An overview of knowledge management practice among teachers
| Published date | 05 November 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/GKMC-08-2017-0065 |
| Date | 05 November 2018 |
| Pages | 616-631 |
| Author | Sugunah Supermane,Lokman Mohd Tahir |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Information behaviour & retrieval,Information in society,Information literacy,Library & information services |
An overview of
knowledge management
practice among teachers
Sugunah Supermane and Lokman Mohd Tahir
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Skudai, Malaysia
Abstract
Purpose –This study aims to focus on the practice of knowledge management in Malaysian primary
schools. Its objective is to identify the level of five knowledge management dimensions, which includes
knowledge acquisition, knowledge refinement, knowledge storage/retrieval, knowledge distribution and
knowledgepresentation.
Design/methodology/approach –A cross-sectional survey was designed to collect the primary data
from 250 primary school teachers within southern Malaysia.The levels of knowledge management practice
were identified through close-ended questionnaires adapted from the Meyer and Zack’s Knowledge
ManagementCycle (1996).
Findings –The quantitative data analysis indicated that all the knowledge management dimensions are
moderately practiced by the primary school teachers. However, knowledge storage and retrieval was the
dominant dimension compared to the others, whereas knowledge distribution was the least dominant
knowledgemanagement dimension.
Research limitations/implications –Knowledge management practice is essential to teachers in
creating and delivering qualityteaching and learning activities. Therefore, educational leaders, officialsand
teachers training institutesshould plan a clinical workshop on knowledge management practice to improve
the qualityof teaching and learning activities.
Originality/value –This study is perhaps the first study to investigate the practice of knowledge
managementamong teachers in Malaysian primary schools.
Keywords Primary school, Primary school teachers, Knowledge distribution,
Knowledge management practice, Knowledge storage, School knowledge management
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Despite the growing significance of globalization, the education system has become an
effective medium to improve the competitiveness of a country. Most countriesin the world
including Malaysia attempt to transform in their educational system along with thecurrent
changes. Particularly, the implication of international education standards and usage of
technology in the education system are signs of transformation in Malaysian educational
system (Malaysian Ministry of Education-MOE, 2013). Realizing the importance of the
transformation, Malaysian Teacher Education Institute (2011) has identified teaching
qualities as prerequisites in enhancing teaching and learning activities.All these initiatives
are considered as the base to transformthe education system in the country.
Significantly, the resource-based viewsarbitrate that knowledge is the best source to be
manipulated to attain diversity or innovation of teaching and learning activities in
educational institutions (Supermane and Tahir, 2017,Al-Husseini and Elbeltagi, 2015;
Honarpour et al.,2012;Carneiro, 2000). The reformation agenda in schools focuses on how
teachers assess, handle and utilize the available knowledge to change their teaching and
GKMC
67,8/9
616
Received8 August 2017
Revised13 March 2018
31May 2018
Accepted20 September 2018
GlobalKnowledge, Memory and
Communication
Vol.67 No. 8/9, 2018
pp. 616-631
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2514-9342
DOI 10.1108/GKMC-08-2017-0065
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/2514-9342.htm
learning activities (Carroll et al.,2003). Thus, school teachers are playing prominent role in
managing their scarce knowledge and expertise to transform the educational activities in
local schools. In spite of just delivering lessons, teachers in twenty-first century need to be
more responsible on assessingand enriching the existing knowledge. Therefore, an effective
effort on knowledge managementamong school teachers is much needed as a foundation in
transforming educationalsystem along with globalization.
There are a few noticeable reasons why knowledge management is essential to
Malaysian primary schools. First and foremost, primary schools by nature are
providing fundamental-based knowledge where they are recognized to have continuous
knowledge flow. Knowledge management, in this case, allows teachers to create and
modify knowledge collaboratively according to current requirements and pupils’
capabilities (Bandyopadhyay et al., 2017). Second, the phenomenon of knowledge
hoarding in educational institutions has led to scarcity of knowledge and expertise
(Cheng et al., 2009). As such, knowledge management can be turned into an educational
tool to boost the interchange of tacit and explicit knowledge (Fowlin and Cennamo,
2017) through communication networks. This can be happened when novice teachers
record the experiences and knowledge shared verbally by senior teachers. The recorded
conversation will be transcribed and kept as a new knowledge in the knowledge
repositories. The acquired new knowledge will be used by teachers to enhance the
teaching and learning activities in the schools.
Henceforth, it is very clear that teachers in schools have much to gain from knowledge
management practice. Nevertheless, there were some doubts on the efficiency of primary
school teachers in managing the knowledge. Fullan (2001) has mentioned that school
teachers were not really showing their interest in practicing knowledge management. For
instance, teachers were hesitatedto share the knowledge as they had the fear of losing of the
ownership and privilege. Subsequently, Tippins (2003) also stated that academic staffs
viewed knowledge as a source of distinction, and thus refused to share all types of
knowledge and experiences. Contrary, some of the teachers were reluctant to receive new
knowledge from others as theythought it will bring threat and burden (Awang et al.,2011).
Therefore, these two groups of teacherscontributed to the existence of knowledge hoarding
culture in schools. This culture is worrisome, as it impedes knowledge sharing among
teachers and stymied the creationof new knowledge.
However, there were interestsshown on knowledge management practices in the context
of education institutions specifically higher learning institutions (Muda and Yusof, 2015;
Ramayah et al.,2014;Ramachandran et al.,2013;Kuah and Wong, 2012). A thorough
internet search discloses that past studies concerning knowledge management practice in
primary schools are very limited. Some of the studies were indirectly related from
information and communication technologies researches (Aliza, 2004), but none of them
have attempted to test knowledge management empirically in the context of Malaysian
primary schools. As the knowledge management practice has already well established in
higher learning institutions, it is a perfect time to assessthem empirically in the context of
primary schools. Therefore,this has driven the researcher to identify the level of knowledge
management practiceamong Malaysian primary school teachers. The resultswill contribute
to staff development departments and administrators to plan and execute an
effective knowledge management practices. Specifically, the research questions generated
from the objective of this currentstudy are as follows:
RQ1. What is the level of knowledgeacquisition among primary school teachers?
RQ2. What is the level of knowledgerefinement among primary school teachers?
Practice
among
teachers
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