Professionalism of Beginning Teachers: Perspective on Teacher Certification

Arvan Permana Habib

Abstract

In Indonesia, to become considered as a professional teacher, one needs to enroll a

teaching certification course in order to pursue teacher certification. Addressing the gap
identified, this research tries to describe the teacher’s professionalism in the scope of
certification of teachers through analyzing the perception of being in the beginning phase of a
career as professional educators. The study methodology follows a qualitative study design. This
qualitative study was conducted by taking samples of beginning teachers at various schools in
the first semester of the academic year 2023/2024. The study took place from November to
December of 2023. The number of the samples is five English teachers of the school with
different teaching experiences prior becoming full-time professional teachers. The two
instruments used were interviews with the questions designed as semi-structured interview that
was created following the research questions. The secondary data used in the research obtained
through providing questionnaires for the samples in question. The result of interview and
questionnaire from five on-duty beginning EFL teachers of various schools are analyzed
according to the Milles and Huberman's (1994) model. Then, the data will be triangulated in
order to confirm or to supply information that will be interpreted descriptively.

Introduction

There is an increasing number of reports on the challenging situation within the transition
of English education students in becoming the professional English teachers (Thomas et al.,
2020). In fact, a 2011 study conducted by Tynjälä and Heikkinen, showed that most of fresh
graduate teachers experienced intense work pressure and began their career as professional
teacher stressfully. There are expectations of teacher that should be met, however in that way the
beginning teachers question their identity as a professional teacher.

Professionalism is one of the critical issues in teachers’ career development. The

professional identity of being a teacher, is challenged by certain trigger in their teaching
workplace, leading to demotivation in becoming a teacher in prolonged time (Høigaard et al.,
2012). Contrasting to career development in the later years, beginning teachers reported to
experienced bumpy professional growth. First year teachers are reported to feel greater work
pressure and less satisfaction comparing to teachers in third years of teaching. Then, the
difference is much greater in following the fifth year of teaching experience (Clotfelder in
Thomas et al., 2020).

The attitude of the teacher in early stage of their career attracted much attention of
researchers. Starting very early in Veenman (1984), he suggested that there are five factors
indicating ‘reality shock’ of teachers surveyed from first year teachers: perceptions of problems,
changes of behavior, changes of attitudes, changes of personality, and leaving the teaching
position. Reality shock that the first year teachers could be thought as teachers’ attempt to master
the new reality they have just encountered, and it should be a continuous process. Hence,
adopting an identity as a professional teacher forces beginning teachers to alter course of their
own individual management.

On the other hand, teacher professionalism typology, following Sockett in Husna et al.
(2022), consists of: characters, commitment to change and continuous improvement, knowledge
of the subject, pedagogical knowledge and responsibility, and working relationships outside the
classroom. While this five indicators are perceived to appear within a wide circumstance of
being in first-year teaching condition, a relation toward general understanding of teachers’
service standard might be a pushing factor that induces such changes or, in Veenman’s wording,
‘reality shock’.

There are previous studies related to the topic of the current study. The first study is the
study of Thomas et al. (2020) that studied the relation of principal leadership with teacher’s job
attitudes. The study found that there was correlation between the leadership capability of
principals in teacher professionalism. The second research is a research conducted by Syamsinar
(2015) which investigated the professional competence of EFL teachers in vocational schools in
Gowa, South Sulawesi, Indonesia. The study revealed several issues regarding professionalism
of English teachers in Gowa, South Sulawesi. The third research is the one conducted by
Høigaard et al. (2012) that investigated the work engagement and teacher efficacy and their
correlation with job satisfaction, burnout and the intention to quit of beginning qualified
teachers. The research found that the issue of work engagement and teacher efficacy had a great
impact towards the mentioned teachers’ teaching satisfaction, burnout and decision to quit
teaching. The last study is the one conducted by Husna et al. (2022) which studied the perception
of the EFL teachers’ against teacher professionalism. The study found that the characteristics of
professionalism provided by theorists were agreed by most of the teachers. While the previous
studies describe much on the topics relevant on teacher professionalism and identity, there are
not many that discuss the relevancy of professionalism and beginning teacher individuals.
Meanwhile, the growing numbers of freshman teachers are around, queuing as job seekers, or
have just got employed.

In Indonesia, to become considered as a professional teacher, one needs to enroll a

teaching certification course in order to pursue teacher certification. They will also be expected
to join certain workshops and trainings. This is, however, a necessary move to improve
education system. The writer suspects appearing adversary conditions that might bring up in the
situation faced by young, junior educators. Hence, this research tries to describe the teacher’s
professionalism in the scope of certification of teachers through analyzing the perception of
being in the beginning phase of a career as professional educators.

