Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4, 1956-1965 2024 Publisher: Learning Gate DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate * Correspondence: nsalasmari@uj.edu.sa Barriers to pass English teaching professional licensure as perceived by newly graduated Saudi teachers Nasser Alasmari Department of English & Translation, University of Jeddah, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; nsalasmari@uj.edu.sa (N.A.). Abstract: Academicians worldwide constantly question how they can enhance teaching efficiency. Teacher licensure examination has been suggested as a way to achieve this goal. In the same respect, Saudi ministry of education requires prospective teachers to pass Professional licensure exam (PLE) in order to officially enter the teaching job. The present work aimed to give a closer look on this kind of examination as perceived by 23 Saudi candidates holding BA in English and expect to become English teachers. These subjects had a failure experience with taking this exam. Additionally, the use of a semi structured interview, the informants voiced the different kinds of challenges that prevent them from effectively passing this exam. The use of the NVivo software gave results that show the negative attitude these participants hold towards PLE as well as the two categories of obstacles they confronted namely; academic and non- academic. Keywords: Academic, Non- academic obstacles, Perceptions, Professional licensure (PL)Professional licensure examination (PLE). 1. Introduction Teaching was commonly believed to be a routine function that anyone can perform where the teacher’s job is summarized in the simple transmission of information to the learner who memorizes and recalls these pieces of information later (Jacobs and Lie, 2022). However, such belief has been shaken when the quality of education has become at the center of debates worldwide in recent years. In all these debates, more light has been shed on the teacher and teaching positions where the teachers are considered the “critical actors” establishing the quality of education to a large extent (Vanderlinde et al.,2013). Such focus resulted in numerous researches that come up with different kinds of problems summarized in the quotation of De Wever at al. (2016) that “teacher education worldwide is in crisis” (p.13). This crisis is attributed to such kinds of difficulties as the quality and number of candidates who enter the teaching domain, problems with student teacher competency attainment, and also problems with the preparation of candidates to enter and stay in the profession. Some other authors go further to claim the paramount importance of the teacher role as primary partakers in the learning process. Sadiq (2020), for instance, examines the teacher’s role in boosting students’ performance and motivation and finds a statistically significant and positive relationship between these variables. The teacher plays multi- roles that help learners achieve better outcomes. Furthermore, Goldhaber and Brewer (1999) use data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 and find that students whose teachers hold an M.A. outperformed their counterparts who do not. In other words, students whose teachers have any type of certification (standard, emergency, alternative, etc.) do better than students whose teachers have no certification or are certified in a different subject. As such, staffing schools and classrooms with highly qualified, well- trained and professionally developed teachers has become the goal of educators in every educational setting. In fact, some authors compare the performance of students whose teachers have high credentials and potentials to students whose teachers do not and https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1520-5677 1957 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate stipulate that if better academic outcomes are to be expected from learners, more focus should be paid to the requirements teachers need to meet in order to be hired and thus become members in the educational system. Some other scholars also acknowledge a positive relationship between the quality of the educational system where teachers are at the center and the development level of the country itself. The question that may be posed, in this respect, is how to recruit the most effective teachers who would satisfy such primordial requirement. This sheds light on examination and certification after graduation which is known as professional licensure (PL) or occupational licensing which is set as “passport” to perform the job in many countries around the world where Saudi Arabia makes no exception. In fact, graduating from university with a B.A diploma is not enough to become a teacher in Saudi educational institutions. To officially practice the teaching profession and feel fit in the classroom you are still required to successfully take the professional licensure exam. Surprisingly, very little research evidence exists on the effectiveness of the teacher licensure system, in terms of “teacher-to- be” perceptions towards such exams and tests as well as the different obstacles that they might have faced when taking such exams. While many educational establishments take for granted that licensure is an important and effective screening system to create high quality teachers, many graduated students struggle to get this certification. They confront obstacles and barriers that deprive them of getting this professional licensure and thus officially practice the teaching job. The current research aims to investigate these barriers from the perspective of newly graduated Saudi students who hold B.A diplomas in the English language. 