Coaching and Mentoring among SISC+: Their Roles and Responsibilities, Successes and Challenges, and Their Influence on The Teaching and Learning

Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) was reformed to empower and bring national education up to the international level. The aim of this study was to elucidate the coaching and mentoring that directly link instructional coaching with improved teacher performance or student achievement in four districts in Negeri Sembilan. It is a mixed method approach while the selected design is a case study. Three SISC+ and their coaches were selected for interview and 55 respondents participated in questionnaires. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, observations, document analysis, and survey. All the data were analysed with the help of ATLAS.ti for qualitative and SPSS for the quantitative method. The study revealed that, their successes were measured through being accepted by their coachees in improving both the lesson quality and knowledge growth while working with adult learners with different attitude being one of their toughest challenges. The findings revealed that the SISC+ has been successful in influencing the coachees to improve in lesson quality. Based on the results, it was concluded that the initiative of the Ministry to accelerate the transformation of education through positioning the SISC+ in PPD is a good effort. However, these SISC+ must be trained to be competent, knowledgeable and skillful in the areas of pedagogies, curriculum, and assessments.


Introduction
The aim of this paper is to explore into, and ientify the roles and responsibilities of SISC+ because there is the need to have a more explicit interpretation about the description of the roles and responsibilities of a SISC+ for better performance in their profession. Therefore, this study addresses how the SISC+ perceives and delivers their roles and responsibilities in school to help the teachers enhance their performance in their profession and eventually help to realise the hope of the Ministry to transform the education system in Malaysia. Another significant objective in this paper is to explore the success and the challenges of SISC+ during the process of coaching and mentoring in the workplace. The success of the SISC+ is significant to study because it will provide the contextual clue to the contribution of SISC+ in the industry itself. Finally, this study also sheds light on the influence of coaching and mentoring by the SISC+ in teaching and learning among English Language teachers. Regardless of how a person embarks upon learning, the outcome is the vital part. Thus, studying the influence of SISC+ towards the teaching and learning of the teachers are essential due to the impact on students' performance.

Literature Review Coaching
Coaching is the main component of a successful professional development that will become a form of support to reveal a person's potential to maximise their own performance. Coaching offers support for the learners' ability to transfer their learning to succeed in complex and independent performances. According to Lord et al (2008), coaching is an enabling process that aims at enhancing learning and development with the intention of improving the performance in a specific aspect of the practice (Lord et al., 2008). Therefore, in this study coaching is defined as the ability of a coach to offer additional professional support in helping the coachees to exploit and increase their performance in certain subjects, namely Mathematics, Bahasa Melayu and English Language. The emphasis will be on continuous collaboration, support for lesson planning and teacher placement so that the 21 st century teaching and learning in the classroom can become the focal point of their teaching.

Mentoring
Mentoring refers to a process of serving as a mentor, or someone who facilitates and assists another person's development. With regard to this study, mentoring is a process where the SISC+ or the coaches demonstrate a range of cognitive coaching competencies, such as posing carefully constructed questions to stimulate reflection and paraphrasing. Then with the data collected from the modelling it will be used to improve teaching and learning. The process of mentoring includes modelling because the mentor must be able to model the messages and suggestions being taught to the beginning teacher (Gay, 1995). With regard to this study, mentoring is a process where the SISC+ or the coaches demonstrate a range of cognitive coaching competencies, such as posing carefully constructed questions to stimulate reflection, paraphrasing, and using data to improve teaching and learning. Ganser (2006) stated that mentoring was a tool which had remained very significant in improving management skills and staff development. Hence, mentoring is a dynamic relationship that leads to the creativity, professional growth and mastery over problem-solving techniques. Thus, mentoring is a factor that promotes guidance on career development and role modelling where both contribute significantly to employee's development.

SISC+
SISC+ is the acronym for School Improvement Specialist Coaches -a new post created by the Ministry of Education. The SISC+ job is to improve the quality of teaching and learning among the teachers under its control towards enhancing proficiency and ensuring students' achievement. The teachers supervised and guided are expected to reach a predetermined standard and also to make sure that the policies and programmes are carried out in schools. The SISC+ will also plan and coordinate the implementation of training for teachers in their respective areas.

