Science and technology teachers’ attitudes towards educational research in Turkey

An analysis of the data obtained from TASTER suggests that science and technology teachers, in general, have a positive attitude towards educational research (M = 3.82). Looking at the mean scores of items in each dimension in TASTER, it is concluded that science and technology teachers have positive attitudes for ‘necessity of educational research’ (M = 3.89), positive attitudes for ‘value of educational research’ (M = 4.43), and moderate attitude for ‘applicability of educational research’ (M = 3.19). These results coincide with Everton et al. (2002) and Korkmaz et al. (2011a, b) results.

In the current study, the data obtained from the total points of the scale did not present a significant difference in terms of gender. However, there was a significant difference in favor of female teachers in terms of ‘applicability of educational research’ in the sub-dimensions of TASTER. This situation reveals that female teachers have a more positive attitude on the ‘applicability of educational researches’. This result is parallel to the result obtained by Yavuz (2009). However, there were no significant differences between male and female teachers with regard to the value of educational research for classroom practice in the study by Everton et al. (2002). The results obtained from a study by Korkmaz and colleagues (2011a) show that the attitude scores of female pre-service teachers are significantly lower than those of male pre-service teachers with respect to the item of ‘Negative Attitudes towards Research’. On the contrary, the attitude scores of the male pre-service teachers are significantly higher than those of the female pre-service teachers with respect to the item of ‘Positive Attitudes towards Research’. Since our research does not present a detailed analysis of this aspect, the reason for the positive attitude of female teachers can not be found.

There was no significant difference between the general averages obtained from TASTER by the teachers who had graduated from different teacher training programs. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the averages on the ‘necessity of educational research’ in the sub-dimension of TASTER. When the results are examined, it is seen that the graduates of other faculties (Faculty of Science and Letters and Faculty of Engineering) have more belief in the necessity of educational research compared with the teachers that graduated from the departments of science and technology teacher training. The reason for this result might be that the teachers, who graduated from faculties other than education faculties, realize that they do not have sufficient knowledge of the field of educational sciences and thus, attach more importance to the necessity of educational research. As the faculties of education put great emphasis on educational research and novel developments in education during the educational process, this might be leading to the development of self-confidence in those teachers. Therefore, it would be beneficial for future research studies to focus on a detailed examination of the reason for this situation.

Another result obtained from the study is that there was no statistically significant difference in the attitudes of science and technology teachers towards educational research with respect to their years of experience. However, there was a statistically significant difference in the subscales of TASTER which are the ‘Necessity of educational research’, and ‘Value of educational research’. This significant difference means that teachers with a greater number of years of experience value educational research and consider it to be more necessary than the other teachers. This result was in parallel with the study conducted by Everton et al. (2002).

In the presented study, when attitudes of science and technology teachers towards educational research were observed according to the middle school in which they work, there were no significant differences in any items of TASTER whereas there was a statistical difference in the ‘Necessity of educational research’ dimension of TASTER. This finding shows that teachers working in city centres consider educational research to be more necessary than those working in districts and villages.

The study reveals that there was no statistically significant difference in the attitudes of science and technology teachers towards educational research in all the sub-scales of TASTER with respect to the academic degree they achieved. However, the average score of the teachers with Master’s Degrees was higher in the sub-scale of ‘applicability of educational research’, thus these teachers consider educational research applicable to be more than the other teachers. This result signifies that graduate education does not influence teachers’ attitudes towards educational research in general but changes their opinions positively towards the applicability of educational research.

In the presented study, attitudes of science and technology teachers towards educational research were analyzed according to certain variables. We suggest that teacher-training workshops could be organized for teachers to explore and discuss the ideas/results of researchers.

Acknowledgement

We are grateful for the financial support from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey [TUBITAK] (TUBITAK: 108K325).