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Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry, January 2013, 4(1)

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Published in TURKEY

Contact Address:Assoc.Prof.Dr. Abdullah KUZUTOJQI, Editor in ChiefEskişehir-Turkey


ISSN 1309-6591

Editor-in-Chief

Abdullah Kuzu, Anadolu University, Turkey

Associate Editors

Cindy G. JardineUniversity of Alberta, Canada

Işıl KabakçıAnadolu University, Turkey

Franz BreuerWestfälische Wilhems-Universität Münster, Germany

Jean McNiffYork St John University, United Kingdom

Ken ZeichnerUniversity of Washington, USA

Lynne SchrumGeorge Mason University, USA

Wolff-Michael RothUniversity of Victoria, Canada

Yavuz AkbulutAnadolu University, Turkey


Advisory Board

Abdullah Kuzu, Anadolu University, TurkeyAdile Aşkım Kurt, Anadolu University, TurkeyAhmet Saban, Necmettin Erbakan University, TurkeyAli Rıza Akdeniz, Rize University, TurkeyAli Yıldırım, Middle East Technical University, TurkeyAngela Creese, University of Birmingham, United KingdomAngela K. Salmon, Florida International University, USAAntoinette McCallin, Auckland University of Technology, New ZealandArif Altun, Hacettepe University, TurkeyAsker Kartarı, Hacettepe University, TurkeyAytekin İşman, Sakarya University, TurkeyBenedicte Brøgger, The Norwegian School of Management BI, NorwayBronwyn Davies, University of Melbourne, AustraliaBuket Akkoyunlu, Hacettepe University, TurkeyCem Çuhadar, Trakya University, TurkeyCemalettin İpek, Rize University, TurkeyCesar Antonio Cisneros Puebla, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, MexicoCindy G. Jardine, University of Alberta, CanadaClaudia Figueiredo, Institute for Learning Innovation, USADurmuş Ekiz, Karadeniz Technical University, TurkeyElif Kuş Saillard, Ankara University, TurkeyFahriye Altınay Aksal, Near East University, TRNCFawn Winterwood, The Ohio State University, USAFerhan Odabaşı, Anadolu University, TurkeyFranz Breuer, Westfälische Wilhems-Universität Münster, GermanyGina Higginbottom, University of Alberta, CanadaGönül Kırcaali İftar, Professor Emerita, TurkeyGülsün Eby, Anadolu University, Turkey Hafize Keser, Ankara University, TurkeyHalil İbrahim Yalın, Gazi University, TurkeyHasan Şimşek, Middle East Technical University, TurkeyIşıl Kabakçı, Anadolu University, Turkeyİlknur Kelçeoğlu, Indiana University & Purdue University, USAJacinta Agbarachi Opara, Federal College of Education, NigeriaJean McNiff, York St John University, United KingdomJosé Fernando Galindo, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, BoliviaKen Zeichner, University of Washington, USALynne Schrum, George Mason University, USAMustafa Caner, Akdeniz University, TurkeyMustafa Yunus Eryaman, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, TurkeyNedim Alev, Karadeniz Technical University, TurkeyNigel Fielding, University of Surrey, United KingdomNihat Gürel Kahveci, Istanbul University, TurkeyPetek Aşkar, Hacettepe University, TurkeyPranee Liamputtong, La Trobe University, AustraliaRichard Kretschmer, University of Cincinnati, USARoberta Truax, Professor Emerita, USASelma Vonderwell, Cleveland State University, USA


Serap Cavkaytar, Anadolu University, TurkeyServet Bayram, Marmara University, TurkeySevgi Küçüker, Pamukkale University, TurkeyShalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelSoner Yıldırım, Middle East Technical University, TurkeySuzan Duygu Erişti, Anadolu University, TurkeyUdo Kelle, Philipps-Universität Marburg, GermanyÜmit Girgin, Anadolu University, TurkeyWolff-Michael Roth, University of Victoria, CanadaYang Changyong, Sauthwest China Normal University, ChinaYavuz Akbulut, Anadolu University, TurkeyYavuz Akpınar, Boğaziçi University, TurkeyZehra Altınay Gazi, Near East University, TRNC

Review Board

Abdullah Adıgüzel, Harran University, Turkey Abdullah Kuzu, Anadolu University, TurkeyAdeviye Tuba Tuncer, Gazi University, Turkey Adile Aşkım Kurt, Anadolu University, TurkeyAhmet Naci Çoklar, Necmettin Erbakan University, Turkey Ahmet Saban, Necmettin Erbakan University, TurkeyAli Rıza Akdeniz, Rize University, TurkeyAli Yıldırım, Middle East Technical University, TurkeyAngela Creese, University of Birmingham, United KingdomAngela K. Salmon, Florida International University, USAAntoinette McCallin, Auckland University of Technology, New ZealandArif Altun, Hacettepe University, TurkeyAsker Kartarı, Hacettepe University, TurkeyAytekin İşman, Sakarya University, TurkeyAytaç Kurtuluş, Osmangazi University, TurkeyBahadır Erişti, Anadolu University, TurkeyBelgin Aydın, Anadolu University, TurkeyBenedicte Brøgger, The Norwegian School of Management BI, NorwayBronwyn Davies, University of Melbourne, AustraliaBuket Akkoyunlu, Hacettepe University, TurkeyCem Çuhadar, Trakya University, TurkeyCemalettin İpek, Rize University, TurkeyCesar Antonio Cisneros Puebla, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa, MexicoCindy G. Jardine, University of Alberta, CanadaClaudia Figueiredo, Institute for Learning Innovation, USADilek Tanışlı, Anadolu University, TurkeyDurmuş Ekiz, Karadeniz Technical University, TurkeyElif Kuş Saillard, Ankara University, TurkeyEmine Sema Batu, Anadolu University, TurkeyEren Kesim, Anadolu University, TurkeyEsra Şişman, Osmangazi University, TurkeyFahriye Altınay Aksal, Near East University, TRNC