Teachers
Teacher is a profession with a job scope to teach students through each pivotal stage of development. As teachers, they are one of the most influential people in students' lives. After their parents, children will first learn from their school teacher, who will guide students, inform them, expand their awareness as well as develop their performance ability. Thus, in this study the teachers refer to the educators who receive personal coaching and mentoring from the SISC+ or the coach. The coach establishes clear performance goals and then supervises the development of skills and knowledge through on-going opportunities to perform, accompanied by specific feedback and modelling. This support by the SISC+ is intended to ensure the success of the Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013-2025) which seeks to empower the national education system and eventually helps students to get their potential results. In this research, the teachers and coachees refer to the same participants, therefore, the terms might be used interchangeably.

Coaches
Coach usually refers to a person who is responsible to help, assist and provide support to the people who are under his or her supervision. The coach is an important individual with the responsibility of bringing evidence-based practices into classrooms by working with teachers and other school leaders. In District Transformation Programme, the coach works one to one with the teachers in the school. In this research, coach and SISC+ are the same, therefore both terms are used interchangeably. The outcomes include the levels of achievement and performance within an education culture striving for continuous improvement. The selected coaches are skilled communicators, or relationship builders, with a repertoire of excellent communication skills that enable them to empathize, listen, and build trusting relationships (Knight, 2008). Coaches meet the teachers and help them to apply what they learn from professional development experiences such as courses, workshop series, or study groups to their work with children. Coaches will share the knowledge, skills and ideas with their teachers. Thus, coaches help teachers plan the curriculum and build their capacity to use children and classroom data (Skiffington et al., 2011).

Coachees
A coachee is a person who receives training from a coach, especially in education, business or office practice. The word coachee is similar to the word 'trainee' and 'mentee' in which these people receive coaching, training or mentoring from their coach, trainer or mentor. In this research, coachee refers to the teachers who are coached by the SISC+, thus the word 'coachee' and the word 'teacher' will be used interchangeably. In the context of educational institutions, a coach is responsible to provide helps to the coachee in a form of assistance to help the low-performing school to achieve better performance in terms of academic achievement (MOE, 2012).

Roles and Responsibilities
As a coach, the SISC+ play an important role to improve the quality of teaching and learning among teachers through coaching and mentoring and to identify the strengths and opportunities of teachers, and all these can be achieved through the assistance given by them in coaching the teachers. Killion and Harrison (2007); Chien (2013) named the roles and responsibilities as coaches such as classroom supporters, instructional specialists, curriculum specialists, professional developers, data analysers, change agents, mentors and resource providers. The coaching support can lead to significant educational change and improve student achievement. This statement is supported by the findings of studies by Joyce & Showers (1998);Swartz et al (2001);Killion (2003); Lyons and Pinnell (1999);Norton et al (2001) where the coaching support can impact teacher reflection, action research, collaboration and informed decision making. In relation to the SISC+, they are required to coach and mentor the teachers in terms of the pedagogy, curriculum and assessment. The roles of SISC+ are to help teachers improve their teaching and learning and this can be done in many forms such as helping them to develop the required 21 st century teaching and learning.

