to my study. Accordingly, they felt free to skip some interview questions or not to answer if they felt uncomfortable, they had rights to withdraw their own answers or any information if they wished.
On the other hand, my research was a chance for them to gain experience in participating in the study. In addition, they probably contribute to their professional development through the analysis of research experience. I believe, a discovery of teachers’
beliefs and practices of program change will help different stakeholders, such as policy makers, school administrators and in-service training institutions to support mainstream school teachers in terms of teaching and learning process. Since, nowadays despite the recognition of stakeholders, the voices of researchers and politicians prevail, and the voices of teachers, who play an important role in school performance, are ignored in policy-making (Hanushek, 2011).
Summary
The chapter introduced the procedures of my research in details, the design, the sampling, the regulations that I followed, and the main instruments that I used to explore school teachers’ beliefs and practices of the updated curriculum in one mainstream school of West Kazakhstan.
Chapter 4: Findings 4.1. Introduction
This section of the thesis illustrates the findings obtained from individual interviews with the secondary school teachers about their beliefs and practices of implementing the updated curriculum. This chapter presents the results of individual interviews based on the following themes: i) Teachers’ views on implementing the updated curriculum; ii) Teachers’
views on benefits of the updated curriculum; iii) Teachers’ views on difficulties of implementing the updated curriculum. The last paragraph summarizes the chapter.
4.2.Teachers’ views on implementing the updated curriculum
In general, all the participants have a positive attitude towards the updated curriculum, but it is true that two teachers out of five were struggling a lot to implement it in the first and second years. Some teachers reported that they had a lot of fear while implementing the new curriculum. One of the teachers who had fear had over 26 years of work experience, while another teacher had six years of experience.
This shows that the teachers irrespective of their work experience, no matter whether they are more or less experienced, they are likely to face difficulties while accepting changes.
In addition, it can be clearly seen from the words of an experienced teacher Zhanslu (pseudonym),
It was a big change in my teaching practice. I was not ready for that. Because, you know when your teaching experience is 26 years and someone tells you to change something in teaching, it seems impossible to you. I’ve been teaching since 1991, and I got used to what I did throughout my teaching practices.
Accordingly, Aiym also proved her initial fear when she was asked to implement the updated program, in the following words:
When I was introduced with the new program and began to implement it, I was so afraid of doing something wrong, because at that time I had only two years of work experience. After all, as a beginning teacher, I was just getting used to the school culture and I was unhappy when some changes were made in the school curriculum.
The other three teachers claim that any curriculum needs to be revised and updated regularly. The first experience of working with the updated program for them was a great desire for something. For example, Nurlan, a history teacher, said that he accepted the new change as a normal thing, and Akgul, a teacher of the Kazakh language stated that getting to know the new program was not a problem for her; on the contrary, she started to learn new teaching methods that she had never heard before. “The program with the updated content for biology teachers was an opportunity to learn a foreign language” - said a biology teacher.
Hereby, I can conclude the teacher's innovation depends not only on the teacher's experience, but also on the personal qualities, interests and motivation.
What is more, the majority of participants noted the learning resources as the main difference between the previous program and the updated one.
Based on the previous program, students were taught by using only one course book.
At the beginning of the school year, all students were given special textbooks, according to their grades, and respectively they were limited to completing assignments and reading the texts of one textbook. As a result, the student did not learn anything more except the information in the textbook. (Nurlan, history teacher)
The language teachers also came to the same idea that students were regularly given a traditional home assignment: read the grammar rules given in a textbook and write an exercise, memorize new words. In addition, by working with old subject program the teacher talked 80% of the lesson to explain the new topic to students, which means that the teacher's
talking time is longer than the student's talking time. Therefore, students were less active;
they were just listeners and writers.
Another important difference that the participants mentioned is interaction patterns.
Previously, children worked mostly independently during the lesson, that is, they receive assignments and complete them, the teacher checks and evaluates. This is fine at some degree, especially for introverts as they love to work individually. But, there were also less able students in each class, who find it difficult to perceive new material, they sat for hours to complete one task. And the teacher did not often take an individual approach to such students. For now, according to the new program, students can work in pairs, in groups discussing issues, helping each other to learn the material quickly. This is proved by an English teacher Zhanslu, who is more experienced than other participants: Students mostly did written tasks, for example each student worked on your own, there were no pair works or group works, they did not discuss anything as a whole class, they basically completed grammar exercises. This idea is also supported by the Kazakh language teacher: when students see a new topic of the lesson on the board, they may discuss with each other and guess what the topic is about, and this is good for the teacher as well, not only the teacher speaks, but also students encourage each other to understand the material.
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the teachers’ practice of implementing the new curriculum shows that the new program is mainly focused on the content rather than on grammar aspect. According to language teachers, constant discussion of various issues, description of pictures or watching video materials and asking or answering different questions negatively affects the ability of students to write and speak grammatically correct.
This means that teachers do not have enough time to explain grammar topics and make students practice grammar exercises. However, teachers improve learners’ critical thinking and decision-making skills.
