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2 (i) FRANCES FULLERS THEORY OF CONCERN (1969)

Frances Fuller is a researcher of teachers education that creates the Theory of
Concerns that highlighting the perceptions, concerns, dissatisfaction and satisfaction of
pre-service teachers during their teaching training programme (Rashid et al., 2010).
Fullers Theory of Concerns suggests three stages in teacher professional
development that teachers need to undergo in order to improve their professionalism in
teaching profession.

Self
Fuller's
Theory of
Concerns

Task

Impact

Figure 2: Three Stages in Fullers Theory of Concern

The first stage in teacher professional development is concern towards self.
During the early teaching years, the novice teachers usually worry about their survival
which usually about whether they are able or unable to carry out the teaching session
successfully. In this stage, it is all about inner self of the novice teachers. They will be
having doubts on their action while teaching and facing lack of confidence because they
feel they are still new to the real teaching works and they might feel they are still entitled
to the lecturers comments during their professional practice at the school. However,

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according to Fuller (1969) as cited in Rashid et al. (2010), this type of concern and
worries upon self-abilities in teaching will be naturally reducing after few months of
teaching. The end mark of this concern is when the teacher is starting to pay more
attention towards the method to control his teaching tasks. For instance, the teacher
might doubt whether using songs would help his students to understand the content of
the lesson.
The second stage in teacher professional development is concern towards
task. Usually on this stage, the novice teachers are focusing more on finding the
strategies or methods to handle the teaching tasks effectively. In this stage, the novice
teachers are starting to have the awareness to improve their content knowledge on the
subject, classroom management, students discipline, teaching preparation, teaching
strategies and so on. According to Rashid et al. (2010), novice teachers on this stage
usually question themselves with the questions whether the teaching materials are
suitable or not, whether their teaching styles suit students learning styles or not and
whether they were able to deliver the content to students in an effective way or not and
so on. For example, the teacher will establish the classroom rules in order to ensure the
learning session will be going well without distraction and in the same time, joining
courses might be one of the ways to improve content knowledge.
Last but not least, the third stage in teacher professional development
according to Frances Fullers Theory of Concerns is concern towards impact. If the
two stages before focusing on the skills of a teacher, this stage is different because it is
focusing more on the after-effect of the teaching skills used towards students. On this
stage, the novice teachers will be focusing on the effect of his teaching towards the
students learning achievement. He will see his students as someone that has potential
in improving. He is no longer worry about his ability to control neither the class nor
doubting whether he delivered the content knowledge effectively or not. It is more about
teachers concern towards students learning and achievement. The teacher will be
more interested in the progress and development of his students rather focusing on his
self-skills. For instance, the teacher monitor students achievement and will be
questioning whether his teaching styles suit his students learning preferences.

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In conclusion, a novice teacher has to experience these three stages during
their early years of teaching in order to develop their professionalism.

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2 (ii) HOW I WOULD HANDLE THE THREE STAGES IN MY PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT
On the first stage which is concerns towards self, I would handle it by asking
for guidance and help from the senior teachers that are also teach the subject that I
teach. The purpose of doing this is to ensure that I am doing things in a correct way. In
the same time, I can learn many skills in teaching the assigned subject which gives me
the chance to improve my content knowledge. It will useful for me to avoid false
teaching and will ensure me that I am teaching the content effectively. Furthermore,
their experience will help me to nurture and grow my confidence in teaching. In this way,
I will slowly develop my confidence in teaching and when the time has come, I will be
able to teach confidently with the help from my senior teachers. This is just one way
from many ways to handle this stage of concern.
Another way to handle this stage is by taking the initiative to improve selfskills in teaching. As a novice teacher, teaching is a whole new experience and
different compared to professional practice. Joining courses held by district education
office or education ministry is one of the ways to overcome concerns regarding self
among the novice teachers. I would join courses or self-enrichment programme to
develop my skills in teaching which can contribute to the development of my confidence.
During the courses, there will be a lot of experienced teachers participating and I can
use that opportunity to exchange knowledge with them especially on content
knowledge, pedagogical skills and classroom management skills. Furthermore, I can
learn a few things that I cannot get inside the books I read by listening to their
experience. From that, I will try my best to practice what they preached and in the same
time, develop my confidence in teaching.
On the second stage which is concern towards task, I would handle it by
learning and knowing my students preferences on every aspect related to the
education such as their learning styles and personalities. This is important for me to
improve my pedagogical skills to suit their learning preferences in order to ensure the
learning process becomes effective. Apart from that, knowing my students personalities

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also would help me to master the classroom management skills because I know how
they act and I know what measure is suitable to be used if some of them are
misbehaving in my class.
Recently, Professional Learning Community (PLC) was introduced to the
Malaysian education system. It is an approach whereby teachers are encouraged to
cooperate with each other by exchanging their knowledge, experience and opinions in
pedagogical skills and content knowledge. The aim of this approach is to ensure that
the teachers in Malaysia are always improving themselves by doing self-improvement
practice. Since this stage of concern makes me focusing more on improving my own
teaching practice, I will ask some senior teachers to observe my teaching and
learning session. Through this session, I will ask for their feedback and comments in
order to identify my weaknesses in teaching. In addition, I can learn from their feedback
and use it as a stepping stone to do better in the future.
On the third stage which is concern towards impact, I would handle it by
monitoring my students learning progress and development. This will allow me to
identify their weaknesses on the content I taught. By doing this, I will be able to focus on
improving my students weaknesses because I believe all of them have their own
potential and it is my responsibility to help them realize and expand it.
Apart from that, I would handle the concern towards impact by devising
strategies, methods or intervention to help my students in mastering the content that
they have difficulty in understanding. One of them is by doing action research. I will
develop a suitable intervention and then use it to help my students to master the
content. I will evaluate its effectiveness in my action research report. This promotes the
innovative practices among novice teachers and in the same time, is very useful to help
weaker students. All these come after I monitor the impact of my teaching. Action done
during this stage is purposely to help students because I believe, everyone has their
own potential and as a teacher, it is my responsibility to help them to grow it.

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In conclusion, all of these are the ways that I will use to handle the three
stages of teacher professional development suggested by Frances Fullers Theory of
Concern (1969).