2. Literature Review 2.1. Definition of Professional Licensure Generally speaking, the terms “licensure”, occupational licensing or as commonly known certification, refers to an official process, administered by a state-level authority, that is required by law in order for an individual to practice a regulated profession or vacation for compensation. The selection of an individual to carry on the activity is based on certain criteria as (a) graduation from an accredited or approved program, and (b) acceptable performance on a qualifying examination or series of examinations (Wikipedia). It also refers to the license granted to someone who successfully completed a performance assessment to maintain professional development. In some countries around the world such as the Commonwealth of Kentucky, governments assign a professional licensing board that indicates if the licensure holder qualifications conform to the required ones so as to perform the job requiring license. Some other governments go further and necessitate the renewal of the license periodically which entails that it just has validity for a specific time only (Wikipedia). 2.2. Professional licensure in Saudi Arabia The PL application in Saudi Arabia is relatively new compared to other countries. The process towards adopting professional licensure as the only official way to practice teaching has gone through different phases that could be divided according to the following dates: 2002 marks the beginning of PL application experience which starts in the form of testing the teachers’ competencies. In 2007, the supervision of the test was assigned to the pls. In 2011, King Abdullah project to develop education set some standards for those who were holding educational positions. In 2013, testing the new teachers’ competencies at both specialty and educational levels was set where 50% is the lowest average for success. In 2019, the education and training evaluation commission was created to supervise the recruitment of teachers. It set three major areas of the teaching license namely; values and responsibilities, professional knowledge and professional practice. The teaching license in Saudi Arabia should be renewed every five years. As such, the teaching license an individual gets from the Saudi ministry of education is officially recognized and government issued credential that allows its holder to teach in public schools and educational settings in the country. It is a crucial document needed to become an educator in Saudi Arabia as it enhances employability chances, career prospects and professionalism. 1958 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate 2.3. The Importance of Professionalism In Teaching Professionalism nurtures commitment to assuming responsibility for one’s actions and behavior towards students in particular and the education process in general. Being a professional teacher develops an air of confidence, care, and credibility in the class which instills the sense of responsibility as well as the value of respect in the students and assists them to demonstrate the skills needed to be successful members in the society (Bukhatir,2018). Similarly, Burke and stets (2009) view that professional attitude would positively affect the students’ learning as it would inspire them to take their education seriously and strive for excellence through better academic performance. This would be much more foregrounded when teachers value and respect their students and establish positive relationships with them through the creation of an atmosphere of collaboration where the two parties work together effectively. Professionalism also creates a more productive work Environment. It is even essential for student success. The professional behavior of the teacher makes of him /her example to follow. An environment of mutual respect, understanding and collaboration would foster better learning and thus better results (Green, 2009). 2.4. Views towards the PLE Brock and Ryan (2016) perceive the PLE as an ideal way to ease the distinction between those who can professionally practice the teaching job and those who are not. This practice is anticipated through their abilities and skills reflected on the exam. They add that with no exam situation would sweep the chances of the teachers with potential abilities as there would be no differentiation between the potentially skilled teachers and their counterparts. Concomitantly, Cowan et al. (2020) confirm that “licensure testing of prospective teachers is one of the primary tools that states use to ensure that teachers have a basic level of competence” (p.1). Candidates, according to Aquino and Balillia (2015), approach PLE with a mixture of such feelings as anxiety, anticipation, commitment and determination. Proponents believe that this kind of exams is typical “milestones” in their careers that would protect them through the actual employment of professional, educational and ethical values of practice. Which, in turn, validates their knowledge, skills as well as their qualifications in the particular field. They perceive these exams as important steps towards attaining professional acknowledgement and credibility thus keeping incompetent