Enhancing the quality of teaching and learning through implementation of outcome-based learning (OBL): Teachers’ commitments, reflections and experiences are the essentials

This paper aims to explore whether and how the implementation of OBL impacts on the quality of teaching and learning of a core module on "Promoting Positive Classroom Environments". This existing module has been re-designed along with the principles of OBL and has been implemented among four groups, totaling 120 fulltime pre-service primary and secondary school teachers. Results from questionnaires indicated participants agreed that the TLAs and ATs were effective in achieving the CILOs. Also it was found in the comparison between the 08/09 and the 09/10 cohorts on the S.E.T. scores that the 09/10 cohort rated significantly higher than the 08/09 cohort (who were taught the same module but in a non-OBL format) on particular areas which tally with the goals of OBL. Hence individual interviews showed that majority of the participants gave positive feedbacks to the module. Yet there are some other crucial findings worth to be shared: 1) despite all four groups of participants agreed on the effectiveness of the CILOs, TLAs, and ATs, two groups among them have given significantly higher ratings. Since the four groups were taught by two different module lecturers, it leads us to think factors like teachers’ experiences on OBL, teaching styles and approaches may have an impact on the quality of teaching and learning of the module; 2) majority of the participants iterated in the interviews that teachers' commitments, passion, and competence played a distinct role in increasing the likelihood of them to achieve the expected learning outcomes; 3) teacher interviews illustrated continual self reflections helped reinforce a clear understanding of what and how to teach. In sum, the findings exemplify teacher factors are essential to enhance the quality of teaching and learning during the implementation of OBL.