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In a world in which successful learning is believed to rest on the methods of teaching and the performance of students is determined by teacher quality, it is clear that teachers are the backbone of student learning attainments. In such a scenario, teacher development, welfare, motivation, and satisfaction are crucial for better teaching performance. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to determine the motivator and hygiene factors among excellent teachers in Malaysia and to explore factors that lead to satisfaction and cause dissatisfaction among excellent teachers in Malaysia.

This study uses quantitative design to determine the motivator and hygiene factors among excellent teachers. For the sample size, 306 excellent teachers participated in this study and data were analysed using principle component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis to determine the dominant factor among Herzberg’s motivator and hygiene factors.

From the findings, the results showed that the satisfaction of excellent teachers was low in terms of “personal growth” (motivator) and “supervision” (hygiene). The paper concludes by calling upon the Malaysian Ministry of Education (MoE) to consider both motivator and hygiene factors, and what causes satisfaction and dissatisfaction among excellent teachers.

This study has some limitations to be considered, especially in terms of sample size. The low number of excellent teachers participating in this study is due to the scarcity of face-to-face data collection, in that an online survey was deemed to be the only means to reach the excellent teachers. This is due to the lack of a list of excellent teachers in some state districts, making it difficult to determine those schools which have excellent teachers. In addition, it is also due to logistical and geographical difficulties in reaching certain schools and meeting the excellent teachers. In recognition of such difficulties in undertaking research on excellent teachers in Malaysia, the researchers in this study urge the Malaysian MoE, as well as state districts and regional offices, to update the profile of excellent teachers by creating records and a list of all excellent teachers in Malaysia to facilitate future research. In this scenario, the findings of this study should be used with caution and not be generalized to other contexts, schools, regions, or states.

To be fully cognizant about the excellent teachers’ scheme was introduced to uplift the standard of teaching in Malaysia, and the recipients of this scheme or status (excellent) are considered to be the “cream of the crop” in the teaching profession in Malaysia and for non-excellent teachers to emulate, it is vital to look into their well-being as well as their growth. With the results of this study, the authors can say that the implications for practice touch many aspects of the professional and personal development of Malaysian excellent teachers. Specifically, it is imperative that the factors that intrinsically and extrinsically motivate excellent teachers in Malaysia and the causes of dissatisfaction are identified. In addition, the implications also place emphasis on paving ways for the personal growth of excellent teachers and to provide leeway for them to pursue their own personal happiness. Furthermore, the implications of the lack of proper supervision of school principals on excellent teachers should be avoided, and, in general, hygiene factors could be used as positive implications to improve excellent teachers’ teaching practices and performance.

This research is original as it calls MoE attention to the well-being of excellent teachers in Malaysia. As excellent teachers in Malaysia are selected and promoted among teachers in Malaysia in order to improve teaching and learning in Malaysia. They are appointed to be a role model for other teachers to emulate. With this position, excellent teachers are expected to contribute to the development of their schools and others and they can be posted anywhere as well as called at any time for help. Therefore, it is worthy to know how satisfied those excellent teachers are regarding government policy. Hence, it is important to know what motivates and satisfies them.

The purpose of this paper is to create a key performance indicator (KPI) that can be used as the benchmark tool for teaching performance and practices of both excellent teachers (ETs) and non-ETs and to investigate the possible interrelationships between the five thinking domains (teachers’ teaching philosophy, teaching objective, pedagogical content knowledge, teachers’ expectations and management style).

This study uses a quantitative approach with a sample of 306 ETs from eight states including the Federal Territory. Exploratory factor analysis was used to validate the instrument and confirmatory factor analysis for model fit.

The findings showed that an excellent classroom management style was the most significant domain for KPI with the highest factor loading, followed by ETs’ teaching philosophy and objectives. It revealed that there was no significant relationship between ETs’ expectations and their classroom management style and that the relationships between the other domains were weak.

With this research creating a KPI model for excellent teaching practices, it is suggested that an in-depth review should be conducted concerning the standardization of the classroom management and the national teaching objectives in Malaysia. Perhaps representatives from the Ministry of Education and the school principals could go into the field to determine whether the excellent and non-ETs are fulfilling the national education objectives and meeting the expectations. This could lead to setting KPIs for achieving teaching objectives among the ETs.

The purpose of this study was to examine the process of embedding values implemented by excellent teachers in teaching Islamic education in the multi-cultural society.

This study was a qualitative study, which used a combination of in-depth interviews, observation and document analysis for data collection. Using a purposive sampling technique, seven excellent Islamic education teachers were selected. The data were analysed using Atlas.ti 7.1.7.

The findings of the study show the process of embedding values among excellent teachers include the following aspects: teachers take into consideration the various differences among individuals in their classes, especially of learners’ names and family backgrounds, humour elements, praising of students, lectures, repetition practical areas, problem-solving and question and answer sessions. A variety of methods are used in the process of embedding values including two-way interactions between teachers and students. Teaching happens in stages that link to the cognitive level of the students and these learning environments allow the values to be exposed, taught and personally experienced by the students.

This study shows that teachers should use various types of teaching methods, i.e. light-hearted element, praising students, lectures, repetition, practical areas, problem-solving and question and answer sessions, to embed values during the lessons of Islamic education. Interaction between students and teachers takes place and creates a transformative process of knowledge and allowing the positive values to be taught effectively. They start to learn and appreciate the values of others and also be able to practice them in their daily lives. The students were exposed to the diversity of culture and various types of background of their friends. The awareness of the teachers in creating a learning environment that is sensitive to all students is very important. Thus, these methods should be taken into consideration by teachers to teach values and should be exposed during teacher training so they are able to implement them in the classroom.