Fawn Winterwood, The Ohio State University, USAFerhan Odabaşı, Anadolu University, TurkeyFigen Ünal, Anadolu University, TurkeyFigen Uysal, Bilecik University, Turkey Franz Breuer, Westfälische Wilhems-Universität Münster, GermanyGina Higginbottom, University of Alberta, CanadaGonca Subaşı, Anadolu University, Turkey Gönül Kırcaali İftar, Professor Emerita, TurkeyGülsün Eby, Anadolu University, TurkeyHafize Keser, Ankara University, TurkeyHalil İbrahim Yalın, Gazi University, TurkeyHandan Deveci, Anadolu University, Turkey Hasan Şimşek, Middle East Technical University, TurkeyIşıl Kabakçı, Anadolu University, Turkeyİlknur Kelçeoğlu, Indiana University & Purdue University, USAJacinta Agbarachi Opara, Federal College of Education, NigeriaJale Balaban, Anadolu University, TurkeyJean McNiff, York St John University, United KingdomJosé Fernando Galindo, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, BoliviaKen Zeichner, University of Washington, USAKerem Kılıçer, Gaziosmanpaşa University, Turkey Lynne Schrum, George Mason University, USAMehmet Can Şahin, Çukurova University, TurkeyMeltem Huri Baturay, Gazi University, Turkey Mehmet Fırat, Anadolu University, Turkey Meral Ören Çevikalp, Anadolu University, Turkey Mine Dikdere, Anadolu University, TurkeyMustafa Caner, Akdeniz University, TurkeyMustafa Nuri Ural, Mevlana University, TurkeyMustafa Yunus Eryaman, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, TurkeyMüyesser Ceylan, Anadolu University, TurkeyNedim Alev, Karadeniz Technical University, TurkeyNigel Fielding, University of Surrey, United KingdomNihat Gürel Kahveci, Istanbul University, TurkeyNilgün Özdamar Keskin, Anadolu University, TurkeyNilüfer Köse, Anadolu University, TurkeyOsman Dülger, Bingöl University, Turkey Ömer Uysal, Anadolu University, TurkeyÖzcan Özgür Dursun, Anadolu University, TurkeyPelin Yalçınoğlu, Anadolu University, TurkeyPetek Aşkar, Hacettepe University, TurkeyPranee Liamputtong, La Trobe University, AustraliaRichard Kretschmer, University of Cincinnati, USARoberta Truax, Professor Emerita, USASelma Vonderwell, Cleveland State University, USASema Ünlüer, Anadolu University, Turkey Semahat Işıl Açıkalın, Anadolu University, TurkeySerap Cavkaytar, Anadolu University, TurkeySerkan İzmirli, Çanakkale 18 Mart University, TurkeyServet Bayram, Marmara University, Turkey


Servet Çelik, Karadeniz Technical University, TurkeySevgi Küçüker, Pamukkale University, TurkeySezgin Vuran, Anadolu University, TurkeyShalva Weil, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelSoner Yıldırım, Middle East Technical University, TurkeySuzan Duygu Erişti, Anadolu University, TurkeyŞemseddin Gündüz, Necmettin Erbakan University, TurkeyTuba Yüzügüllü Ada, Anadolu University, TurkeyUdo Kelle, Philipps-Universität Marburg, GermanyÜmit Girgin, Anadolu University, TurkeyWolff-Michael Roth, University of Victoria, CanadaYang Changyong, Sauthwest China Normal University, ChinaYavuz Akbulut, Anadolu University, TurkeyYavuz Akpınar, Boğaziçi University, TurkeyYusuf Levent Şahin, Anadolu University, TurkeyZehra Altınay Gazi, Near East University, TRNC Zülal Balpınar, Anadolu University, Turkey

Language Reviewers

Mehmet Duranlıoğlu, Anadolu University, TurkeyMustafa Caner, Akdeniz University, Turkey

Administrative & Technical Staff

Elif Buğra Kuzu, Anadolu University, TurkeySerkan Çankaya, Anadolu University, Turkey

The Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry (TOJQI) (ISSN 1309-6591) is published quarterly (January, April, July and October) a year at the www.tojqi.net.

For all enquiries regarding the TOJQI, please contact Assoc.Prof. Abdullah KUZU, Editor-In-Chief, TOJQI, Anadolu University, Faculty of Education, Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Yunus Emre Campus, 26470, Eskisehir, TURKEY, Phone #:+90-222-3350580/3519, Fax # :+90-222-3350573, E-mail : [email protected]; [email protected].

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]


Table of Contents

Teacher Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Case Study of Two Teachers in TurkeySultan Turkan

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An Interpretive Study into Elementary School English Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in TurkeyMehmet Sercan Uztosun

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Factors Motivating and Hindering Information and Communication Technologies Action CompetenceAdile Aşkım Kurt Yavuz Akbulut H. Ferhan Odabaşı Beril Ceylan Elif Buğra Kuzu Onur Dönmez Özden Şahin İzmirli

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Implications from the Diagnosis of a School Culture at a Higher Education InstitutionBahar Gün Esin Çağlayan

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Teacher Representations of English as a Foreign Language: Case Study of Two Teachers in Turkey

Sultan TurkanEducational Testing Service, USA

[email protected]

Abstract

In a developing nation like Turkey, the English language plays a significant role in educational and socioeconomic mobility. English is acquired and taught as a foreign language (EFL) primarily in the classrooms. However, the ways in which English language is represented in classroom instruction have been hardly examined and understood. With that, this paper aims to depict two teachers’ representations of the English language as influenced by a university entrance English language test administered in 2008 in Turkey. The two teachers’ representations of the English language are projected from a 12th grade classroom at an Anatolian Lycee located in the Mediterranean region of Turkey. Doyle's task framework is employed, specifically in order to map what content representations emerged out of the teachers' classroom practices. Data sources include biweekly teacher logs, biweekly interviews, and biweekly classroom observations. The paper highlights that the two teachers' classroom representations of English were entrenched with the idea of high-stakes test preparation for university admissions as they deemed test preparation as a major part of their classroom instruction. That is, representations of the English language were contracted to tested structures and items. The paper illustrates the teachers’ representations of reading and grammar with the insight that division of labour, though not in the form of collaboration, made it possible for the teachers to cope with the contraction effect of test preparation.

Keywords: Teacher content representations; English as a foreign language (EFL); test impact; content contraction

Introduction

In contexts where English is taught as a foreign language (EFL), the ways in which teachers represent the English language are largely influenced by standardized tests, textbooks, students’ learning needs, and teachers’ own experiences learning English and communicating in the language. In most EFL settings, English is often associated with easier and prestigious access to educational and socioeconomic benefits which increases the importance of acquiring the language. However, typically in these settings, English language is not commonly acquired and/or spoken outside classroom settings as the primary language. Thus, classroom instruction has important implications for what students learn in classrooms as it is the teachers who transform and enact English language content. Yet, little is known about EFL teachers’ representations of the language. This paper explores the ways in which teachers represent the English language and learners are exposed to the language in classrooms. More specifically, it seeks to

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understand two teachers’ representation of English language, as influenced by a locally administered high stakes English language test.

In EFL settings, teachers’ representations of the language might be influenced by the centralized national curriculum and the centrally administered English language test (Shohamy, 1998). This paper particularly contextualizes this issue in an EFL setting; Turkey, where there are tensions between the locally developed and administered high stakes English language test, and local instructional practice. In a developing nation like Turkey characterized with a dense young population, a high stakes English language test, also known as the Yabanci Diller Sinavi (YDS), serves college admission and placement assessment. This assessment is designed to assess English language proficiency in one skill only, reading. Yet, it functions as a gatekeeper for college admission to programs such as English language teaching, English language and literature, and American culture and literature. Since it is a high stakes test, understanding the relationships between the test and classroom practice matters. Given that, this paper specifically sought to understand two English language teachers’ representation of English in one classroom as influenced by a particular contextual factor like the English language university entrance exam (YDS). The teachers’ instructional practice was explored employing the ‘task window’ (Doyle 1986) to understanding the ways in which English language content and skills were enacted in the EFL classroom. Next, I elaborate the task window to teacher content representations.

