An investigation into teacher's beliefs and practice about developing supplementary materials for ielts learners at language centers in Ho Chi Minh city

property was addressed in terms of piloting. The results from piloting were calculated using Cronbach’s alpha to measure the internal reliability of the instrument.

With respect to the interview, the strategies for validity in the questionnaire continued to be employed in addition to those pertinent to this type of eliciting data. During the course of the interview, Vietnamese was used to guarantee there were no misunderstandings or miscommunication. The words of participants were then transcribed and translated by the author. The reliability of the interview was also ensured through the highly structured interview in that the same protocol was conducted with each respondent (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 273). Besides, the theme and code were predetermined and consistent during the process of coding (Gibbs (2007) as cited in Creswell and Creswell (2018)).

CHAPTER IV: FINDINGS

The current study was aimed at discovering the nature of teachers’ beliefs and their practice about developing supplementary materials for IELTS classrooms in language centers in Ho Chi Minh City. In this chapter, data gathered through the survey was analyzed statistically and, through the interview, was grouped in terms of themes and subthemes. The results were presented in two sections reporting the results of the survey and interview, respectively.

4.1. Findings from the survey

The questionnaire included items related to three distinct subscales – concepts, reasons, and criteria (N=131). The Cronbach’s alphas for these variables are .766, .791, and .826, respectively.

Tables 4.1, 4.2, and 4.3 summarize what teachers perceived of the concepts, reasons, and criteria regarding developing supplementary materials.

Table 4. 1

Teachers’ beliefs about the concept of supplementary materials

Item No.

Mean	Std Dev
1	1.35	.51
2	1.53	.56
3	1.67	.65
4	1.66	.67
5	1.56	.61
6	1.71	.70
7	2.05	.79
8	1.60	.71

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Teachers’ beliefs about the concept of supplementary materials were illustrated by a total of 8 items on a 4-point Likert scale in part 2 of the questionnaire – the lower the scores, the more positive beliefs about the concept. As table 4.1 shows, teachers overall had positive beliefs towards the concepts in the questionnaire. Nevertheless, there is a disparity in the mean scores, which illustrates the preference of teachers. Most teachers strongly agreed that supplementary materials are “books and other materials we can use in addition to core materials” (M = 1.31, SD = .51). Moreover, they also had positive perception of “coursebooks add-ons” (M = 1.53, SD = 56), “skill development materials” (M = 1.56, SD = .61), and “exam techniques and practice test” (M = 1.60, SD = .71). When it came to “self-developed worksheets” (M = 1.67, SD = .64), “authentic materials” (M = 1.66, SD = .67) and “language support materials” (M = 1.71, SD = .70), the mean scores were high. This clearly indicates that teachers had less interest in using such sources as supplementary materials. On the other hand, teachers seemed not to believe

much in the practicality of “collections of communicative games and activities” as supplementary materials since the mean score was 2.05.

Table 4. 2

Teachers’ beliefs about the reasons to develop supplementary materials

Item No.

Mean	Std Dev
1	1.73	.70
2	1.66	.69
3	1.58	.64
4	1.56	.66
5	1.40	.55
6	1.59	.65
7	1.47	.61

As regards the second section with respect to reasons to develop IELTS supplementary materials, participants were required to give their opinion on a scale similar to that of the Concept section. According to Table 4.2, teachers appeared to have highly positive beliefs about the driving force behind supplementary materials. Most teachers believed that they develop supplementary materials because they “offer students with extra practices” and “contain up-to-date information” (M = 1.40, SD = .55; M = 1.47, SD = .61). Less remarkable reasons to develop supplementary materials involve “providing materials missing from the coursebooks” (M = 1.58, SD = .64), “meeting students’ needs” (M = 1.56, SD = .66), and “being relevant to demands of exams” (M = 1.59, SD = .65). Interestingly, teachers may pay the least attention to improving the classroom mood and replacing unsuitable materials in the coursebooks with

supplementary materials because they did not receive as much strong agreement as the others (M = 1.73, SD = .70; M = 1.66, SD = .69).

Table 4. 3

Teachers’ beliefs about the criteria for developing supplementary materials

Item No.