and unscrupulous individuals away from a given working position. Van Cleef (2022) opposes this idea claiming that this examination stands as a barrier to entry into licensed occupations. PLE could be devastating and frustrating due to the high stakes in nature as its results directly affects a candidate’s career trajectory and prospects. This justifies the considerable amount of time and effort candidates invest to be prepared for the exam through course reviews, self-study plans and practice exams. Carrick (2011) carries a research whose subjects are new graduate nurses and finds that they must effectively take the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLE) in order to be officially accepted to practice the nursing job in one of the clinical institutions available. However, the failure rate to pass the exam is very high among these students. Such repeated failure not only does it lower their expectations to obtain the job, but it also affects their concentration and confidence and leads to more and more failure that might reach sixteen times. 2.5. Barriers to PLE Success from the Perspectives of Candidates Some authors argue that the components of an effective licensure test are issuable. They emphasize testing the teacher’s knowledge and pedagogy as essential components to assess one’s ability to fit in a teaching classroom. However, such tests “often represent a significant hurdle to becoming a teacher” (p.84) as stated by Van Cleef (2022). The same author describes the ones responsible to set the test as “confused” on what to assess the candidates on i.e. the different components to be included in the test such as content knowledge, basic skills, basic knowledge or pedagogy. Davies et al. (2018), for example, complain about the nature of the exam itself and convey that it stands as a barrier to enter the teaching https://curiousdesire.com/reasons-why-accountability-is-important/ https://curiousdesire.com/reasons-why-experience-is-important/ https://curiousdesire.com/reasons-why-effective-communication-is-important/ https://curiousdesire.com/importance-of-responsibility/ 1959 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate job. They add that such exams are associated with high rates of failure from the part of the candidates in addition to their uncertainty of getting a teaching position afterwards. In their attempt to identify barriers to professional licensure and certification testing in Canada from the Perspectives of Internationally Educated Professionals (IEPs), Cheng et al. (2013) list individual and structural barriers. The first refers to socio-psychological isolations, poor English, ignorance of the Canadian professional requirements and experience in addition to financial problems. The second, i.e. structural barriers, include the failure to recognize the credentials of IEPs, and professional organizations that play an important role to accept or refuse IEPs. The same authors add that professional knowledge testing and language proficiency testing in such jobs as medicine and teaching are prerequisites making the candidates face double challenge to take the English proficiency teat effectively and to pass the professional knowledge test. Rollant (2007) investigates nursery students who failed their professional examination on their first try and assessed assesses their strengths and weaknesses on the following scales: “stress, attitude, motivation, concentration, self-testing, time management, test-taking skills, anxiety, information processing, and study aids” (p.263) and finds that that those with low scores in four or more scales were at greater risk of failure, suggesting that these should become key areas to pay attention to. The same author adds lack of time, fear of failure, and lack of practical relevance as other important obstacles that prevent these candidates from passing the exam. Cowan et al. (2020) describe the licensure examination as bias in some areas and refer to the candidates’ concerns and worries about the different biases included in the choice and composition of individual items on the exam itself. They go further to owe the disparities in passing rates to the scope of the licensure testing requirements. Naturally, the design of the licensure test would include a subset of skills that count in teaching; however, such skills may differ and thus favor candidates from particular backgrounds. The Praxis Test as national licensure exam, for example, includes both test pedagogy and content knowledge and as such “candidates attending traditional preparation programs as part of their undergraduate education may have more understanding of pedagogical theory than candidates with more subject-specific experience who enter the profession through alternative pathways” (p.4). Webster (2020) carries out a research to identify the student perceptions of barriers to professional exam success. To do so, he compares between those who passed the exam and those who didn’t. When preparing for their professional exam, the passing students report that they feel ready, well prepared and above all focused. Their counterparts, on the other hand, claimed their unpreparedness and ignorance as well as their feelings of pressure from family members. Accordingly, he suggests the need to focus on the psychological aspects of the candidates as a major cause of failure in most cases. Furthermore, the same author comes up with a list that includes such factors as not being prepared for testing process, inadequate review time, waiting too long after graduation or taking the exam too soon after graduation and examination anxiety and/or stress. The respondents in his research did not mention running out of exam time as a reason for failure. The same author recommends that the candidates should postpone taking the exam for a certain period of time so as to effectively manage stress and anxiety exam because feeling inadequately unprepared could only add to their stress. 