Teacher content representations

In examining language teachers’ practice, the notion of representation could carry several different interpretations; such as teachers’ visual or spatial representation of structural knowledge (Kang, 2004), representation of culture (Menard-Warwick, 2009). It could also refer to representation of skills and structures; reading, listening, speaking, writing, grammar, and vocabulary. In the general teacher education literature, teachers’ representations of content knowledge are viewed within the purview of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK; Shulman, 1986). In the PCK approach to teacher content representations, the focus is on the effectiveness of teachers’ practices. The focus is on effectiveness because teachers’ content representations are examined in terms of “the most useful forms of representation of those ideas, the most powerful analogies, illustrations, examples, explanations, and demonstrations-in a word, the ways of formulating the subject that make it comprehensible to others” (Shulman, 1986, p. 9-10). The second view of teacher content representations, on the other hand, examines the ways in which teachers enact content in the classroom without focusing on teachers’ most effective representations. In this view, content representations refer to ‘the ways in which the curriculum is made concrete in the classroom tasks teachers define for students’ (Doyle, 1986, p. 3). With this conceptualization, Doyle emphasizes the classroom task window approach to capturing the ways in which teachers bring content to life in the classrooms.

More specifically, to Doyle (1986; 1992), the task that the teachers develop and enact in the classroom has the following components: product, operations, resources, and weight. To interpret all these components of academic tasks, one needs to think of the teachers’ content representations as classroom events in which the content is laid on the classroom floor. Teachers lay the content through formulations of a goal state, actual operations to be followed, resources in hand or to be developed, and the significance of working on all these to get at the goal state. Some examples of products attained in the

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classroom are: ‘words in blanks on a worksheet, answers to a set of questions, or an original essay. Operations could be exemplified as copying words off a list, remembering words from previous instruction followed to get at the products through the use of resources like consulting to a textbook’ (Doyle, 1986, p. 5). Weight of task refers to the significance that a task holds on the overall or short term accountability system of the class (grade and the like). The weight could be exemplified with ‘a warm up exercise in math might count as a daily grade whereas a unit text might account for 20 percent of the grade for a term’ (Doyle, 1988, p. 169). The weight of a task could affect a number of aspects in the representation of content like mainly the actual generation of the product, students’ resilience to engage in this generation or the smooth versus bumpy flow of the classroom activity. The weight of the task might be quite significant in the accountability system of the classroom but may not be ‘heard and interpreted’ as significant by each student. This then changes what gets enacted and what students attain in the classroom.

All in all, the dimensions, explicated through Doyle’s task framework, could be factored to actually analyze a task projected through teachers’ content presentations. Before presenting the dimensions that are employed for the analysis in this study, I elaborate on teacher representation of English language as influenced by contextual factors like tests.

Teachers’ representation of English language as influenced by tests

There are chains of interactions and influences between instruction and what the test capitalizes for the examinees and learners of English to know. This point is widely discussed (e.g., Shepard & Dougherty Cutts, 1991; Alderson & Wall, 1993; Gorsuch, 2000; Shohamy. 2001b; Au, 2007), who present research on the interface between teachers’ instructional practices and the test. For instance, Shohamy (1998, 2001b) exemplifies the influence of an EFL oral proficiency test over the practice of teachers who prepare the students for the test through incorporating video cassettes, TV series, cue cards, auditory materials and so on. Examples for both the positive and negative wash-back effects of the EFL language tests on EFL teaching practices could be drawn from around the world. While Wu (2001) pointed to the constraining effect of the language tests over language teaching in China, Alderson and Wall (1993) point to both the positive and negative effects of an O-level examination over teaching practices in Sri Lanka. The effects were in that teachers paid more attention to reading at the expense of listening and speaking activities, which was simultaneously interpreted as a positive effect because teachers designed fewer grammar items. When high stakes are attached to a test, teachers make sure to facilitate students’ success on the test. Gorsuch (2000) exemplifies the case of Japanese EFL teachers illustrating how the teachers choose to enact form-focused content like grammar and vocabulary, which are predominantly tested on the locally administered university entrance exams. These teachers choose to emphasize grammar and vocabulary instruction over the communicative language teaching practices that are mandated by the national educational policies. Ferman (2004) also discusses the narrowing of scope and content in the 12 th grade EFL high school classrooms where students are preparing for the EFL Oral Matriculation Test administered in Israel. For this preparation, 89% (n= 16) of the teachers reported that longer texts like stories, essays, and plays were not within the scope of their instruction, as they opted to focus on easier and shorter texts geared towards test preparation.

In the English language testing situation of Turkey, the fact that the YDS test is centrally designed and implemented across the country is a point of discussion. Shohamy (1998) categorizes the implementation of the language tests within two educational systems:

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centralized versus decentralized systems. In a centralized educational system, central power bodies like the department of education or the ministry of education will be in control of curriculum development and nationally administered standardized tests. In these systems, the tests and curricula could play a powerful role in imposing the policies and educational processes. Thus, the way a skill area is measured in a testing situation might influence the way language content gets organized in the curriculum, acquired by the students, and represented by the teachers.

Method

The principal question and the sub-questions guiding this research were: 1. How do the two EFL teacher participants represent the English language in their

instructional practices over 12 weeks?a. What academic tasks did the teachers attempt to enact in their classes? b. How were the tasks enacted?

Qualitative methods were employed to answer the main question of this research. Specifically, a descriptive case study was followed for two reasons. First, the study was exploratory and helped to identify patterns and themes in the two teachers’ instructional practices. Second, it sought to map rich local descriptions of classroom practices of two teachers. Qualitative methods in this study included local and situated analysis of the two teachers’ theories of the English language content as reflected in their interviews. Also, classroom observations and teacher logs were triangulated with the teacher interviews to understand the ways in which they represent English in the classroom in interaction with the students.

Examining how the two teachers represented the English language was grounded in classroom observations. Rowan, Camburn, and Correnti (2004) argue, however, that classroom observations alone do not suffice for research on teaching. Therefore, semi-structured teacher logs were used to supplement the observations. These logs were designed not only to provide the teachers the opportunity to choose from a list of language functions that teachers emphasize in their instructional practice, but also to write out what they chose to enact and how.

Through semi-structured interviews, this study sought to get the teachers to debrief what content they had enacted during the previous week and how. These debriefings helped to unpack teachers’ theories of the particular content as well as their reflections on the enacted content. So, the content of the bi-weekly interviews mainly focused on discussion of what the teachers claimed to have enacted in their logs. Moreover, the interviews followed the researcher’s classroom observations and the topics of interest and questions were specified in advance and informed to the teachers.

Context of the Study

This study took place in a large Mediterranean city in Turkey with a population of over two million people. Anadolu Lycees (Anatolian high schools) constituted the core context of this study. One reason for this was that the national English language curriculum for

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English majors is in effect only in screened schools like Anatolian high schools where there is intensive English language instruction. Six EFL teachers from five Anadolu Lycees consented to participate in the study by providing daily logs of their instructional practice. Using a purposive sampling strategy, one out of the nine Anadolu Lycees in the city was selected as the focal research site. At this site, classroom observations were conducted on a bi-weekly basis in a senior 12th grade English major classroom over the course of 12 weeks because the teachers’ work schedules were convenient for the researcher to be a participant observer in their classrooms. This paper presents findings from the data collected at the focal Anadolu Lycee where not only daily logs were collected from the participating teachers but also classroom observations and interviews were conducted.

Data sources

Data were collected over the entire first semester of 2008-2009 academic year between September and December, 2008. The data consist of a) bi-weekly teacher logs, b) bi-weekly teacher interviews, and c) classroom observations. The schedule for data collection consisted of a repeated pattern of (a) having the teachers keep content logs for one week during which classroom observation were conducted and (b) conducting teacher interviews during the subsequent week. It was intended that the bi-weekly design would help to reduce teacher fatigue.