Research Methodology
This study is a qualitative research with an embedded quantitative research. In this chapter, the researcher has identified the approaches chosen to answer the research questions and the subsequent research design. The research method and instruments, as well as the research participants, were highlighted thereafter. Six participants took part in this case study, while another 55 coachees participated in the survey questionnaires. The research context of the study is three districts located in Negeri Sembilan-Rembau, Kuala Pilah and Jempol Jelebu. The researcher explained in detail the research procedures, along with the analysis of data. The researcher also addressed various ethical considerations ensuring competence from the researcher's side. Finally, the validity and trustworthiness of the instruments, as well as the ethical considerations in completing the study, were also elaborated. The research method is important to make conclusions about a trend and it is often difficult to measure coaching and mentoring (West & Milan, 2001). However, the measurement can be used to provide data around which the goal-setting, as well as the action plan of the research, can be developed. With that awareness, in this paper the methodology used are, the semi-structured interview, observations, and document analysis as the methods of the qualitative approach while for the quantitative approach the researcher used the survey methods to gather the information needed to explore into the coaching and mentoring by SISC+. The purpose of using qualitative measures was to capture thick, rich information that otherwise could not have been captured through a quantitative design (Patton, 2002). For each of the qualitative research methods, different research instruments in collecting the data are used namely instruments are interviews protocols, document analysis, observations and questionnaires to contain all the needed information from the participants. The interviews and questionnaires in this research aims at providing the participants with an opportunity to share their perspectives. In contrast, document analysis is a valuable research tool in its own right to investigate decision making and strategic planning in the study of the same phenomenon (Bowen, 2009). In this research the selected types of interview are semistructured interviews which consist of several key questions that help to define the areas that are to be explored.
For this research, the purpose is to answer the questions on the roles and responsibilities of English Language SISC+ as well as on the success and challenges they have to face during the process of coaching and mentoring, and finally to get some responses on the influences of SISC+ towards the teaching and learning of English Language. In this case study research, observation is selected as one of the methods to carry out the study. Observations by the researcher are one of the primary sources of collecting data to answer the research questions on the roles, responsibilities, success and challenges of the SISC+. In fact, visiting the field to collect the data creates an opportunity to make direct observation (Yin, 2012). Leff et al (2003) added that direct observation has the advantage of getting the information from natural or unplanned events.
Apart from interviews, observations and survey questionnaires, this study also utilises the document analysis to gather adequate information. In this section the researcher will elaborate on the document analysis. The documents used in this research provide details that informants have forgotten, and also they help to track changes and development especially involving the transformation of the education system. In this study, several documents were analysed, including: Malaysian Education Blueprint (MEB), Buku Pengurusan DTP 3.0, the online data for courses, the logbooks of the SISC+; and Teacher Coaching Tools(TCT)-the forms used by the SISC+ during their process of coaching and mentoring. To make the research more significant, the researcher used the survey method. Survey research is an efficient and effective way to evaluate teachers' perceptions of professional learning (Desimone, 2009).
The constructs in the survey helped the researcher to seek measurable responses from the teachers who serve as the participants in the study. The views and opinions given by the teachers are very important to the researcher to meet the research objectives. Additionally, in the quantitative research methods, the researcher applied the survey method to gain more statistically significant information from a large group of the population about coaching and mentoring.

Discussion of the Findings Roles and Responsibilities of SISC+
Research question 1 addresses the roles and responsibilities of SISC+. The essential data for this research question derived from interviews and questionnaires, while observations and document analysis are completed as secondary dataFrom the data analysis, most of the participants agreed that SISC+ provides useful feedback after class. The feedback was given after the SISC+ observed the lessons of their coachees. The feedback was ranged from providing useful feedback, information on the 21st-century education to helping the coachee to identify their needs as teachers. From the responses given in the questionnaires, among the roles of SISC+ is providing help to the coachees and as a whole, the school will get the benefits in the form of improved school performance. Apart from that, in all observations, the researcher witnessed the feedback given to the SISC+ after the class. Both the SISC+ and coachees discussed the lesson viewed by the SISC+. These feedbacks are essential as a kind of support for the coachees. In the third observation, however, there seemed to be a disagreement of the feedback given by the SISC+, and this shows that both SISC+ and their coachees are responsive towards each other. Hence, these findings reveal that the SISC+ were able to perceive and deliver their roles and responsibilities and one of the roles is providing feedback. This finding is aligned with subsequent studies that showed that verbal feedback became the primary method through which coaches could help teachers improve (Costa & Garmston, 2002). The literature on effective coaching identified feedback as a core competency of leadership coaches (Allison & Reeves 2011). Leadership coaches carefully craft the feedback given to their coachees and involve the coachees in determining the type and purpose of the feedback (Bloom et al., 2005). Besides providing useful feedback to the coachees, SISC+ also assist the teachers in providing them with the necessary ICT knowledge, which is vital in 21 st -century teaching and learning. In the items of the questionnaire given to the coachees, most of the participants rated the constructs above 4 out of 5. The rating highlights that the participants understood the roles played by the SISC+. The items highlight that among the roles of SISC+ is providing help to the coachees and imparting useful knowledge such as ICT knowledge and 21 st century pedagogies is included as the form of assistance given. Next, the sub-section offers the explanation about 21 st century teaching and learning under the sub-theme 'sharing ideas and knowledge.' This kind of help is vital as pointed out by Knight (2000) that an instructional coach's main task is to help teachers and offer useful solutions to the problem's teachers face. A coach's assistance in revising an existing activity on problem-solving, to engage students in evaluating their work, or to practice technology so the students can share their work with the community and get feedback, is much appreciated (Taylor et al., 2011).