2.6. The Rationale of the Research This study’s importance stems from the fact that the adoption and the application of the licensure examination is very recent in Saudi Arabia in all subjects in general and in English in particular which explains the scarcity of resources to shed light on this exam- related issues and problems. As such, the current research would be an opportunity for the subjects to voice their concerns about the different obstacles they face when taking such exams. It may also play a referral document for policy makers as it would explore the extent to which the goal of raising the standards of ELT in KSA is met by uncovering of the teachers-to-be’ perceptions and attitudes. Practically speaking, this work will be accounted for as a helpful reference for policy makers and educators on the light of which they would 1960 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate take remedial actions to raise the success rate of the new graduate candidates in the PLE and make this experience more beneficial. 2.7. The Objectives of the Research The scarcity of resources that shed light on professional exam licensure in all subjects and in English urges the conduct of this research. Few available studies shed light on the reasons for exam failure and some others suggest some ways how to better help learners. The aim of this paper is to elicit the opinions of the candidates themselves who are new graduate English students about the PLE so as to better understand how they perceive the difficulties they faced and prevented them from effectively taking it. 2.8. The Questions of the Research Considering the aforementioned objects, the current research proceeds to answer the following questions: 1. What are the new graduate English students’ views towards the professional licensure exam in general? 2. What are barriers that hamper the new graduate English students from successfully take the professional licensure exam? 3. Methodology 3.1. Subjects A sample of 12 males and 11 females contributed to the conduct of this work. All the subjects hold a B.A diploma in arts. They are all Saudi and completed their studies in the academic years 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20 and graduated from Saudi universities. Besides, they all had unsuccessful experiences with teaching professional licensure examinations. Their age ranges from 22 to 25 with a mean of 23. Thanks to the well- established technologies in Saudi Arabia, these subjects were reached via emails. In fact, the researcher got email addresses from the center and sent an explanatory email (Appendix A) to 87 potential participants. The total number of emails that confirm and conform to the scope of this work was only 23. These participants were welcomingly willing to participate and share their views about their experience with PLE. 3.2. Instruments The current research is based on a sole instrument that is semi- structured interview (Appendix B). The interviews with the participants were all audio- recorded so that they are easily retraced to be transcribed for analysis. The interviews contained 10 to 20 questions and proceeded with the aim to identify the participants’ perspectives on the following concepts as their views on the PLE in general, the reasons behind their failure to successfully take the PLE and to suggest some remedial steps that would help potential candidates overcome the obstacles. Each of the interviews took approximately 45 minutes to an hour. It is worth mentioning that the one- on- one interview method was opted for to make the participants feel more comfortable and at ease especially because the talk was about personal failure which might be embarrassing and frustrating for some people. NVivo software was used so as to organize, synthesize, and find out the most relevant words and phrases that would make up the themes of the current research. This computer qualitative software is used as a part for data analysis as it helps to elicit the codes relevant to answer the questions of the present work as it is able to sort phrases and words that are linked to the identified initial codes. The description of the codes inserted in NVivo software revealed a number of topics with similar contextual meanings. Accordingly a grouping of codes was made in order to identify the themes and the associated thematic category related to each research question. 