Teacher logs were selected as a means to get at the question of what content the two teachers choose to emphasize in the classroom. Studies have shown that the ongoing logs allow teachers to reflect frequently on what content is covered and represented in the classroom before they forget (Rowan, Camburn, and Correnti, 2004, p. 11). The frame for the design of the teacher log employed in this study is taken from Rowan, Camburn and Correnti (2004). Unlike their design, the teacher log used in this study did not ask the teachers to consider a predetermined focal student and report whether or not she/he demonstrated comprehension in the particular content area that the teachers related in their content coverage report. Once the log was constructed, it was piloted on five teachers that were contacted both at and outside the participating school. This pilot aimed to validate the language of the teacher log. Since the log instructions on each section were both in Turkish and English, teachers were informally notified that with their collaboration, the researcher would be able to validate the instructions on the log and make modifications, if need be.

The observation protocol follows one of the qualitative analysis patterns suggested by Lindlof (1995). The framework that illuminates the analysis is named “expanding frame” in which the collection and analysis of the qualitative data begin with a tight focus on one element or a few elements. As the researcher collects evidence, and sees new ways to consider, she/he widens the frame of evidence in analysis. This deductive data collection and analysis procedure adapted from an ‘expanding frame’ allowed me to start with a tight focus on teachers’ content representations without diverting the focus to teachers’ classroom management, effectiveness of their content representations or interactions with the students. However, I simultaneously held a flexible mindset to let the frame of evidence widen the data analysis. In keeping up with this framework, I observed one 12 th

grade English major classroom. After transcribing the classroom data, I started with a tight focus on existing categorical scheme or codes, that Doyle (1985) elaborated as academic tasks to unpack the content represented in the classroom.

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This research employed semi-structured interviews whereby the main topic of each interview question on the protocol was pursued while allowing for naturally evolving topics and points to emerge as the research unfolded over 12 weeks (Mishler, 1986; LeCompte & Preissle, 1993). Just as with the classroom observations, I followed a deductive data collection and analysis procedure circumscribed from an ‘expanding frame’ which allowed me to start with a tight focus on existing interview questions, particularly what teachers represent, how and why. At the same time, the flexible mindset was kept to let the frame of evidence widen the data analysis.

The interviews were conducted in Turkish in order to allow for the maximum comfort zone for self expression by the teachers. Transcriptions of the interviews were later translated by the researcher. The interviews were scheduled at the teachers’ convenience on a biweekly basis.

There were a total of six teacher log data points and six follow up interviews after the collection of the teacher logs. The reason for these numbers of teacher log and interview data points resulted from the bi-weekly design of data collection. After an initial two months of building rapport in the classroom, some of the observations were audio-taped. There was a total of ten hours of classroom audio-tapings. From this pool, a total of six hours and six minutes was selected. I recognize that the inclusion of classroom observations that were audio-taped at both teachers’ convenience caused the exclusion of other classroom practices that were either not audio-taped or not attended for observation at all. This recognition constitutes the basis of the main limitation in this study which is identified to be the small sample of data.

The observed and audio-taped lessons that are selected for close analysis are called ‘content episodes’. Specifically, the selection of content episodes was based on several criteria: 1) the amount of time spent on the content episode in the classroom, 2) availability of full audio recordings, 3) weight of task in the classroom. Each content episode includes segments mapped according to the observed activity taking place in the classroom.

More details about the dates of the data collection and the number of data points collected from each teacher are provided in the table below (see Table 1).

Table 1. Data Collection Schedule

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Participants

The current paper reports data from two non-native English teachers teaching in a senior English major classroom. In this classroom, Ayla and Bahar (pseudonyms), worked together to teach English to 20 senior students. One of the teachers, Ayla, had finished 16 years of teaching, 15 of which were spent in the Anadolu Lycees. Her college degree was in nutrition engineering but she got her certificate to teach English through the Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) training programs offered by the British Council abroad. During college years, she developed her English language aptitude through reading world literary classics in English. In fact, during the course of the study, she brought in that personal experience to the classroom by exposing students to such literary texts as Pygmalian, 1984, Lord of the Flies, and Animal Farm. Bahar reported

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Type of data Total # of collection

Specific dates of collection Numerical codes given to each data point

(A) Weekly teacher logs

6 1st September 22-26, 2008

1.1 1.1a Ayla1.1b Bahar

2nd October 13-17, 2008 1.2 1.2a Ayla1.2b Bahar

3rd October 27-31, 2008 1.3 1.3a Ayla1.3b Bahar

4th November 10-14, 2008




6th December 15-19, 2008


(B) Weekly teacher interview transcriptions

6 1st October 6-10, 2008 2.1 2.1a Ayla2.1b Bahar

2nd October 20-24, 2008 2.2 2.2a Ayla2.2b Bahar

3rd November 3-7, 2008 2.3 2.3a Ayla2.3b Bahar



5th December 1-5, 2008 2.5 2.5a Ayla2.5b Bahar

6th December 22-23 2.6 2.6a Ayla2.6b Bahar

(C) Selected Observational descriptions

5 Animal FarmRelative ClauseReduction in Relative Clauses

Prepositional PhrasesPhrasal Verbs


having taught for over 15 years, some of which was spent at ‘cram’ schools preparing students for the English university entrance exam. She was a graduate of a four year long TEFL program. As compared to Ayla, Bahar believed in improving students’ reading skills through vocabulary instruction.

At the beginning of the academic year in September, Bahar and Ayla agreed upon a division of labour. The concept of division of labour (Engeström, 1987) is part of a framework that describes human activity oriented towards certain goals within a context and in relation to a community, and within the rules of the community. In the context of this study, division of labour made it possible for teachers to cope with the demands of preparing student for a high stakes test. Within the division of labour, Ayla would spend nine hours of classroom instruction focusing on reading and grammar, while Bahar emphasized vocabulary and practice tests during the remaining four hours of instruction. One of the advantages of this arrangement was that Ayla found the opportunity to represent her theory of reading, believing in ‘exposure to text.’

Analysis

As mentioned before, in this study, Doyle’s (1986, 1992) views on content representations and specifically the notion of ‘task’ are employed to map what work gets organized, structured and enacted in the classroom. All the classroom data including conversations and descriptions of the classroom activity were conducive to the analysis of what content gets represented in the English classroom through the task framework. Through this lens, Doyle’s (1986) conceptualization of ‘task’ is employed in this analytical examination by coding observation and interview data for the following: 1) the task products attained in the classroom, 2) task resources employed or designed by the teacher and/or students and 3) operations followed to produce the product targeted. The language of instruction (Turkish or English) was also coded for analysis. These apriori theoretical codes were employed to elevate content representations to a level of comparative analysis across time and the two focal teachers (see appendix 3).

The findings with respect to the overall task structures was salient in teachers’ log registries, interviews, and my classroom observations in that reading, grammar, and vocabulary were the most-enacted areas of content in English language instruction. The overarching pattern of enacting these areas across the two teachers’ instructional practices was that both teachers conceived the senior year as a ’review‘ and ’test practice‘ year of instruction. Subsumed in this pattern was the theme that the tested content areas like reading, grammar, and vocabulary influence teachers’ instructional practices. In this paper, the two teachers’ representations of reading and grammar in English are discussed only, illustrating the representative tasks next. To evaluate the credibility of the findings, I member checked the general patterns with the participants and asked them to judge the reliability of the findings. In terms of transferability, it should be noted that the findings presented herein can not be generalized to the other cases of EFL teachers’ representation of English language in Turkey.

