THE INFLUENCE OF SELF-EFFICACY ON CULTURAL COMPETENCE AMONG TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAM STUDENTS IN MALAYSIA

Abstract

Malaysia is a country with ethnic and cultural diversity. In an effort to understand the cultural diversity in Malaysia, one of the ways is the need to have high self-efficacy in preservice teachers to teach in a class with diverse student cultures. Self-efficacy against the cultural diversity that exists is an important aspect in a preservice teacher when dealing with students from various cultural backgrounds. Preservice teachers need to have a high level of self-efficacy so that each teaching and learning session in a class that consists of diverse cultures can attract students' interest and not be biased, thereby optimizing the teacher's teaching towards students in the class. Teacher education programs need to provide more opportunities for preservice teachers to engage with cultural diversity so that they can increase their self-efficacy to teach diverse students and further improve the level of teacher teaching towards students who are made up of various ethnicities and cultures.