Instructional Continuity, Teacher Agency, and Pedagogical Transition from Early Years to Primary in Malaysian International Schools: A Composite Conceptual Framework

Transition from early years to primary education is among the most significant yet least theorized pedagogical transition of a child's educational experience. The transition process is additionally complicated in Malaysian international schools due to the combination of pedagogies for play-based and academic instruction, frequent teacher turnover, specific traits of Generation Alpha, and EAL learners' existence. Although a wide range of literature has addressed the issues of instructional designs separately, there is still a major gap in terms of theoretical explanation of how instructional continuity across levels of education could be modelled, especially in Malaysian international schools. This paper suggests a composite conceptual framework, which sees instructional continuity as the main mediator between pedagogical transition, teacher agency, and student results. The framework uses principles of instruction as explained by Rosenshine (2012); cognitive load theory developed by Sweller (1988); social learning theory of Bandura (1971); zone of proximal development by Vygotsky (1978); and connectivism learning theory by Siemens (2005). The Input-Process-Output (IPO) framework described below demonstrates how theoretical and institutional inputs get mediated by practitioners' agency into pedagogical outputs.

instructional continuity, early years, primary education, teacher agency, generation alpha, Malaysian international schools.

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