Results

Overall task structures for reading

The overall task structure of enacting reading in the 12th grade classroom manifested a pattern across two different teachers. The task product typically involved completion of a worksheet or practice test that was linked to a paragraph-level text. The text serves as

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the resource of the task while simultaneously being the product of the task, as the work students are engaged in is the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank exercises that are bundled underneath the text. The operations students take under a testing situation involve silently reading the paragraph, simultaneously reading the questions, choosing or writing down answers to a set of comprehension questions, or looking up unknown words (see a student’s writing on the worksheet exercise in appendix 1), and finally circling the right choice. The end product would then include a completed multiple-choice exercise. The texts used as a resource to set the task around reading were mostly at the paragraph level.

Both Ms. A and Ms. B brought in texts which would be simplified including several short paragraphs. These texts would mostly be taken from a supplementary textbook that the teacher used, or from a test preparation source in which the multiple-choice questions or vocabulary exercises would readily be available. Bahar explicitly debriefs the characteristics of these types of tasks in her recall of classroom activity: ‘I asked questions related to family styles and parenting issues. Students read the text silently and did the exercises (multiple choice). I checked the students’ reading comprehension by multiple choice questions.’ (#2.2b)

These tasks did not involve any ambiguity as students were very familiar with the procedures involved in a reading task with the product of a completed worksheet. Their familiarity was recorded in instances where the teacher would draw their attention and motivate them into the task saying:

(T)eacher: We’ll do something you like most! Students (Ss): Are we going to choose among multiple options?Teacher sarcastically verifies: Sure, out of 8 choices.Ss: Let’s do it then. (#2.2c)

For instance, a task on a text ‘Punishment Takes Many Forms’ enacted in Ayla’s class represents the general structure of reading tasks as depicted below.

Punishment takes many forms. This text, which was about the types of punishment in Britain, had seven paragraphs (see appendix 2). For the students’ part, the task involved such operations as reading this text, following along with the teacher as she read aloud, and responding to the questions she raised about the unknown vocabulary. Students responded to these lexical questions in Turkish. After reading the text, the students were supposed to work on the worksheet which included seven sections. Some exercises in the worksheet asked students to guess the meanings of the italicized words from the text and read the given sentences to choose the correct word to fill in the blanks, as well as answer various true/false exercises. Also, they were to fill in gaps using the information in the text, find inferences for the given pronouns (e.g. it, they, those), and find words that were synonymous to the given phrase. The task was marked by the product of the completed worksheet. Further, this task did not have any immediate weight or accountability measures. All that the students were required to do as an operation of this task was to follow along the teacher’s read-aloud and then, work on the exercises.

While reading aloud the text sentence by sentence, Ayla occasionally paused and asked questions like: ‘suspended prison sentence?’; ‘embark?’; ‘proportionally?’ checking students’ understanding of the phrase or word. Otherwise, Ayla would typically read aloud a paragraph without any interruption or pause. At the end of the paragraph, she

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would pause and translate the main idea of the paragraph into Turkish, asking some comprehension or analysis questions to the students. Alternatively, she would pause at intervals and summarize two or three sentences at once to give the main idea up to that point. In this particular reading activity, only one instance was noted in which (only two) students participated in the classroom talk.

This instance occurred by the time Ayla had been done reading aloud the text. One student jumped in and drew associations between whatever abstract meaning he had drawn from the text and a prison that he had seen in Istanbul. Simultaneously, another student intervened, giving an update from the daily news on a government-related court case (‘Ergenekon’) that was being interrogated at the time of the study. He said in Turkish: “They are going to publicize the 2,000 page–long indictment soon.” The teacher did not interrupt these interpretations, even if they had nothing to do with the text, and thus seemed like ‘alternate vectors’ interrupting the smooth flow of the activity. Nonetheless, the teacher just said, ‘OK. We got the news for the day.’ Simultaneously, she prompted students to turn the back of the page to work on the ‘inferral’ exercises. On these exercises, students are asked to find the phrase within the paragraph that refers to the given pronouns [it (para. 1), they (para. 2), those (para. 7)]. Before students started to silently work on these exercises, the teacher gave hints and strategies to get these kinds of test items right. This task on completing seven sections of exercises was then completed all together.

The above task with its operations was a familiar one in the sense that students got to produce responses to the exercises on the worksheet. The teacher did not even have to give any instructions as they were all written out on the sheet. The most interesting part of this reading activity was that the text and exercises on the worksheet were all in English; however, all of the teacher discourse and student–teacher interactions around the text were in Turkish. As illustrated above, the meanings the two students extracted related to the daily events in Turkey. Thus, it seemed like students read a text in English to elucidate the meanings that they gathered from real-life issues in their context.

All in all, the above task represented typical task of reading enacted in this class, in that the worksheet exercises most commonly accompanied the paragraph-level texts, and the translations of words or sentences into Turkish were commonly observed.

Overall task structures for grammar

All of the grammatical and lexical tasks produced in the 12th grade English major classroom involved completion of various types of exercises geared towards the university entrance exam. There were no exceptions of representations in this area. To get at the completion of worksheets, one operation for students to follow was to copy down the grammatical rules that the teacher wrote on the board. Another one was to participate in the teacher’s call for sentences to exemplify the particular rule. Following this procedure, there were some risks for the students as they may not exemplify a grammatically correct sentence, which then seemed to be causing embarrassment. Given this risk, it was observed in each class session that only certain students would participate in such operations as rule explanation and generating example sentences. All the same, the risks involved in the tasks oriented around acquisition of grammar or vocabulary were low, primarily because all the operations within these tasks would be followed in the native language, Turkish. Therefore, students would delineate the meanings of the structures and words or lexical phrases switching between Turkish and

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English. The board would be used to keep records of all the rules, explanations, and example sentences.

To illustrate, the content episode on relative clauses is presented. More specifically, the segment deductive instruction of the rules of relative clauses is selected because it constitutes the bulk of the relative clause episode. First, the teacher’s retrospective reflections around the grammar task are presented. Then, the selected segment is presented to illustrate the task components within this episode.

Relative clauses. The content episode on relative clauses and reduction in relative clauses involved completion of multiple-choice exercises and choosing the right word phrase to fill in the blanks. That is, the weight of task was scaled through a multiple-choice exercise.

The operations of the task on relative clauses were explaining the rules for the grammatical structures, and then writing down example sentences corresponding to the rules, and lastly finishing the task through completing the practice exercises. The whole episode occurred in Turkish except for giving the structural rules and their respective example sentences in English.

All the resources for teaching the grammatical structures and learning the vocabulary words were from test preparation sources that provided all the rules, example sentences, and lists of words that could appear on the test. With these components of the task, the ultimate goal was to get the multiple-choice exercises right. However, as Ayla evaluated in her follow-up interview, some students did not succeed on this task as much as she had anticipated. The ‘hardship’ she is referring to below actually was because the multiple-choice practice test she assigned to the students required knowledge of the structure ‘reduction in relative clauses,’ which students had not been taught before.

