PEDAGOGY, CONTENT MASTERY, AND ASSESSMENT INFLUENCE CHARACTER EDUCATION AMONG MALAYSIAN SECONDARY SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS

This study aims to identify the influence of assessment implementation, content mastery, and pedagogical practices on character education among secondary school geography teachers in Malaysia. This quantitative survey study involved 300 geography teachers from a population of 10.631 teachers. Data were collected using the Malaysian Geography Teacher Professionalism Questionnaire Instrument with a five-point Likert scale and analyzed using hierarchical multiple linear regression using IBM SPSS Statistics 29. The findings showed that assessment implementation had a significant influence on character education with a contribution of 38.3%. The inclusion of content mastery increased the contribution of the model to 46.1%, while pedagogical practice increased the contribution of the final model to 47.5%. All three variables were significant predictors of character education, with assessment implementation identified as the most dominant factor, followed by content mastery and pedagogical practices. This study concluded that character education in geography education can be strengthened through effective assessment, solid content mastery, and appropriate pedagogical practices, in line with the aspirations of the 2027 school curriculum.