The Character Profile of a Learner Teacher

An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

Dharma Kesuma, Babang Robandi, Teguh Ibrahim and Arie Rakhmat Riyadi

Faculty of Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Bandung, Indonesia

dharma@upi.edu

Keywords: Character Education, Learner Character, Learner Teacher, Teacher Competency Development, Integrative

review.

Abstract: This paper aims to analyze and explicitly explain the concept of “learner teacher character” which supported

by several recent studies and research. The research method used is the concept analyzation with generic

analyzation design (McMillan and Schumacher, 2011) or the integrative review (Whittermore and Knafl,

2005). The results of this research concluded that the profile of learner teacher character possess some

indicators, first, epistemic curiosity; second, the desire to enhance life qualities or utopic awareness; third,

learning ability in which contains critical awareness and metacognitive ability; fourth; independency or the

autonomy of learning in which shown with contribution towards other. This research possess some

significance for the development of learner character education in which it is the flagship program of PGSD

UPI. Moreover, this research will provide theoretical contribution of the learner teacher character profile

explicitly so that it may inflict for the enhancement of the program quality of learner competence enhancement

for teachers in Indonesia.

1 INTRODUCTION

Entering 2017, Indonesian teachers’ profile does not

fully reflect the true learner. Empirical fact of the past

three year is quiet frightening, for example is the

acquisition of UKG or TCT (Teacher Competency

Test) which showed the national average score that

only hit 56.69. Several studies reported that the

Indonesian teacher performance has not yet reached

optimal point. A research conducted by Kesuma et al

(2009) about Bandung elementary school teacher

profile concluded that elementary school teachers at

partner school are lack pedagogic and professional

competency, having lack of PTK or CAR (Classroom

Action Research) and teaching materials making

skills is an essential finding in this research.

Furthermore, Ilfiandra (2012) conducted a research

on teacher burnout in Bandung. Freudenberger (in

Ilfiandra, 2012) define the termteacher

burnouteducator’s inability to work effectively as a

result of stress and excess work. Ilfiandra’s research

concluded that Bandung teacher in the age span of 30

– 50 have high level of burnout, the causes are the

high teaching stress, semi-retirement age,

overbooked class, high administrative stress, and the

lack of teacher’s will to improve teaching activity

through CAR. Those two researches on teachers’

profile represent a frightening condition. It seems

there is no data for the analytic-empirical cause.

However, the authors hypothesize that one of the

causes is the unoptimal teacher professionalism

enhancement program organized by the Indonesian

government.

Research reports that teacher professionalism

development approaches in many countries usually

focus only on transmitting pre-determined knowledge

in a one-time session reflecting local policy initiatives

and changing priorities (Day and Sachs, 2004;

Schwille, Demb, Schubert, 2007;). The isolated

nature of this model encourages teachers to passively

receive information from educational experts and

then adopt a new approach without question (Darling-

Hammond and McLaughlin, 1999). In addition, the

sponsored Workshops consisted of reading through

policy documents, standard assessments, and asking

teachers to evaluate students' written exams rather

than effective pedagogical applications (Ono and

Ferreira, 2010). This approach does not provide an

evaluation of teacher’s learning and its impact on

students and their classes (Hendricks, 2013;

Mendelowitz and Davis, 2011). The research

literature concludes (egg Ball and Cohen, 1999;

Kesuma, D., Robandi, B., Ibrahim, T. and Riyadi, A.

The Character Proﬁle of a Learner Teacher - An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework.

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017) - Volume 1, pages 535-543

ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8

535

Desimone, Smith, and Frisvold, 2007; Opfer and

Pedder, 2011) that currently the professional

development of teachers is short, fragmented, and

isolated from real-world situations. And it has not had

an effect on teachers' willingness to change their

learning in the classroom.

Responding to the problem, the Indonesian

Ministry of Culture and Education has organized

learner teacher competency enhancement program.