1961 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate 3.3. Procedure and Data Analysis According to Creswell (2012), the “qualitative analysis is an ongoing process requiring continuous reflection about the data, asking analytic questions, and writing notes throughout the study” (p.239). This justifies why the interview questions were refined based on the interactions from the respondents. As a data analysis technique, the inductive process was used. This entails narrowing down the bulk of information received from the informants into particular themes that could be divided into sections (Creswell, 2009). This was done, as mentioned before, through the use of the NVivo software. Once a response from a volunteer expressing his or her desire to participate in the study was received, an initial online meeting is promptly scheduled to familiarize him/ her about the type of study including its scope and objectives. During the explanation of the aims of this study, and in order to maintain the maximum of trust and confidentiality, the participants were assured that they had the choice to withdraw at any time during the research. They were also assured that their information would always be securely kept and not shared with anyone else. Some of the participants showed an instant readiness to take the interview and some others on arranged meetings all the participants did not object to share their mobile numbers and exchange WhatsApp messages for the sake of convenience. The whole procedure took almost one month to conduct the total of 23 one- on- one interviews. 4. Findings and Discussion A thematic analysis of the semi structured interview gave the following conclusions: The two thematic categories discussed in the following section were based on the informants’ responses to the research questions. They were all extracted from the initial and the NVivo coding process. As a reference point for the NVivo coding, context and meaning of these codes were provided. These codes were uploaded again in order to identify and compare the frequency of the phenomenon between and among the respondents’ transcripts. Based on these codes, the first thematic category includes the participants’ general views towards the professional licensure exam while the second refers to the obstacles hampering the success to take PLE. Table 1. The participants general views towards the PLE. Thematic category 1 Positive/ Negative Description occurrence The participants views Positive (0) No particular positive description spotted (0) Negative (23) Devastating (7), frustrating (4), confusing (7), irrelevant (3), unnecessary (21), feeling of pressure (18) As table 1 above shows, the participants hold negative views towards the PLE. They perceive it as “devastating” and “frustrating” experience. They also added that it is confusing and leads to “nowhere” when someone cannot make it. This contrasts their counterparts in the work of Aquino and Balilla (2015) who claim that they generally approach licensure exams with a sense of commitment and determination as they know that taking it successfully can open doors to new opportunities and advancements in their professional journey. Additionally, the informants mention their feelings of pressure and disturbance from peers and family members to pass this kind of examination and add that things become worse on their second or third trial to take the exam. Most of the participants express their wish to skip this examination step or to be deleted altogether so as entering the teaching profession becomes easier. “It is an unnecessary challenge that adds to our burdens in life” “PLE is the only obstacle I faced to become a teacher”, conveyed two participants in the current research. The same conclusions were come up to by Anash (2023) who finds that teachers develop a negative view towards as they perceive it as an obstacle which justifies their unpreparedness and demotivation to take it. This exceptional total belief that PLE is a negative experience is a point to focus on in future work. 1962 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate Based on the informants’ responses, Table 2 below displays the second thematic category, barriers to success in PLE. In fact, two subcategories emerged namely; academic and non- academic. These two subcategories relate to the second research question. Table 2. Obstacles faced by the participants to pass PLE. Thematic category 2: Obstacles faced to pass PLE Type Examples and occurrence Academic barriers Discrepancy between university curriculum and exam content Poor review resources (21) Inadequate preparation for the exam No study plans (14)/ No search for assistance (11) / Not enough time for preparation (20) English language level Poor English (10)/ Difficult exam questions (11) Non- academic barriers Financial Exam fees and preparation materials are expensive (19) Familial lack of time (18)/ Other engagements and commitments/ Unsupportive family (20) Emotional Fear (9), anxiety (23), exam phobia (11), and pressure (20) Some of the participants complain that the licensure exam doesn’t include parts of the curriculum they had during their university years. This goes in line with the findings of Phillips et al. (2013) who strongly calls for the need to develop the curriculum if a certain program as professional licensure examination is to be effective and successful. The participants in this research owed their failure to pass the exam partly to the difficulty of some areas in the curriculum which need to be improved as concepts and content. The same call was conveyed by Atemafac (2014) who claims that “innovating curriculum to focus on concept, content, and simulation and identifying areas needing improvement, and doing so immediately, can help an average student achieve success” (p.87). This inappropriate readiness to take the exam could also be owed to the short time dedicated to studying as well not studying the referenced resources quite effectively. “Trying to cram information