“I had thought the test was exclusively on relative clauses not on reduction while making copies...I didn’t check…but it was hard for them at first..then I saw that they couldn’t do much…I solved the questions altogether in class…we went over each one of them …they completed the rest themselves..We literally went over each one, one by one…there will be this and that on this item…with the items that were really tricky, I did most of the explanations…while answering, we discussed…”

Later, Ayla conveys her contentment over students’ success on the relative clause practice tests administered by the cram school that most students attend in the city. She was pleased to relate how well students did on the relative clause test designed by this cram school. This implies that the weight of the task on relative clauses, which is to answer and complete the multiple-choice exercises, is governed by the number of test items that the students answer correctly.

An illustration of deductive form instruction. In the segment shown below, Ayla first revisits the previous segment in which she go over with the students each one of the rules and give at least one example sentence to illustrate the rule. Once this illustration over each one of the rules is done, Ayla continues on with a summary of the rules explained up to that point. Here is how the segment unfolds.

Ayla starts by asking: “In what cases do we use non-defining clauses?”

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They all attempt to answer until one student looks in a grammar book he has and says, “proper nouns.” Then Ayla verifies that the non-defining clauses are used: “with the proper nouns like Mrs. Smith, Jack, London, and so forth.”The same student guesses the next one and says: “Nouns with preceding modifiers such as my/your/our/this/that.”

One student asks: “Teacher, isn’t ‘the man’ already definite or why use it like ‘the man at the shop?’ ”Teacher says: “It will depend on the situation, if the man we are talking about is really obvious then ‘the man’ could be just sufficient for a non-defining relative clause.”

Teacher then moves on to the next sub-title in which unquantifiable nouns like milk, flower, rice, and coal are exemplified. Then, she gives an example debriefing the rules she has described so far: “London, where I was born, has changed a lot recently,” which is an example sentence for the first rule on the use of relative clauses with the proper nouns. The proper noun here is ‘London’.

Then the teacher picks a particular student, asking for an example using one of the rules explained earlier.

Alpay (the pseudo name of the student she points at) says: “Your coat, which you haven’t worn for decades, belongs to me now.” Teacher puts that sentence down on the board. While she’s doing that, she asks from the particular student for verification of the sentence she’s putting down. Later, Ayla asks the students to give examples to the other rules by using the proper pronouns, or unquantifiable nouns. One student slowly attempts to form a sentence. In doing so, she starts with ‘milk’ then pauses and says, “milk which is useful.”

The other students try to help out but it was quite obvious that the students were struggling to situate example sentences into the given rules.Another student offers: “milk which is essential,” then she says, “milk which is essential for everyone,” and again gets stuck there and finally utters: “…can also be used to make a cake.” Teacher again puts the sentence down on the board.

In the interview, Bahar reflected that students occasionally have problems with this particular grammatical area in English but she relates her belief in that working on practice tests and exercises will ‘reinforce their understandings’ and will eventually get them not to miss any items on relative clauses and reductions in relative clauses, which is implied to be the ultimate goal. Here is how Bahar discourses around these points:

“Except for one or two students, I see that they are mostly doing good…the most important problem which also used to be valid in the past is that they would have a hard time differentiating between active and passive voices…it is a matter of deciding whether to say ‘having been’ or ‘having done’ since both ‘been’ and ‘done’ are in their past participle forms…the number of mistakes has decreased when compared with the past…when we do more

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exercises, they will have acquired ‘reductions’ and reinforced their understanding of that.“

This content episode that both Ayla and Bahar emphasized in their practice as displayed in the log and interview, was on relative clauses. In representing this grammatical content, the teacher mainly put down the rules and provided example sentences on the board. In the process, the teacher and students mainly engaged in a meta-linguistic talk about the structure, in Turkish.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this study, it became apparent that teachers contracted the content of the most commonly enacted skill areas; reading, vocabulary, and grammar, to discrete areas of instruction so that students could benefit from classroom practices on their test performance. Reading was represented through tasks targeting the completion of paragraph-level test practice exercises. The representation of reading as comprehension instruction with the use of test preparation materials limited reading activities to deciphering meaning at the word, sentence, and paragraph level. Since the reading activities were not expanded to products like a written text generated on the basis of textual information and students’ interpretations of the text, content representations of reading could not be expanded beyond completed worksheets as products. Similarly in grammar, it should be noted that all of the grammar episodes involved the completion of a multiple choice test worksheet as a product. The task that emerges particularly from the classroom activity on reduction in relative clauses, involved operations like copying the rules and generating example sentences to attain the ultimate goal—to do well on the exercises. This rule-bound discrete grammar teaching is intended to facilitate students’ performance on the test and so contracted representation of grammar to discrete rules, and using the structures in sentences. A testing situation creates its own rule of operating within the context of learning and teaching, in that certain goals are set, and those who choose to participate in the context assume assigned or individually set roles to reach the goals. Under the English language testing situation in Turkey, the two teacher participants of this study assumed the roles of preparing their 12th graders for the YDS. It became apparent that the teachers’ theories of what it means to read in English and know English grammar were primarily influenced by the tested content. In practice, the teachers contracted activities of reading, vocabulary and grammar to discrete areas of instruction so that students could perform well on the test.

Content contraction versus expansion: An influence of tests

This paper pointed out that the representations of English language were narrowly ‘contracted’ down to tested structures and items (Au, 2007). Broadly speaking, the influence of the centralized test was broadly apparent in the language skills that the teachers emphasized, as teachers contracted English language content to ‘tested’ structures and items. In fact, the publicized blueprint of the centralized English language test in the context of Turkey shows that reading is the only modality through which examinees are tested on primarily because the test is paper-based. So, all four skills (reading, speaking, listening, and writing) are not included in the design of the test, except for reading. When this is the case, it was found in this study that teachers also emphasize the tested content and skill areas and narrow their instruction to reading activities, grammar, and vocabulary lessons. This finding closely relates to two of the hypotheses about the wash-back influences of the language tests laid out by Alderson

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and Wall (1993) stating that, “a test will influence the degree and depth of teaching,” and “a test will influence attitudes to the content, method, etc. of teaching and learning” (pp. 120–121).

Likewise, Au’s (2007) findings from the meta-analysis of forty nine qualitative studies have direct bearing upon the discussion of the findings in the current study. Au synthesizes how high-stakes testing influences or controls curriculum taught on the classroom floor in terms of subject matter content, pedagogy, and structure of knowledge. Au points to two dominant effects of the high-stakes testing over the curriculum and instruction: Subject matter content expansion and subject matter content contraction. Subject matter content expansion refers to teachers’ instructional practices that go above and beyond the tested content. Content contraction, on the other hand, refers to “reducing the amount of instructional time and course offerings in either tested or non-tested subject areas” (Au, 2007, p. 260). For instance, the participating teachers in the study by Shepard and Doughtery (1991), generally reported that they do not emphasize content that is not tested, which would be interpreted through Au’s lenses as content contraction or fragmentation of content into isolated test-size pieces like formulas and rules drilled with examples. Other researchers (see, e.g., Amrein and Berliner, 2002; Lipman, 2004; McNeil, 2000; McNeil and Valenzuela, 2001; Nichols and Berliner, 2005, 2007; Watanabe, 2007) also claim that high-stakes testing narrows curriculum, among the other negative influences mentioned.