This program is a strategic step to enhance teachers’

pedagogic and professional competence. Starting

from the speech of the Minister of Education and

Culture in a speech at the Commemoration of 2015’s

Hari Guru Nasional (HGN) or National Teacher's

Day; he invited all teachers to become learner teacher,

a teacher which is always present as an educator and

leader for learners, teacher who attend to sent a

message of hope, teacher which are an example of

resilience, optimism and cheerfulness. Teacher is a

learner who continually learns to improve their

quality. (Kemendikbud, 2016) Learner Teacher

Competency Enhancement Program is a process of

teaching and learning activities in order to improve

the capability and competence of teachers in

implementing the tasks of their profession. The

enhancement includes several activities aimed at the

improvement and the growth of capabilities

(abilities), attitude (attitude), and skills. This activity

is expected to produce a change in teachers’ behavior

which significantly changes the behavior impact on

improving the performance of teachers at teaching

and learning in the classroom. (Kemendikbud, 2016).

In relation to the learner teacher competence

program, International research reports that teacher

professionalism development is about teachers who

learn how to learn and transform their knowledge into

practices that enhance student learning activities

(Avalos, 2011). A review of 97 studies from the U.S.,

Canada, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and

Israel, Timperley, Wilson, Barrar and Fung (2007)

concluded that a variety of conditions are needed to

advance teachers’ learning. These conditions include:

a) time extension for teachers to develop, absorb,

discuss, and practice new knowledge; b) a safe space

to explore new materials and challenge previous

beliefs and practices; and c) Collaborate in the

pedagogic field that requires teachers to learn in ways

that reflect how to teach their students. Furthermore,

Ball (2009) designed a model of generative change as

a framework for the development of teacher

professionalism as a learner that aims to study how

teachers become reflective, wise, critical, and

generative thinkers. There are four stages in the

generative learning process (Ball, 2009). In the first

phase, teachers develop their metacognitive

awareness in which increases with their writing of

personal and professional experiences. In the second

phase, as teachers engage in mature discussion of

important issues related to language and literacy, they

look within themselves and their students' needs to

define their role within the teaching / learning

community. In the third phase, teachers are engaged

in action research and / or otherwise-problem-solving

questions and begin to internalize and develop

generative thinking skills. Finally, in the fourth stage,

teachers combine theories, best practices, and the

needs of their students to facilitate their own theories.

In his model, Ball identifies the importance of

narrative writing (Bruner 1994) and the four theories

that make up teacher generative change:

metacognitive awareness (Bransford, Brown and

Cocking, 2000), ideological being (Bakhtin, 1981),

internalization (Vygotsky, 1978); Self-efficacy

(Bandura, 1997). The generative learning model for

the development of teacher professionalism is also

being developed by Assaf, Ralfe, and Steinbach

(2016) through reflective journal-based learning

which implicates on the improvement of writing

process in several South African schools.

Referring to previous research, the authors found

a void in the conceptual framework regarding the

character profiles of learner teachers, this is the issue

that will be discussed in this paper, this void the

foundation of thinking for the learning teachers’

competence program considered as weak. Therefore,

this papers attempts to complement the study on

learner teacher enhancement program by displaying a

concept analysis of learner teacher’s character in the

context of teachers’ professionalism development in

Indonesia. The concept of the character is referring to

performance character and moral character concept

suggested by Davidson, Khmelkov, and Lickona,

(2010). The character of the learner teacher in this

paper possess a number of indicators that will be

explicitly stated by the author. The characters that

suggested by the author are 1) having epistemic

curiosity, 2) having emancipative will or utopic

awareness, 3) having learning skills (critical

awareness or metacognitive skills), and 4) having

learning independency or autonomy. The authors

hope this paper can be an alternative reference for

improving the quality of learner teacher programs and

can construct a further study on the learner character

education at the college level.

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

536

2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1 What does ‘character’ means in the

context of teacher of a learner?