Mean	Std Dev
1	1.34	.56
2	1.55	.61
3	1.80	.67
4	1.66	.62
5	1.63	.61
6	1.95	.82
7	2.03	.73
8	1.87	.66
9	1.74	.63

With respect to the beliefs about the criteria for developing IELTS supplementary materials, teachers gave top priority to the “learners’ levels of language proficiency”, and “course objective” (M = 1.34, SD = .56; M = 1.55, SD = .61). Less significant, but still preferable, criteria involved the “academic language style” (M = 1.66, SD = .62), “practice activities reflecting the requirement of the test” (M = 1.63, SD = .61) and “teaching context” (M = 1.74, SD = .63). On the other hand, criteria such as “topics similar to those in main coursebooks” (M = 1.80, SD = .67), “general knowledge related to learners’ own lives and experiences” (M = 1.95, SD = .82), and “clear accessible layout” received little agreement from teachers (M =1.87, SD = .66). Noticeably,

“students’ background and culture” was the only item that teachers expressed strong disagreement (M = 2.03, SD = .73)

In previous research, competing variables such as gender, education, and years of experience may cause discrimination in teachers’ beliefs. The current study, nevertheless, yielded both contradictory and consistent results. Particularly, there was hardly any significant effect for gender on all three independent variables of concepts, reasons, and criteria.

Table 4. 4

The difference between the mean scores of male and female teachers regarding Concepts, Reasons, and Criteria of supplementary materials development

Gender	N	Mean	Std Dev
Concepts	Male	40	1.64	.37
Concepts	Female	91	1.64	.42
Reasons	Male	40	1.62	.38
Reasons	Female	91	1.55	.45
Criteria	Male	40	1.72	.34
Criteria	Female	91	1.73	.46

It can be seen from Table 4.4 that the mean scores of male and female teachers are nearly identical for all of the variables in the scales of Concepts, Reasons, and Criteria. This tendency was confirmed by the t-test outcome with the statistical significance set at p < .05. The consistent means between male and female teachers were contrary to what Cheng (2018) has argued about gender differences. Therefore, it suggests gender may not be a competing variable in research about teachers’ beliefs.

Table 4. 5

The ANOVA results for teachers’ beliefs of Concepts, Reasons, and Criteria of supplementary materials development according to their levels of education

			Dev
Concept	books and other materials we can use in
	addition to core materials (item 1)
	College degree	1.00	.00
	Bachelor’s degree	1.29	.48
	Master’s degree	1.54	.56
	Doctoral Degree	1.50	.71
	language support materials (item 6)			2.89	.038
	College degree	2.00	.89
	Bachelor’s degree	1.69	.67
	Master’s degree	1.65	.63
	Doctoral Degree	3.00	1.41
Reasons	meet students’ needs (item 4)			3.86	.011
	College degree	1.33	.52
	Bachelor’s degree	1.58	.64
	Master’s degree	1.49	.61
	Doctoral Degree	3.00	1.41
	offer students with extra practices (item 5)			6.56	.000
College degree		1.33	.52
Bachelor’s degree		1.36	.48
Master’s degree		1.41	.55
Doctoral Degree		3.00	1.41
contain up-to-date information (item 7)				4.68	.004
College degree		1.50	.55
Bachelor’s degree		1.46	.57
Master’s degree		1.41	.60
Doctoral Degree		3.00	1.41
Criteria	Learners’ levels of language proficiency		3.27 .024
	(item 1)
	College degree	1.33	.82
	Bachelor’s degree	1.29	.46
	Master’s degree	1.38	.59

Items Mean Std

F p

3.27 .024

Doctoral Degree

2.50 2.12
Topics similar to those in main coursebooks (item 3)		4.87 .003
College degree	1.67 .82
Bachelor’s degree	1.80 .65
Master’s degree	1.73 .61
Doctoral Degree	3.5 .71
Academic language and style (item 4)		4.21 .007
College degree	2 .63
Bachelor’s degree	1.62 .51
Master’s degree	1.65 .72
Doctoral Degree	3.00 1.41
Practice activities reflecting the requirement of the test (item 5)		3.71 .013
College degree	1.67 .82
Bachelor’s degree	1.63 .53
Master’s degree	1.57 .65
Doctoral Degree	3.00 1.41
General knowledge related to learners’ own lives and experiences (item 6)		3.05 .031
College degree	2.33 1.03
Bachelor’s degree	1.92 .79
Master’s degree	1.89 .81
Doctoral Degree	3.50 .71
Teaching context (i.e., the availability of equipment and accessibility to the materials) (item 9)		3.61 .015
College degree	2.00 .63
Bachelor’s degree	1.67 .52
Master’s degree	1.78 .75
Doctoral Degree	3.00 1.41

Table 4.5 summarizes a one-way between-subjects ANOVA conducted to compare the impact of teachers’ training on their beliefs of Concepts, Reasons, and Criteria of supplementary materials development. The result suggested that teachers holding college, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees shared almost the same beliefs. However, there was a shift in teachers’ beliefs as they obtained a doctoral degree. They care more about the outcomes rather than factors such as students’ needs, topics of the materials, or the