Contemporary Practices in Teaching 21st Century Skills at Malaysian Primary Schools: Do Environmental Factors and Teacher’s Attitudes Matter?

Abstract

The implementation of 21st century education is a key factor for successful education reform. Due to a lack of empirical research, practices to develop students’ 21st century skills at the primary school level are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to identify teachers’ contemporary practices and the influences of environmental factors as well as teachers’ attitudes on these practices. A quantitative research design was used to achieve the objectives of the study. A total of 400 primary school teachers from the state of Penang, Malaysia was sampled. Three instruments were used to collect the required data; the Teachers’ Practices in Teaching 21st Century Skills Questionnaire (37 items), Environmental Factors in Teaching 21st Century Skills Questionnaire (12 items) and the Teacher’ Attitudes in Teaching 21st Century Skills Questionnaire (35 items). The data were analysed with descriptive analysis and structural equation modelling (SEM). The results showed that primary school teachers adopted five contemporary practices in teaching 21st century skills. The inquiry-based instructional approach was the most preferred practice, followed by the communicative language teaching approach, constructivist learning approach and problem-centred instructional approach. The technology-based instructional approach, however, was the least preferred practice. Results of the Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach showed that supporting environmental factors had positive influence on both teachers’ practices and attitudes. Additional results indicated positive mediation role of teachers’ attitudes on their practices of teaching 21st century skills. Implications for the research findings were discussed in this study. As supported by the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) Theory, this study found that environmental factors could drive teachers’ adoption of contemporary practices. In addition, teachers’ attitudes have positive effect on their applications of these instructional practices as emphasised by the Theory of Planned Behaviour. Educational implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed in this paper.