First of all, the writer would like to explain the

concept of character explicitly. Juke (2014) explained

that “essence of a character is the quality of an

individual which is shown in the form of behavior”.

The qualities represent something valuable, valued

positively, and normatively. That means a person

with character would always consist in doing things

morally and valuably in everyday life. Furthermore,

Davidson et al (2008, 2010) differentiate two

dimensions of characters: performance character and

moral character. Performance character can be

interpreted as 'the power to strive for the best', having

strong orientation in achieving victory which includes

the quality of determination or will, perseverance and

self-discipline. Performance character is self-

qualities related to achievement orientation towards

task or work. Meanwhile moral character can be

interpreted as “power to do good deeds “having

relational orientation and manifested within integrity,

good relation, concern, affection and justice; moral

qualities which related to good social behavior.

(Davidson, Khmelkov, and Lickona, 2008, 2010).

Referring to that opinion, the word “character” in

this paper is more fixed onto ‘teacher’s performance

character as a true learner’. However, performance

character does not stand alone, because every teacher

character improvement project is always involving

moral character. According to Davidson et al (2010)

“even though performance character and moral

character conceptually seems different, but both of

them complete each other and hold control in forming

someone’s personality”. Moreover, in accordance to

Lickona (1992) broadly speaking, a good character is

formed by three dimensions of moral which are moral

knowing, moral feeling, and moral action. Can be

seen explicitly on figure I:

Figure 1: A Good Character’s Component

Based on those experts opinion, it can be

concluded that character is quality of one’s

personality which is manifested in good behavior

consistently. Character is built by three moral

components which are moral knowing, moral feeling,

and moral action. Moral knowing can be interpreted

as ate ability to understand and interpret a situation or

phenomenon. Moral feeling can be interpreted as the

ability to view moral phenomenon affectively, for

instance an individual feels happy when he does a

good deed and vice versahe feels sad for doing a bad

deed. Meanwhile moral action can be interpreted as

one’s act which is based by moral knowing and moral

feeling; it also can be defined as normative act (doing

what should be done), moral act fixed on competency,

will, and habit. Those three components of moral

character would also support the functionality of

teacher’s performance characters a true learner.

Because of that the concept of ‘character’ in this

paper is constructed by theoretical study on the

meaning of character in context of performance and

moral.

2.2 How about learner teacher?

Nowadays, the profession of teacher is being

stricken by self-identity crisis, so that teachers are too

busy teaching that they are forget to learn and renew

their understanding and knowledge. In Ball’s

perspective (2003) the pressure of neo-liberalism on

education world has scraped the identity of teacher’s

professionalism; educational policy is more focused

on market request, business management, and

academicals cognitive performance. Matching Ball’s

opinion, in Indonesian context, Nafika and Al-Asyari

(2013) clearly stated “All this time, education only

focused on one centrum which is to fill new

employment as the result of modernization and

industrialization. Billions of this nation’s youth

purely shaped in a single bowl to fill technical

position in companies and factories”. Even the

Indonesian teachers are trapped in curriculum

materialism, where the quality of education only

measured by numbers (Sumardianta, 2014). Teachers

in Indonesia are more like education ‘worker’ and

curriculum operator (Ibrahim, 2016). In this situation,

teachers are truly oppressed by the Bureaucratization

of education policy (Freire, 2005).

Reflecting on this phenomenon, it is not

exaggerating if the writer concluded that teachers in

Indonesia still having conventional teaching

paradigm. Learning and teaching activity still defined

as a mechanical activity which aims to consume a

number of knowledge, memorize, and then tested

Moral

Action

• Competenc

• Will

• Habbit

Moral Knowing

• Moral Awarenes

• Knowing Moral

Values

• Perspective-

talking

• Moral reasoning

• Descision making

• Self knowledge

Moral

Feeling

• Conscience

• Self-esteem

• Emphaty

• Loving the

good

• Self-control

•

Humil

ity

The Character Proﬁle of a Learner Teacher - An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

537

cognitively. This mechanical paradigm a potential

threat to sink teachers’ consciousness, thus making

science and technology development is not something

to be challenged to replicate or reproduce, but only a

bunch of fact that is consumed.