Successes and Challenges of Coaching and Mentoring
From the data of the interview, observations, and survey were processed to obtain the result. While the researcher values the use of document analysis in research question 1, they were not in the same case for the second research question. The qualitative findings revealed that despite being different in terms of roles and responsibilities, the participants (both SISC+ and their coachees) were positive regarding the success of a member of SISC+. The findings from this study are aligned closely with those reported in the literature shared throughout Chapter 2. On the same account, research question 3 is aimed at exploring the influences of coaching and mentoring done by SISC+ towards the English language. In other words, this research examines to what extent the SISC+ succeeded in influencing their coachee. At the same time, the data that were used in exploring this second research were also utilised to answer the third objectives. This is because successful coaching inevitably affects the coachee and in due course, influences the teaching and learning of the coachee themselves. In discussing the success of coaching and mentoring, the primary data is collected from the interview with both SISC+ as well as their coachees.
On the other hand, coaching and mentoring teachers sometimes can be very challenging to the new coaches especially in a new setting like the Malaysian education system. In this section, the researcher explores into the second part of the second research question that is the challenges of SISC+ during the coaching and mentoring process. To determine the answers to this research question, the same method was employed that is using the qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Findings from this research are beneficial not only to the SISC+ but also to the teachers as well. The challenges came from different sources, either internal or external ones. The internal sources involved their surroundings while the external came from the teachers. From the analysis of data, it is found that the findings of this study were inconsistent. The results of second research objective show that the SISC+ also faced challenges like attitude problem and the role conflict. The success and challenges of the SISC+ were also measured through the interviews, document analysis and questionnaires. The findings suggest that coaching and mentoring is successful through the acceptance and cooperation received from the coachees. The positive treatment given by the coachees indicated that SISC+ have succeeded in completing their tasks; although there are also limitations for the success.
Nevertheless, negative treatment was also evident in the data analysis. Despite little resistance, it appeared that sometimes there is rejection from teachers to outsiders who come to the school to help them. In addition, another significant challenge found in this study is the role conflict. The SISC+ were assigned to do other jobs too such as facilitators, trainers, administrators which impedes them from undertaking their job successfully. Thus, in conclusion, despite being accepted and receiving cooperation from their coachees, the SISC+ also face challenges in completing their tasks. From the analysis of data, the challenges are the teachers' attitude problem as well as the role conflict. The discussions above have depicted some of the difficulties in comprehending the Ministry's hope although at some points, they are successful in completing their duties.

The Influences of SISC+ on the Teaching and Learning
For this question, data were obtained from the qualitative and quantitative analyses and then re-counted to the research question that guided the study. Data were analysed to identify and explore into the influence of coaching and mentoring by SISC+ towards the teaching and learning of the English Language teachers. While SISC+ have an indirect influence on student achievement, they have a direct influence on teacher practice, which in turn influences student achievement. In conducting this investigation, the researcher delved into the subanalysis of the valuable findings. It is impossible to disaggregate the influence of coaching and mentoring by SISC+ with their roles in providing professional development to the teachers. As a member of SISC+, they play an essential role in creating a structure for teachers to collaborate in a professional learning community. This chapter purposely aims at examining the influences of coaching and mentoring by SISC+ towards the teaching and learning of the English language teachers. To measure the influence of coaching and mentoring done by the SISC+, the data were collected in qualitative and quantitative methods. In a qualitative method, the interview with coachees was taken into account because the viewpoints of the client are important to measure the satisfaction. Based on the answers, most of the participants agreed that SISC+ managed to influence them through their coaching and mentoring. One of the essential features of a successful coaching and mentoring process is the ability of a coach to influence their coachee and it can be achieved through the growth of knowledge and improvement of lesson quality. The findings suggest that SISC+ as an agency, is relevant in the education system to help the teachers to improve the lesson quality as well as to support them in the growth of knowledge. Being a teacher for quite a number of times will hinder them from having significant outcomes, thus the support and help from outsiders are needed to ensure that the teachers are well transformed together with the transformation of the education system in Malaysia. Results revealed that the SISC+ has been successful in influencing the coachees to transform. Eventually, the ability to transform is seen in the improvement of lesson quality.

