Factors that Inhibit Middle and Secondary School Teachers in Pakistan from Adopting a Student-Centred Approach Towards the Teaching Process
A growing awareness among educationists about necessary changes in the field of education has motivated and encouraged them to devise ways of bringing about positive changes in the process of teaching and learning. For developing realistic mechanisms to bring about positive changes in their local school settings, educationists tend to reconsider ideas, concepts and theories presented by various authors and researchers, and generalize them for their local settings by conducting researches. However, Saad (1999) noted that education in Pakistan has been considered only as a topic to be discussed at different occasions. But it is sad to mention that very little has been done to improve it in practical terms. As a result, education in Pakistan suffers on both counts of quality and quantity. To improve quality, schools in Pakistan need to take a deep approach that concentrates on the quality of students' understanding rather that the quality of information presented (Nayak & Rao, 2002) and student-centred approach (Piccinin, 1997) which encourages students' enjoyment of school, classroom participation, independent development, individualized instruction and self-perception (Lambert & McCombs, as cited in Tan, 2001).
When speaking about suitable approach towards teaching and learning, condition in Pakistani schools is not as it should be. Rather than using a deep approach or a student-centred approach, the teachers in Pakistani schools generally use a teacher-centred or a content-centred approach. Most of them acknowledge the positive impact of the student-centred approach on students' overall development, but are not motivated to use them in their own classroom practices. As a result, the quality of education in Pakistan has been declining. Two factors have generally been considered as responsible for the poor quality of education in Pakistan. These factors include: (i) lack of required physical, financial and human resources in schools, and (ii) lack of teacher motivation. To highlight how far the factors mentioned above inhibited teachers from adopting a student-centred approach towards the teaching and learning process, a research study was undertaken. The factors were further divided and categorized into internal and external factors. Some of the major factors were selected and teachers' perception of some internal and some external factors was investigated. The factors which were explored included: (1) Internal Factors (class size, classroom teaching and student learning), (2) External Factor (principal's leadership), and (3) Internal as well as External Factors (student assessment). Based on the internal and external factors, five hypotheses were formulated.
In order to collect data, 125 questionnaires were distributed in 15 selected schools in various cities of Pakistan. These cities include Karachi, Lahore, Faisalabad, Islamabad, Gujar Khan (near Rawalpindi) and Multan. In addition to grade levels (middle or secondary), the target population had one of the characteristics in each of the three categories. These three categories included: (1) Type of school (government, private); (2) Gender in school (girls, boys, co-education); (3) Medium of instruction in school (English, Urdu). The sample from the population was selected by using the convenience sampling technique (Gay, 1992) and categorized into trained and untrained groups. The data gathered from the sample was tabulated and analysed. The hypotheses were tested using Chi Square method. Except a few differences, the result of this study revealed no significant difference between trained and untrained teachers regarding the impact of teacher perception of the factors investigated on the selection of a student-centred approach towards the teaching and learning process.
The study opens up an issue: "whether or not the teacher training has a significant impact on teachers in Pakistan." Hence, it was recommended that educational institutes should reconsider their teachings and there should be more professional development activities inside schools to encourage teachers to equip themselves with contemporary approaches towards teaching and learning. There were some limitations which may have influenced the results of this research study. They were: (a) only one type of data collection tool (questionnaire) was used; (b) it was difficult to get equal number of trained and untrained teachers due to less number of untrained teachers in some schools (particularly in government schools) and due to the inability of some untrained teachers to complete the questionnaire; (c) due to time constraints, stratified sampling was not used; (d) questionnaire was not translated in Urdu, therefore, some teachers might have misunderstood some questions.