Related to teaching and learning paradigm, the

writer identified two learning concept which are: (1)

the learning process to master existing science (2) the

learning process to create new science.

Table 1: Learning Concept.

Learnin

Conce

Learning as a Science

Mastering

Learning as a Tool of

Creation

Process

(1) The process of

memorizing words as it

is, verbalism, rests on the

ability of remembering

(C1, Bloom).

(2) The process of

meaning memorization

rests exclusively on the

ability of understanding

(C2, Bloom).

The process of great

scientists creating new

science, the process of

research, the process of

answering questions

through data gathering

critically, the process of

critical problem solving.

Motivation

Motivation is extrinsic,

learning to pass the test,

or, for the benefit of

knowledge reproduction.

The motivation is intrinsic,

learning in order to fulfill

curiosity, desire to solve

problems, the desire to

emanci

ate life.

Utilization

(1) Study for the sake of

passing the test.

(2) Studying build

dependence towards

books and scientists.

(3) studying for the sake

of preserving existing

culture, existing social

structure, including

preserving the

oppressing social

structure because of the

critical development

failure

(1) Study for the sake of

fulfilling curiosity (as

stated by western

psychologists); but it is

better to study for the sake

of life emancipation.

(2) Studying is an act of

getting freedom, building

independencies, self-

autonomy, including

learning and thinking

independency.

(3) Studying for the sake of

social transformation;

studying potentially

roducin

innovations.

Activists

Knowledge production

done by a number of

elites in research center

and university (research

elitism); and common

people from school level

are consumer of

knowled

Everyone has the same

chance to find or create

knowledge, or solving

problem, does not have to

be scientists (research

democratization).

Adopted from Kesuma (2016).

Adopted from table 1, it can be concluded that all

this time learning activity is focused on mastering

existing science. The first learning concept is

identical with memorization; which then tested on a

test that is focused on verbal reproduction (through

words) of science. Which is different with the second

learning concept, creating new science, is a learning

activity advised by Paulo Freire (in Kesuma and

Ibrahim, 2016), Jarvis (1992), scientific approach,

and metacognition approach (Marzano and Kendall,

2008). The creation of new science is not forever

means as the words is, it could be re-creation or re-

finding of a science, or other forms. Responding

those two paradigm, a teacher that has true learner

character would, of course, hold on to the second

paradigm, where knowledge is not only being

consumed, but more on to creation and re-creation, in

where science is used as a whip to create innovation

or a more advanced replication. One of the ways for

teacher to re-create science and knowledge is through

CAR, this process will help teacher to reflect learning

activities he ran, identify current problem, proposing

hypothesis, and answering the hypothesis through the

improvement of learning activity process.

3 METHOD

This research method is a concept of analysis method

along with generic analysis to identify the essential

meaning of a concept. The analysis isolates elements

which distinguish a concept from other words. The

result of the generic analysis is the clarity of a

concept. The indicator is the availability of

definitions and arguments which support the

meanings. (McMillan and Schumacher, 2001).

Generic analysis design could be called as integrative

review. The method is conducted in some steps

starting from problem identification, literature

searching, evaluation and data analysis, and the last is

reporting (Whittemore and Knafl, 2005; Brady and

Asselin 2016).

1. The problem is the need of conceptual

framework relates to a profile of character

learning teacher along with the indicators.

2. Literature review applies article references

which are posted in a website that provides the

variety of trusted international publications

such as sciencedirect.com, SAGE

publications, and ERIC journals. The

literature searching uses some keywords:

learners, character building, professional

development, and others which are required.

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

538

3. The evaluation data is being done through

article selection which supports literature

review of the learners’ character profiles, 20

out of 40 articles are selected to be the best

references.