at the last minute definitely wouldn’t lead to success”, reports one of the participants. One of the other interviewees claims that not having a clear effective study- plan hampered his exam success. He adds that it is important to prepare an adequate study plan that aligns with the individuals learning styles and preferences to achieve better results. More importantly, some of the candidates who have a past experience in taking the exam refuse to reflect on their performance in order to identify the weak areas and thus find out the best learning strategies that can contribute to their success in the exam. One way to avoid such failure is by referring to previous exams and using a practice exam that would track one’s study progress and their preparedness to take this exam and thus anticipating the result. As a matter of fact, the personal barriers that would lead to exam failure could be overcome with a higher sense of commitment, referencing to past experiences, having a clear study plan, and using practice exams. Carr (2010) calls the educational foundations to take serious actions to improve the educational programs by introducing students to pre- teaching education earlier and promoting the teaching methods to conform to professional requirements at later stages. The non- academic challenges that Saudi candidates faced are financial as the exam fees and the preparation materials are very costly. This is congruent with the claim of Davies et al. (2018) who argue 1963 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate that licensure examination, by its very nature, raises the costs of entering the teaching profession as the candidates spend too much on the exam fees. The informants also report that among the big challenges that would explain their failure to pass the professional licensure exam are personal which include the following: being engaged and involved with other external commitments and activities could distract them from devoting enough to totally focus on the exam preparation. This aligns with the findings of Carr (2010) who asserts that graduates might fail exams due to family commitments or fear of failure. The respondents also add the emotional factor as a barrier that prevents their success in the PL examination according to the participants is emotional. Those with prior exam failure are emotionally frustrated and their ability to cope with this failure is null. As such, going ahead and retake the exam becomes a devastating experience that leads only to more failure. The same results were found by Griffiths et al. (2004) who reports that “significant emotional effects, lowered self-confidence, increased self-doubt, changes in self-perception, and fear of not passing a repeat examination” (p.324). The subjects in this research conveyed some emotional feelings that stand as barriers hampering them from passing the licensure exam. Such emotions as fear, anxiety, threat and anger were all experienced by the candidates before taking the exam. This, according to them, negatively affects their performance on the day of the exam and thus results in failure. The same findings were mentioned by Webster (2020) who asserts that exam phobia and fear emotions were attributed to the paramount importance the candidates confer on the exam itself. 5. Limitation This paper includes some insightful and helpful findings that might add to the almost null literature about the perceptions of candidates towards the PLE in Saudi Arabia and thus somehow helps orient educators and decision makers when it comes to this kind of examination. However, it still suffers from certain limitations worth mentioning here to be considered in future research. The number of individuals willing to participate was very limited and cannot reflect the whole population of those who fail to take the exam and thus prevents this study from generalizing and drawing conclusions that apply to all. Further research with a bigger number of participants would be of great help to confirm or reject the findings discussed here. Another limitation has to do with gender difference. In fact, the subjects in this research are both males and females where the barriers they face were not distinguished based on gender. If gender will be considered as a variable, results may differ. This refers back to the work of Ali and Naylor (2010) who find out that demographic factors as age and gender are some of the causes to fail the licensure exam. These authors argue that and that men have a higher failure rate than women. A gender- based investigation would have given more straightforward results. 6. Recommendations for Future Research The continuous introduction of new technology into the educational system and especially the so called artificial intelligence (AI) requires a continuous and regular review of the standards adopted in education in general and in examination in particular. Candidates in the current research suggested that PLE should not be the only way to enter the teaching the profession. Other alternatives routes and increasing the number of paths to enter teaching may result in the recruitment of highly qualified, talented and enthusiastic individuals who were prevented from taking PLE for whatever reason. If the teaching license is meant to guarantee that the holders satisfy the requirements and meet the standards for knowledge, skills, and competencies to teach particular subjects areas and respective grade levels, how