To reiterate, the influence of the centralized test was broadly apparent in the areas of skills that the two teachers emphasized. These teachers’ cooperative practices not only made it possible to pursue individual teaching styles (particularly in reading) but also helped to move instruction forward with a focus on test preparation. Overall, the division of labour and each teacher’s specialization helped them be more focused on different aspects of the test preparation task. Further, through the division of labour and cooperation, the two teachers, whether consciously or unconsciously, were able to mitigate the constraints of the testing situation when enacting reading tasks. This might afford the implication that teachers’ autonomy could effectively change the circumstances that they may not have the power to change.

Future Directions for Research

This research employed a variety of methods to address the research questions. To map teachers’ content representations, especially in foreign or second language classrooms, a triangulation of classroom audio-tapings, teacher logs, and interviews could be replicated from this study. In order to understand the significant contribution of the teacher logs to rich depiction of teacher content representations, this triangulation could be compared with the research design that excludes the use of teacher logs. However, if the focus of the research is on teacher content representations on a longitudinal basis, the observations could be intensified to take place every week as long as the teacher participants find the scheduling of the classroom visits convenient. While analyzing instruction interactions in a foreign or second language classroom, Doyle’s task framework situated in a theory of teacher content representations could be extended to include task-based research on language pedagogy which would add the component of ‘real-world relationship’ into the task framework (Skehan, 1998a; Ellis, 2009). That is, in addition to describing EFL teacher content representations in terms of the task elements (product, operations, resource, and weight of task), the content represented in the

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classroom could be described with respect to its relevance to the interpersonal or communicative real-world use of English.

References

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student learning. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 10(18). Retrieved July 29, 2007, from http://epaa.asu.edu/epaa/v10n18/.

Au, W. (2007). High stakes testing and curricular control: A qualitative metasynthesis. Educational Researcher, 36(5), 258-67.

Doyle, W. (1986). Content representations in teachers’ definitions of academic work. Journal of Curriculum Studies. 18, 365-79.

Doyle, W. (1988). Work in Mathematics classes: The context of students’ thinking during instruction. Educational Psychologist. 23(2). 167-180.

Doyle, W. (1992). Curriculum and pedagogy in P. W. Jackson (Ed.). Handbook of Research on Curriculum. New York: Macmillan.

Ellis, R. (2009). Task-based research and language pedagogy. In Van den Branden, Kris; Martin Bygate; and John M. Norris (Eds.) Task-based language teaching: A reader (Pp. ix, 512). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit.

Ferman, I. (2004). The washback of an EFL National Oral Matriculation Test to teaching and learning. In L. Cheng & Y. Watanabe (with A. Curtis) (Eds.), Washback in language testing: Research contexts and methods (pp. 191-210). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Gorsuch, G. J. (2000). EFL educational policies and educational cultures: influences on teachers' approval of communicative activities. TESOL Quarterly, 34(4), 675- 710.

Kang, S. (2004). Using visual organizers to enhance EFL instruction. ELT Journal, 58(1), 58-57.

LeCompte, M. D., & Preissle, J. (1993). Ethnography and qualitative design in educational research (2nd ed.). San Diego: Academic.

Lindlof, T. R. (1995). Qualitative communication methods. Thousand Oaks, CA. Sage. Lipman, P. (2004). High stakes education: Inequality, globalization, and urban school

reform. New York: Routledge Falmer.McNeil, L. M. (2000). Contradictions of school reform: Educational costs of standardized

testing. New York: Routledge.McNeil, L. M., & Valenzuela, A. (2001). The harmful impact of the TAAS system of testing

in Texas: Beneath the accountability rhetoric. In G. Orfield & M. L. Kornhaber (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high-stakes testing in public education (pp. 127–150). New York: Century Foundation Press.

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Menard-Warwick, J. (2009). Co-constructing representations of culture in ESL and EFL classrooms: Discursive faultlines in Chile and California. The Modern Language Journal, 93(1), 30-45.

Mishler, E. G. (1986). Research interviewing: Context and narrative. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Nichols, S. L., & Berliner, D. C. (2005, March). The inevitable corruption of indicators and educators through high-stakes testing (No. EPSL- 0503-101-EPRU). Tempe, AZ: Education Policy Studies Laboratory, Arizona State University. Retrieved September 27, 2005, from http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU-exec.pdf.

Rowan, B., Camburn, E., and Correnti, R. (2004). Using teacher logs to measure the enacted curriculum: A study of literacy teaching in third-grade classrooms. Elementary School Journal, 105 (1), 75-102.

Shepard, L. A., & Doughterty, K. C. (1991). Effects of high-stakes testing on instruction. Paper for American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, IL.

Shohamy, E. (1998) Critical language testing and beyond, Studies in Educational Evaluation, 24(4), 331-345.

Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15, 4–14.

Skehan, P. (1998a). Task-based instruction. Annual Review of Applied linguistics, 18, 268-286.

Watanabe, M. (2007). Displaced teacher and state priorities in a highstakes accountability context. Educational Policy, 21(2), 311–368.

Wu, Y.A. (2001). English language teaching in China: Trends and challenges. TESOL Quarterly, 35, 191–94.

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Appendix

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Appendix 1. Multiple-Choice Reading Exercise

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Appendix 2. Reading Exercise

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Appendix 3. Codes for Data Analysis

Code 1: Task products in a language classroomDefinition: Task product is any requirement or academic work expectation that is put forth for the student to demonstrate understanding/comprehension/application of the content taught in class. When to use this code: when the teacher describes what she/he expects the students to carry out/complete (if this code is used, provide narrative records of the expected task product). For instance, a task product in a language classroom might entail task outcomes like responding to a set of questions by listening to an audio tape or file; filling in words/structures in blanks on a worksheet or textbook; writing an original essay; discussing with the peer on an assigned topic and so on. When not to use this code: do not use when the expected task product is just to do silent reading without responding to any set of comprehension check questions or writing about the text read or discussing about the text.

Code 2: Operations in a language classroomDefinition: Operations followed to produce the task product refer to cognitive, communicative operations involved in assembling and using resources to reach the goal state and/or the product. When to use this code: when the teacher gives directions/instructions and walks the students through the steps that they will need to take or follow to get to (or produce) the task outcome or task product. (if this code is used, provide narrative records of the operations described and taken). When not to use this code: when the teacher reads the instructions/directions verbatim from the textbook without providing her/his interpretation of the operations students are asked to take.

Code 3: ResourcesDefinition: Resources refer to any linguistic, visual, auditory, written input or realia and peer interaction that is provided by the teacher and/or is available as immediate to the classroom context. When to use this code: when the teacher tells the students that they can interact to carry out the task operations or to produce their own resources AND when she/he provides manipulatives, visual/auditory and/or written input or realia for the students to utilize in order to carry out the task operations. (if this code is used, provide narrative records of the resources provided and used). When not use this code: when the teacher does not provide any resources to facilitate the task operations and instructs the students to stand alone and finish the task within an allotted time.