Conclusion
In conclusion, this study seeks to identify how SISC+ perceive and deliver their roles and responsibilities, to explore the success and challenges of SISC+ during the process of coaching and mentoring in the workplace and finally to examine the influence of coaching and mentoring by the SISC+ in teaching and learning among English Language teachers. From the analysis of findings, the researcher offered a relevant discussion and this was linked with the literature review. In the analysis of the first research question, the data analysis brings the researcher to the list of SISC+ roles and responsibilities as outlined by the Ministry. The results reveal that the SISC+ have specific job functions and they are expected to complete them within the stipulated time. As for the relationship between the SISC+ and the coachees, the results show that one of the responsibilities of the SISC+ is to transform the education as stated in Buku Pengurusan DTP 3.0. From the analysis of data, it is found that the findings of this study were inconsistent. There was a significant influence of SISC+ towards the teaching and learning as measured by the data collected from the survey; however the results of the second research objectives show that the SISC+ also faced challenges like attitude problem and role conflict. Success and challenges of the SISC+ were also measured through interviews, document analyses and questionnaires. The findings suggest that coaching and mentoring has been successful through the acceptance and cooperation received from the coachees. The positive treatment given by the coachees indicated that SISC+ have succeeded in completing their tasks; however there are also limitations for the success. Nevertheless, a negative treatment was also evident in the analysis. Despite little resistance, it appeared that sometimes there was rejection from teachers to outsiders who came to the school to help them. In addition, another significant challenge found in this study is the role conflict. The SISC+ were assigned with other jobs too such as facilitators, trainers, administrators altogether hindering them from undertaking their job successfully. Overall, the results of the study showed that the SISC+ successfully perceived their roles and responsibilities as a coach and mentor to the teachers in their respective districts. However, it also demonstrated the needs to clearly define the roles and responsibilities of SISC+ so that they will perform their duty the best they can. Based on the findings, most of the participants agreed that the roles and responsibilities of SISC+ are to help and share their knowledge with the coachees. The findings also revealed that SISC+ are responsible for providing 21 st century teaching and learning knowledge to the teacher as well as organising the professional development and professional learning community to the teachers. The findings emerged from the analyses of different instruments -semi-structured interviews, observations, document analysis, and questionnaires. It is essential for the SISC+ to help the coachees, but as a coach they only help the coachees to arrive at their own solutions for their problems. Research question two addressed the success and challenges of SISC+ in completing their responsibilities. In research question two, five potential sub-themes emerged from the analysis of data then the researcher analysed the data following the Braun and Clarke's (2006) thematic analysis technique to look for the actual sub-themes. Two sub-themes received great emphasis from both participants -the SISC+ and their coachees. The sub-themes are 'acceptance of teachers' and 'improvement of teaching quality'. On the other hand, from the thematic analysis for the challenges faced by SISC+ during the process of coaching and mentoring in the workplace, sub-themes 'attitude problem' and conflict of roles' conflict received considerable emphasis. From the analysis of data, the researcher found out that being accepted by their coachees is considered as an achievement to the SISC+. The acceptance received was demonstrated in the interview with the SISC+ as well as in the questionnaires given to the coachees. The coachees accepted the presence of SISC+ in their school as an initiative of the Ministry of Education to improve their school performance. Thus, to be accepted by their coachee, the first thing that they did is establishing a good relationship with their coachees. This method is successful because good coaching is not built from force; instead, it is built from trust. As a coach, the SISC+ have an important role that is to coach the teachers under their supervision, so among the qualities that they need to have is to build a good rapport with their coachees because this healthy relationship will help ease the coaching and mentoring process. From the findings, success was seen in improving both the lesson quality and knowledge growth. Through coaching, the coachee learned how to put learning into practice and apply it to their teaching and learning. It also opens the door to individual goals and it guides teachers on how to be creative and innovative. Besides the coaching and mentoring by SISC+, they were also facing challenges in completing their jobs because their clients are teachers; thus, in other words, they have to deal with adult learners. This view is supported by Knight (2008) that instructional coaches face many challenges while working with adult learners to improve their instructional practices; however, providing support for teachers poses a different type of challenge (Knight, 2008). This is because each coachee has a different attitude and a different problem. This finding is