to sustain professionalism in teacher education. Evidently, teachers in profession cannot take and retake PLE. In fact, professionalism could be acquired by years of experience, continuous professional training, teachers’ self development and peer review and supervision. Another area of research that needs to be paid attention to in this respect is the Saudi students who got scholarship and study abroad. After graduation they come back with the privilege of bringing an 1964 Edelweiss Applied Science and Technology ISSN: 2576-8484 Vol. 8, No. 4: 1956-1965, 2024 DOI: 10.55214/25768484.v8i4.1570 © 2024 by the author; licensee Learning Gate internationally recognized qualification, will they still take the test? What about their success rate? Do the certification requirements also apply to them? 7. Conclusion In order to meet the requirements and face the challenges of the 21st century, policy makers all over the world are rethinking teacher education. In fact, “excellence” in teaching has become a critical characteristic. Professional licensure, in this respect, is meant to achieve this goal as it aims “to safeguard public interest by preventing ineffective and unethical individuals from working in government positions” (Anash, 2023, p.5129). Saudi academicians and educators followed the same path with the same objective. However, Saudi candidates and with reference to the findings of the current research hold negative views towards PLE and struggle with different kinds of barriers and challenges namely; academic and non- academic. Future research may cover the Saudi candidates’ suggestions to address such issues. Copyright: © 2024 by the author. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). References [1] Ali, P. Z, and Naylor, P.B. (2010). Association between academic and non-academic variables and academic success of diploma nursing students in Pakistan. Nurse Education Today 30(2),157‒162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2009.07.006 [2] Aquino, A., & Balilla, L. (2015). Pre-service teachers’ licensure examination plans and content knowledge. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Arts and Sciences, 2(2), 41-67. [3] Atemafac, J. (2014). 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International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 12(1), 196-212. [20] Van Cleef, V. (2020). Licensure Tests as Barriers to the Profession. The Journal of The National Association of State Boards of Education, 22(3), 24-62. [21] Vanderlinde, R., Rots, I., Tuytens, M., Rutten, K., Ruys, I., Soetaert, R., & Valcke, M. (Eds.). (2013). Essays over de leraar en de toekomst van de lerarenopleiding. Gent: Academia Press. [22] Webster, K. (2020). Student Perceptions of Barriers to Professional Exam Success. Internet Journal of Allied Health Sciences and Practice, 18(1), 1-7. Appendix A. An explanatory email. Dear graduate, Hope this email finds you well. My name is ………………………………………… and I work as ……………………………. at the University of Jeddah. I am carrying out a research whose main aim is to investigate the barriers that hamper Saudi graduated students from effectively taking the professional licensure exam (PLE). Generally speaking, it is meant to make a closer look at the PLE issues and problems as perceived by those who had subsequent failure experience with this exam in an attempt to later address such issues. Accordingly, you are invited to take part in it. Please note that your unconditional voluntary participation will be of great help. In addition, you may stop your participation at any time and withdraw your consent to be in the study during or after the study without giving any reasons. All the information you will provide, including personal information, will be kept confidential and used exclusively for this study purpose. If you agree to be part of this research or need to get more explanatory notes, you can reach me via phone, WhatsApp (050……….) or you can simply answer this email. Thank you very much in advance. Regards Appendix B. A semi structured interview 1. Can you provide a definition of the professional licensure examination? 2. Do you think that it is important to pass this exam? Why or why not? 3. Is there any particularity with the English exam? 4. Do you think that the university curriculum is of great help to pass the exam after graduation? 5. Have you ever imagined that you will fail this exam? 6. If the taking the exam is optional, will you take it? 7. Did you prepare seriously for this exam? Why or why not? 8. How can you explain the subsequent failure in the same exam? 9. Does this exam require skills other than the English language proficiency? 10. Have you tried to find help from your previous educators? 11. Have you tried to change your study preparation strategies? 12. What are the consequences of failing the exam? 13. Do they have any effect on your next attempt to take the exam? 14. What are the most important causes of professional licensure failure? 15. Are they linguistic, psychological, financial can you classify them in terms of importance? 16. Do you try to consider them seriously before taking the exam again? 17. Does the exam failure have any psychological or emotional effect on you? 18. If so, do you think this may have played a role in your multiple unsuccessful attempts? 19. Can you suggest some supportive factors to pass the exam? 20. Do you think that consulting those who successfully took the exam would be of help?