4. Data analysis, the researchers adopt line

method by line coding (Corbin and Strauss,

2008). Researchers identify phrases, sentences

and themes relate to research review.

5. Reporting, the last product from integrative

review, is the steady-state concept concerning

the profile of learner teachers’ characters.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

4.1 What are the learner teacher

indicators?

So far, it has chosen from numerous sub-dimensions

of learner character competency. The following items

are based on the writer’s perception of teachers’

learning needs in which so far to this point has been

building interpersonal-academic relationship with the

writer. Especially the teachers that participated in

PGSD UPI program and UPI partner school teacher.

Table 2: The learner teacher indicators.

Learner Character

Competencies

Competency Achievement

Indicator

Curiosity

• Always ask significant

question.

• Always seek for information

independently.

The desire of

improving life

or utopian

awareness

• Always concerned upon

seeing weakness.

• Always strive to contribute

upon one self and others.

• Always making efforts to

improve things particularly

teachin

ractice in a class.

Learning

Competency

• Always bring up specific

problem/question, idea, or

hypothesis on currently

learned phenomena.

• Always strive to answer the

problems they are currently

facing.

• Always discuss working

result in order to overview the

process/result of learning

activity.

• Always havingskill and

knowledgeimprovement.

Independency

or learning

autonomy

• Always being able to create

test for existing theory.

• Always being able to test

existing theory.

• Always appreciate/accept

better argumentation.

• Always strive to fulfill other’s

learnin

needs.

As for the explanation, the authors describe as

follows:

4.1.1 Curiosity

Human curiosity is a topic of current research interest

(Powell, Nettelbeck, Burns, 2016), and has been

applied to predicting job performance (Mussel,

2013b), academic achievement (von Stumm, Hell,

and Chamorro-Premuzic, 2011), and ex- ploratory

behavior (Litman, Hutchins, and Russon, 2005).

Moreover, curiosity is human nature, an inseparable

part of human when he encounters strange things,

new things, challanges, threats, doubts, discrepancy,

and problems. Freire (in Kesuma and Ibrahim, 2016)

mentions human as a creature in a permanent search,

a creature which explores, supported by his curiosity.

Berlyne (1950, 1954) shares a note of the first concept

of curiosity, he distinguisghed perceptual curiosity,

and epistemic curiosity. In this context, researchers

applies epistemic curiosity concept to be a learner

teacher indicators.

In a context of learner teachers, by putting aside

curiosity, a teacher only does their actions without

exploits his critical mind, typically people in general

which flows and follows the culture. A life which

flows (determinism) leads to a spontaneous, reactive,

and naive type of curiosity. Teachers as learners

should have a great curiosity, an intense motivation to

develop, a high integrity and become consistent in

enhancing his work performance. The will to learn is

his natural characteristic. External factor such as

getting promotion, or allowance is his second

motivation.

4.1.2 The desire of improving life or utopian

awareness

Curiosity needs to be improved by the desire to

improve life. Freire (1974) defines it as praxis

(reflection-action-transformative). Habernas (1987)

defines it as a normative and communicative action,

Halpin mentions utopian thinking. Utopian

perception combines knowledge and the interests of

human glorification (humanization) and the ideal

creation of social life. The intention of learning leads

The Character Proﬁle of a Learner Teacher - An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

539

to improve life. A valid science is the inseparable part

of activities to improve and reform. In a context of

teacher as a learner, the desire to improve life

implicates to the process of regenerate learning

practice, leads to reflection process (Ball, 2008), self-

regulation (Zimmermsn and Schunk, 2001), and

moral agency (Campbell, 2008, 2010)

In “Hope and Education (The Role of Utopian

Imagination), David Halpin states the desire of

improving education world can be called as utopian

education, Halpin explains:

Although a utopia about utopianism in the

education context, this topic does not attempt to

predict the future of schooling. Rather, it discusses

the kind of attitude educators should consider

having about its reform and about the prospect of

educational change generally. Basically, this

attitude is one that entails the adoption of a

militant optimism of the will in the course of

which a form of ultimate hope is brought to bear

on educational situations and problems through

specific applications of the utopian imagination.

