RELEVANCE OF COURSE CONTENT TO REAL-WORLD TEACHING CHALLENGES: PERCEPTIONS OF INTEGRATED B.ED.-M.ED. STUDENTS IN ODISHA

The 3-years Integrated B.Ed.-M.Ed. programme was designed to streamline teacher education by combining both B.Ed. and M.Ed. degrees into a single and continuous course, with an aim to produce highly qualified and competent teachers. The study aimed to find out the level of perception of final semester Integrated B.Ed.-M.Ed. students on the relevance of their course content with reference to their academic stream and university. The study adopted descriptive survey method and included 75 Integrated B.Ed.-M.Ed. students from three universities of Odisha by using quota sampling technique. A self-structured perception scale was developed based on dimensions like, pedagogical knowledge and teaching competency,classroom management and student engagement, assessment and evaluation skills, research and inquiry-based learning, leadership and professional ethics and use of educational technology. The collected data were analysedby calculating mean, median, standard deviation, t-value and f-ratio and the findings revealed majority (66.67%) of the students shown high level of perception towards the relevance of their course content to real-world teaching challenges and no significant difference was found in the perceptions with reference to their academic stream and university.