This paper explores and describes methods of embedding of values used by excellent Islamic education teachers in the lessons of Islamic education. There are very few studies conducted in this area and this qualitative study is focussed on how values are thought in the lessons of Islamic education. These findings can be used by educators to improve the quality of the lessons based on most effective teaching methods used by the teachers in the lessons of Islamic education.

The education sector acts as an input for every other sector and contributes around 7% to the service industry; hence, it is important to identify, measure and analyze the drivers that impact the delivered service quality.

This paper used different approaches to identify measure and analyze the drivers that impact the service quality. In addition to a thorough literature review, qualitative tools like brainstorming, the focused group technique, and the survey technique have been used. Decision-making tools like the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), and a quantitative tool, one-sample t-test, with the help of MINITAB software, were used to analyze the inputs received from 179 experts. By using the stated approach, the planned research outcomes have been achieved.

Quality of teachers, quality of students, quality of policies, and quality of facilities have been identified as the key drivers that impact quality of education. The paper highlights that the people quality drivers play a significantly important role in the quality of education when compared to the quality of non-people drivers. From the statistical analysis of the hypotheses, it was inferred that the People quality consisting of the quality of a teacher and the quality of students are the two prominent drivers to the Quality of education. This paper demonstrates the importance of the quality of a teacher and its significance to the quality of education. The recommendations made might be considered for the implementation, which can improve the quality of education in the country.

This paper is focused on the data collected from the experts in the top-ranked management institutes only. The data from the experts from undergraduate institutions and other management institutes could have added more value.

In the paper, the drivers were identified and further analyzed to suggest that teacher quality is a dominant driver of education quality. The findings also suggest that there should be a high focus on having a great quality teacher as compared to the facilities. The weights identified will enable the researcher to arrive at the overall quality scores of any Institute. As a part of the process, the user just needs to collect the ratings from the end customers (the parents of the students) against each driver, and the institute level scores can be derived. These scores can then be used by the Institute's management to analyze the results and improve upon the weak areas to improve the delivered service quality in the education sector.

A holistic approach to exploring major drivers that impact the quality of education is a new approach. Moreover, using different tools like AHP, hypothesis testing, t-test, using the coefficient of variation in a single paper has not been attempted before. The revalidations of accepted hypotheses with respondents is also a new approach.

This chapter explains pedagogical content knowledge as a narrative way of knowing. It describes how narratives serve as a means of explaining that understanding to others. It discusses two San Francisco (California) high school teachers’ use of narrative in teaching. It concludes that, because teaching is like writing a story, understanding teaching is like interpreting a story.

These are headlines of news articles in a national newspaper in a country outside of the United States. The media coverage of teacher scandals increased since 2001, reaching the highest 89 cases in 2004. The teachers in this country, the readers would conclude, have serious problems. They would wonder what is wrong with these teachers and speculate that teaching is not a well-respected or well-paid occupation in this country.

From the implementations and outcomes of teacher reforms examined in these 10 countries with diverse historical, political, and social contexts, three themes emerged that deserve attention and elaboration. These themes are: (1) involvement of and coordination among key stakeholders in decision-making and implementation processes, (2) clarity and coherence in policy design, and (3) capacity for implementing the reform.

There has been much debate in recent times about the factors that improve the quality of teaching in higher education (HE) institutions. This has been especially fueled by the increasing importance attached to Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) qualification. To fill the existing gap in the current literature in this regard, this study aims to investigate whether HE teachers (lecturers) who undergo pedagogical training (PT) in addition to obtaining PhD qualification possess higher knowledge and pedagogical competencies (PCs) than those that relied only on having PhD qualification without further teaching qualifications.

Drawing upon data collected through a structured questionnaire administered to 1,174 Nigerian HE teachers in various disciplines from 39 HE institutions, in addition to two focus groups, the study adopts a mixed-methods research. The quantitative data were analyzed descriptively while qualitatively data were coded, transcribed verbatim, and analyzed thematically.

This article proposes that teachers who undergo PT in addition to obtaining PhD tend to have more PCs and perform better than those that have not undergone any form of PT. Also, it found a statistically significant difference between PCs of HE teachers who have undergone PT in addition to PhD qualification from those without PT. The implication is that teachers who have undergone PT are more effective in facilitating teaching and learning than those who have not completed PT.

Despite the merits of the mixed-methods research, a major limitation of this study is the failure to compare students' achievements or successes based on the two distinct samples. However, the limitations create opportunities for further studies into the subject matter.

This study is timely, given that Nigeria (like many African countries) has a low quality HE system and low graduate outcomes (related to knowledge, employability, and skills). More so, research into pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and practices are rare or nonexistent in the literature related to Nigeria and other African countries' HE system.

This paper explores education group school principal’s influence on professional learning community (PLC) development in China.

Qualitative comparative case studies were conducted.

The findings show that principals indicated principal-level factors were their major concerns regarding PLC cultural condition design, school needs were the major concerns in PLCs’ relational and structural design, and educational-group factors impacted principals’ extension of PLCs’ structural conditions.

This article concludes by presenting a “three-context” framework for understanding education group principal’s influence on PLCs in China.