Literature Review
 A professional is a person who pursues a career based on knowledge, skills, techniques,
and practices based on intellectual abilities. A professional possesses specialized skills that allow
them to assume responsibility and carry out duties to the highest standard. In the sphere of
education, teacher professionalism management is a set of functions, duties, and responsibilities
that are derived from specific educational and training experiences in the area of scientific
development. A teacher's professional competences refer to a set of functions, tasks and
responsibilities in the field of education that are based on specific knowledge and skills acquired
through training. These capabilities evolve scientifically along with the field of expertise which
include teachers’ certification (Saguni et al., 2021). Teacher certification might be defined as an
official qualification granted to the person with evident capability required to teach a particular
subject in a specific way (Macaro et al., 2019).

Beliefs are deeply held thoughts that emerge from an individual's experiences in a
specific cultural and social context. Change is therefore difficult and often affects individual
behavior and decisions. Teachers' beliefs differ from knowledge in terms of affective nature that
they have a strong emotional character because they are based on their own experiences and
cultural resources. Therefore, teachers' beliefs have a huge impact on their interpretation of what
is happening around them, on their decisions and on the ultimate actions they have to take. As
such, teachers' self-beliefs influence their decision-making (Tan et al., 2015).

Teachers' professional identity is a critical factor in understanding their professional lives

and career decisions. Existing research from several countries considers teachers' professional
identity as an essential element in teacher motivation, effectiveness and retention. The reason of
this is that the self is important in shaping how we interact with our environment and make
judgments in any given situation. Our self-awareness affects our choices of behavior and
judgment. Understanding teachers' professional identities is important for understanding
important aspects of teachers' professional lives, such as career decisions and ultimately
commitment (Hong, 2010).

Method

3.1 Method and Design of the Research

This research is decided as a qualitative research. Corbin and Strauss stated that utilizing
a qualitative design is suitable in studying objects that are difficult to extract such as emotions or
thinking process (Creswell, 2012). Because of that reason, a qualitative study design was chosen
for its appropriateness for observing and studying people’ perspectives (Merriam & Tisdell,
2015)

3.2 Place and Time of the Research

This qualitative study was conducted by taking samples of beginning teachers at various
schools in the first semester of the academic year 2023/2024. The study took place from
November to December of 2023. The number of the samples were five English teachers of the
school with different teaching experiences prior becoming full-time professional teachers.

3.3 Data and Data Sources

The two instruments used were interviews with the questions designed as semi-structured
interview that was created following the research questions. The secondary data used in the
research obtained through providing questionnaires for the samples in question. The interview
was the open-ended questions used to acquire the teachers’ explanations of their thoughts on
professionalism of a beginning teacher. The questionnaire was utilized to derive additional
information to triangulate the explanations told from interviewing the subjects. The interview
was conducted once for each teacher and then the results of interview were transcribed. Then, the
analysis of questionnaires that were given to the teachers resulted an input of information which
could be used to evaluate and supplement the results of interview as the primary instrument.

3.4 Technique of Data Collection

The interview is a formal interview in which the questions have been planned prior the
meeting the subjects or contacting them through telephone conversation. The interview questions
are based on research questions following the sample of interview used in the research of Hong
(2010) on the professionalism and teachers’ self-identity. Following Merriam & Tisdell (2015),
qualitative researchers who uses an interview or other data gathering techniques, might utilize
questionnaire as their secondary technique for the main technique, and in behalf of this research,
the interview.

3.5 Technique of Data Analysis

As this is the primary method of data collection for this study, the data obtained through
interviews are subjected to the most basic stages of analysis in the research process. These raw
data are analyzed according to the Milles and Huberman's (1994) model. This model consists of
three stages: First, the data from the interview transcripts are read several times. Content with a
theme is grouped into a specific theme, which is then applied to other themes discovered in the
data through coding. Codes or tags are applied to key parts of the interview transcript. Coding
recognizes certain keywords to identify competing values or dilemmas.

The final step was to present the reduced data for the interpretation of the results.
Therefore, a table was constructed from the primary data to display the perception felt by English
teachers. Finally, the results of different data collection methods are triangulated to confirm or
deny additional information (Stake, 1995). The first method of data collection, interview, is
combined with the results of the questionnaire as an alternative method to confirm the primary
results.

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