(Halpin, 2003)

According to Halpin’s argument, the characters of

learner teachers certainly require utopian awareness,

involve to hopes, critical thinking, and the power of

action which stands up to reform, change, and future

education prospect. Utopian manner to education can

be illustrated by analogy with militant manner

(compassionate, high spirit, totality) in keeping

optimism to fight for education reformation in macro-

region, and learning practice’s reformation in micro-

region.

4.1.3 Learning skill (Critical Consciousness

or Metacognitive skills)

According to Freire (1974, 2001, 2008), learning

competence is a competency to problematize one’s

life, anything which human confronts in his life is his

challenge and learning. Problematization aims to the

search of knowledge, and a preferable life.

Problematization would be successfully done if the

person has critical consciousness. Critical

consciousness is consisted of some components.

Mustakova concludes in his research “which I found

most pertinent to the salient structural developmental

aspects of Freire's (1974) definition of Critical

Consciousness. Those aspects were (a) reasoning

about causality, (b) understanding of one's social

experience, (c) ways in which the self relates to social

experience, and (d) moral reasoning.’’ (Mustakova,

1998). In accordance to Mustakova’s argument, it

could be realized that people who already has critical

consciousness attempt to find the reason for being

(causal, existence)from what they have encountered,

the connectivity of other phenomenon between the

reason of their existences. The finding is done

analytic-critically, in terms to find a valid-reliable

knowledge and to transform a life into a better one.

This kind of person is a critical scientist as well as a

moral person. Critical consciousness could be

developed through scientific approach, where teacher

does their actions like a scientist. Scientific approach

demands teachers to think systematically and

critically. In order to solve problems which has no

clear solution. (Barringer, et al 2010). The scientific

approaches could be represented by some steps as

below:

Table 3: Scientific Approach.

Scientific A

roach

Essential steps Learning scenarios

Observing Observing phenomenon

Questioning Bring up questions, ideas, and

othesis

Testing Answering questions,

implementing ideas or hypothesis

in order to collect data.

Processing data Interpreting the data, finding and

formulating

meanings/patterns/themes/

concept of data; presenting it in the

form of narration, graphic, tables,

matrices, and fi

ures.

Communicate Presenting the results of data

rocessing

Adapted from curriculum 2013.

The authors think the most essential step from the

scientific approach is questioning and answering.

When a person encounters a phenomenon in order to

learn it, he has to bring up questions, ideas, or

hypothesis. Then, answering it through

implementation, practice, and observation.

Table 4: Questioning and Answering.

Observin

Questioning

Questionin

Testin

Answering Data

rocessing

Communicating

In the context of teachers as learners, teachers’

learning skills could be developed through scientific

approaches which could be implemented in various

activities. Either it is a learning-teaching process,

studying pedagogy theories and executing classroom

ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences

540

action research. All actions aims to improve

education and human resources qualities.

4.1.4 Independency or Learning Autonomy

Authors presume independence as an affective side

from learning competency which has been explained

above. When a person becomes relatively competent

in learning and implements the metacognition

learning process, he will become an independent

person. He is exempted from his dependency to

another parties, he becomes independent. He

understands the way to act as a professional.

Independence also has negative side, such as being

individualistic and selfish. Independence in this

context is collaborative independence with anyone.

Authors presume few people understands about

autonomy or independence of ourselves. There are

some people who position themselves as an operator

in their work life, not a developer or learner teachers.

The meaning of learning independence starts with

a premise that an independence student is responsible

of his own learning. By doing this, they could

identify:

 Their purpose of learning (what they need to

learn)

 Their learning process (how they learn)

 How they evaluate and apply their learning

 They have a lot of approaches and learning

skills

 They organize their time to learn

 They have great skills of information

processing

 They are motivated to learn well

(Yagcioglu,2015, Moore, 2015)

In accordance to Yagcioglu and Moore’s findings,

it coud be realized that learner teachers must have

motivation and the strong learning independence.

