Development of school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on the concept of authentic student achievement

Abstract

The purposes of this research study were 1) to examine the conceptual framework of teacher career pathway and authentic student achievement, 2) to explore the desirable states of school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on the concept of authentic student achievement, and 3) to develop school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on authentic student achievement. A multi-phase mixed methods research design was applied. The informants of this study were 491 people consisting of 40 school administrators and 451 teachers of pre-school, primary, and secondary school under the supervision of Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, Kingdom of Cambodia. The instruments used in this study were semi-structured interview form, questionnaire, and evaluation form to testify the suitability and feasibility of development of school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on the concept of authentic student achievement. The frequency, percentage, and content analysis were used to analyze the collected data.

The research finding revealed that 1) the conceptual framework of school teacher career pathway comprises of teacher position, career pathway of each position, qualification, critical developmental experience, and competencies, and authentic student achievement comprises of construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and valued beyond the school, 2) the desirable states of school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on the concept of authentic student achievement were categorized into three groups consisting of pre-school and primary school teacher, lower secondary school teacher, and upper secondary school teacher, and five professional levels of career pathway for teachers consisting of novice teacher, teacher, senior teacher, distinguished teacher and master teacher, and 3) the school teacher career pathway in Cambodia based on the concept of authentic student achievement consists of 6 key components, namely (1) teacher position consisting of pre-school and primary teachers, lower secondary school teachers, and upper secondary school teachers, (2) career pathway consisting of novice teacher, teacher, senior teacher, distinguished teacher, and master teacher, (3) qualification consisting of educational degree, and teaching license, (4) critical developmental experiences consisting of teaching experiences, teacher leadership experiences, research and sharing experiences, and teacher achievement, and (5) competencies consisting of professional knowledge, professional practice, professional development, and professional ethics, and (6) authentic student achievement consisting construction of knowledge, disciplined inquiry, and valued beyond the school.