in line with what Knight (2008) pointed out, that one of the most significant challenges for coaches is establishing a partnership with teachers who are reluctant to change. Furthermore, from the findings, the researcher found out that the SISC+ also have conflicting roles. As mentioned in the preceding section, the SISC+ are the ones who give suggestions and overcome the teachers' problems. Their interpretation of coaching and mentoring is that they must help the teachers by giving answers to questions, providing all sorts of information, not to mention solving the coachees' problems. In coaching and mentoring, the solution should lie within the coachees because a coach's mission is to guide the teachers to overcome their own problems and then maximise their potential. This might be due to the lack of knowledge and understanding not only among the SISC+ but also at Ministry level surrounding the issue of coaching and mentoring. The findings exposed that the SISC+ were restricted by the job specification listed in the Buku Pengurusan DTP 3.0 where the Ministry should closely look into it, and this will be further explained in the implication section. Therefore, these findings confirm that coaching and mentoring is a challenging task for SISC+. Hence, to overcome this problem, coaches in SISC+ need to be equipped with enough support and necessary training. This will be discussed thoroughly in the recommendation section. Coaching and mentoring is significant because it helps to encourage the transfer of knowledge from the coach to the coachee. The transfer of knowledge also occurs between the coachees during their professional development. This is supported by Lindblom (2007), who stated that organisations need to create a culture that is supportive of coaching to ensure the on-going application and role modelling of coaching skills. Coaching not only supports personal development but importantly, it can also influence behavioural and strategic changes throughout the organisation. In research question three, the researcher attempted to answer how coaching and mentoring by the SISC+ influences the teaching and learning among English Language teachers. The researcher utilised the data gathered from the semi-structured interview with the coachees, observations and document analysis. The input received from the semi-structured interview with the coachees is essential in removing any doubt for this question because the coachees are the ones who are being coached by the SISC+. In the same veins, answers from the questionnaires are also beneficial for this question because they enable the researcher to measure the influence of the SISC+ in teaching and learning among English Language teachers.As mentioned in the analysis of the document, various communication channels have led to leakage in the MOE delivery system (MOE, 2013). Thus, the SISC+ are responsible for coaching teachers and monitoring the effectiveness of such implementation (MOE, 2013). From the findings, SISC+ influenced the teachers in two different ways. The first one is through the improvement of lesson quality, and the second one is through knowledge growth. For the former, the SISC+ succeeded to help their coachees improve their teaching quality through the suggestions they made. According to the GROW Model, the SISC+ are not supposed to give suggestions or provide solutions, but in measuring the influence of SISC+, the SISC+ successfully influenced their coachees to improve their lesson quality as well as their knowledge growth. The transition of knowledge happened during the professional development (PD) or Professional Learning Community (PLC). During PLC and PD the transfer of knowledge was between the SISC+ and the coachees as well as between the coachees themselves. Thus PLC and PD are an important substance because of the ability to enhance the knowledge and eventually allow the transformation of education to take place. As a whole, from the findings of research question three, the researcher found that it is related to research question one and two because studying the influence of SISC+ brought to the roles and responsibilities and also the success of SISC+. Once the coachee understands the roles and responsibilities of SISC+, only then room for improvement will be possible. Understanding the role of an instructional coach and how this role plays its part in student achievement is vital, hence they will feel less threatened and gain the benefit of the service offered (Steiner & Kowal, 2007). Therefore, from the findings of this third research question, the SISC+ succeeded in influencing the coachees in their own ways. To measure the influence, views, and opinions of the coachees were relevant and they conformed to the findings.

Conclusion
In conclusion, SISC+ are not consultants. Also, SISC+ as an agency, is not developed to be therapy for teachers. That does not mean a coach from SISC+ cannot lend an ear when a teacher just needs to talk; instead, they should focus on professional learning and developing new skills. As an educational coach, the SISC+ should focus on their primary goal to enable teachers to implement new learning strategies that help them improve their teaching and learning for students and eventually help to achieve the goal of the Ministry, which is to transform the education. Each teacher in a school has individual strengths and weaknesses. As coaches, SISC+ should identify the areas where teachers need assistance and design professional learning to help teachers perform at a desired level. This study, overall, is significant as it emphasises on the implementation of SISC+ to materialise the transformation of the education system in Malaysia.