Through learning independence, teachers could

overcome their problems which they encounter in

class or in their professional life. Independence

learning helps teachers to cope with its dependence of

unethical things such as plagiarism. Independence

learning will help them to become scientists which

the study is to create an ideal learn in practice, assists

the students to learn and develop their potential.

These four dimensions of learners’ characters

have to be expanded through the appropriate

character education pattern. It could be the way to

awaken critical consciousness of the importance of

teachers as learners (Freire, 1974; Kesuma, 2016), to

arrange classroom action research regularly (mcNiff,

1988), to collaborate with colleagues to enhance the

quality of education (Johnson and Johnson, 2008), to

develop self-regulation skills (Zimmerman, 2008),

and learning based experience (Girvan, Conneely,

and Tangney, 2016). Some of these recommendations

are likely to improve teachers' self-efficacy. In the

context of teacher profession in education world, self-

efficacy of teachers regards to personal beliefs about

teachers capabilities to assist students learning. Self

efficacy of teachers influences actions, efforts, and

teachers’ persistence to educate students (Ashton,

1985, Ashton and Webb, 1986 in Schunk 2008).

Teachers which have lower self efficacy might not

design the actions which are beyond their capabilities,

not be able to handle the student problems, not doing

many efforts to search for materials, and not review

the lesson materials in the way that students would

understand. A teacher which has low self efficacy

tend to be more comfortable with something stagnant,

avoiding innovation.

While teachers which has higher self efficacy

tend to develop challenging actions, help the students

to become successful, and persevere in handling the

students which has learning problems. Motivational

effects towards the teacher could improve student

achievements. Teachers which have higher self

efficacy also indicate a strong commitment toward

their professions (Chan, lau, nie, lim and Hogan, 2008

in Schunk 2008). Ashton and Webb (1986) in Schunk

(2008) discovered teachers with higher self efficacy

tend to create a positive classroom environment,

supporting students’ ideas, and have the eye for

students’ needs. Regarding to the experts’ opinion, it

could be concluded that self efficacy is the first step

for a teacher to build learner characters within

themselves. Through high self efficacy, a teacher is

confident of their self potential, has a focus on their

visions. Persistence in order to achieve goals through

behaviours which are arranged by progressive self-

regulation ability.

5 CONCLUSIONS

This paper presents a conceptual framework regards

to what “learner teachers’ characters” are, and how

essential to improve teacher’s professionalism in

education life. This paper attempts to give reference

alternatives for improving the program of learner

teacher competence improvement that is being held

by the Indonesia’s Ministry of Education and Culture.

The learner teacher’s characters which are

recommended in this paper have some dimensions or

indicators require: 1) epistemic curiosity; 2) the desire

to enhance life qualities or utopian awareness; 3)

learning ability in which contains critical awareness

The Character Proﬁle of a Learner Teacher - An Integrative Review and Conceptual Framework

541

and metacognitive ability; 4) independency or the

autonomy of learning in which shown with

contribution towards other.

These four dimensions of

learners’ characters must be built and developed in a

teacher and applied in teacher profession education

program. It requires learning based on self-regulation,

critical consciousness, metacognitive and moral

agency. This paper is not yet perfect because it is still

in the stage of building a theoretical and pedagogical

framework, it has not reached the implementation

stage. For the next research it is expected to facilitate

the concept of the dimensions of learner’s

characteristics in an applied research which has

significant validity and reliability.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Authors thank to every parties, especially to

researchers which focus on reviewing learner

characters education theories, teacher profession

development, and critical pedagogy. Their ideas

inspire the authors to finalize this paper. Authors also

thank to “The First International Conference on

Educational Sciences” (ICES) committees which

have facilitated authors to publish this paper.

Hopefully it could provide benefits for the readers

and academic society.

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