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An Interpretive Study into Elementary School English Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices in Turkey

Mehmet Sercan UztosunUniversity of Exeter, UK

[email protected]

Abstract

This exploratory study seeks for understanding the relationship between Turkish elementary school English teachers’ espoused beliefs about the effective ways of teaching English and their self-reported practices. 6 teachers, who were working at different state schools in a town located in the Northwestern part of Turkey, were interviewed. Interpretation of the data revealed inconsistency between teachers’ beliefs and practices. Although there was a strong consensus that English should be taught communicatively, all participants reported that their teaching practices mainly focus on vocabulary and grammar. A number of factors hindering this consistency were mentioned such as exam-based educational policy, time constraints and overloaded syllabus. In the light of these, this study recommends changing the focus of current English testing system to using the language communicatively and implementing an adaptable curriculum where language learning objectives will be shifted from preparing students for the examinations to improving their competences in productive skills.

Keywords: Teachers’ beliefs and practices; English as a foreign language; English language teaching in Turkey

Introduction and Background

The status of English in Turkish educational system seems contradictory. In curriculum, developing learners’ communicative skills is declared to be the main objective of English language teaching (Talim Terbiye Kurulu, 2006). However, proficiency in English is tested through examinations which only include multiple-choice questions that neglect productive skills and this leads learners to focus on getting through examinations rather than developing communicative skills.

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This dichotomy is the main preoccupation of this research study aiming at understanding the main focus of English language learning and teaching in Turkey. In the push to understand this complexity, the current study deals with teachers’ beliefs because beliefs are considered to be the indicators of individuals’ decisions, choices and behaviours (Borg, 2001; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Pajaras, 1992). This is because beliefs are seen as the basis of action (Borg, 2011) and understanding teachers’ beliefs potentially provide profound insight into several aspects of teacher’s professional world (Gahin, 2001). Wedell (2009) underlined the role of teacher’s beliefs in implementing a change in educational system and asserted that teacher’s beliefs should be an integral part of educational changes.

In the light of these, Rokeach (1968) defines beliefs as the best indicators of the decision made by individuals in the course of their lifetime. Richardson (2003) approaches ‘beliefs’ in a broader perspective and underlines its role in addressing individual’s understanding, premise or proposition about the world around us.

In the light of the findings of previous studies on teachers’ beliefs, Calderhead (1996) suggested five areas of teacher's beliefs: beliefs about learners and learning, beliefs about teaching, beliefs about subject, beliefs about learning to teach, and beliefs about self and the teaching role. According to Calderhead, these issues could be interrelated where teachers’ beliefs about subject, for instance, may be closely related to their beliefs about teaching.

In this study, three of these areas were addressed - beliefs about subject, beliefs about learning and beliefs about teaching. Firstly, concerning teachers’ beliefs about the subject, there are three theoretical views of language in the literature: structural view, functional view and interactional view. The first one refers to four aspects of language including phonological units (e.g., phonemes), grammatical units (e.g., clauses, phrases, sentences), grammatical operations (e.g., adding, shifting, joining, transforming elements), and lexical items (e.g., function words and structure words) (Richards & Rodgers, 1986). Secondly, functional view (communicative view) addresses the role of language as a tool for expression of functional meaning. Interactional view, on the other hand, sees language “as a vehicle for realisation of interpersonal relations and for the performance of social transactions between individual” (Richards & Rodgers, 1986:17).

Secondly, knowing the nature of learning is essential for teachers to provide appropriate learning environment where learners can achieve expected learning outcomes determined by teachers’ understanding of what is learning (Williams and Burden, 1997). In identifying the conceptions of learning, Gow and Kember (1993) present six main categories that can be related to different approaches:

A quantitative increase in knowledge Memorisation The acquisition of facts, procedure, etc. which can be retained and/or used in

practice The abstraction of meaning An interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality Some form of personal change

(Gow and Kember, 1993, cited in Williams and Burden, 1997:61)

Different teaching methods are proposed for these six categories of learning. These categories refer different aspects of language. For example, while the first two categories

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rely on grammatical and lexical items, the third one is more practical in nature. This type of learning refers to Presentation, Production and Produce (PPP) model which rely on skill-based teaching. On the other hand, ‘the abstraction of meaning’ and ‘an interpretative process aimed at the understanding of reality’ concern communicative use of language and lastly, ‘some form of personal change’ refers to personal development through learning to think, learning some social skills and learning about the world (Williams and Burden, 1997).

With reference to these different approaches about language, language learning and teaching, this study attempts to reveal Turkish EFL teachers’ beliefs regarding epistemological issues about English: whether it is seen as a subject concerning the acquisition of grammatical structures or the means of communication. Additionally, the current study aims at profiling the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices with reference to the factors leading to consistency or inconsistency between beliefs and practices.

Teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices

The process of teaching comprises two major domains: (a) teachers’ thought process, (b) teachers’ actions and their observable effects (Clark & Peterson, 1986). In the literature, some authors claim that teachers’ practices are determined by their beliefs (e.g. Bandura, 1986: Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Richards, 1998). Some previous studies also revealed parallel findings where significant relationship was found between teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g. Bai & Ertmer, 2004; Johnson, 1992; Mori, 2002; Woods, 1991).

Bai and Ertmer (2004) focused on in-service teachers’ beliefs about using technology in the classroom and observed a positive relationship between their beliefs and using technology. Mori (2002) also found that teachers give corrective feedback in relation to their beliefs. Woods (1991) carried out a longitudinal study focusing on teachers’ curriculum-based and student-based views of teaching and found consistency between teachers’ decisions and their underlying assumptions and beliefs about language. Johnson (1992) was carried out a study in literacy context in New York. The English as a second language teacher’s beliefs were investigated and their teaching practices were observed to understand whether teachers address their beliefs while teaching English. Consistency was found between teacher’s beliefs and practices and teachers were observed to provide a teaching procedure relevant to their theoretical orientations.

Despite the connection revealed in the studies mentioned above, Basturkmen (2012) reviewed empirical studies within this scope and concluded that there is a limited correspondence between teacher’s beliefs and practices. The studies discussed below supports this disparity.

Duffy and Anderson (1984) found that only four of eight reading teachers employed practices that reflected their beliefs. Hoffman and Kugle (1982) investigated whether teachers’ types of verbal feedback are related to their beliefs about reading and no significant relationship was found. Similarly, Yim (1993, cited in Gahin, 2001) focused on grammar teaching from a communicative orientation and found no consistency between teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. Another study was carried out by Karavas (1993, cited in Gahin, 2001) who investigated the consistency between teachers’ beliefs and practices in Greece. He found that teachers’ classroom practices are not congruent

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with their beliefs, which was highly communicative. Young and Sachdev (2011) focused on teachers’ beliefs about the application of a model of intercultural communicative competence. They involved experienced English language teachers from the USA, UK and France. The data, which was collected through diary, focus groups and questionnaires, illustrated disconnection between teachers’ beliefs and their current classroom priorities.

Gahin (2001) conducted a research study within the same scope in Egyptian context. The findings of the data, which was collected through questionnaire, interviews and classroom observations, illustrated that the majority of teachers’ espoused beliefs mismatched their classroom behaviours and different factors were discussed as possible reasons for this inconsistency such as larger classes, lack of resources, workload, time constraints and low pay.

Another study, which was carried out in Thailand, also supports Gahin’s findings where the majority of teachers were observed to be more passive than their expressed beliefs (Maiklad, 2001). Similar to Gahin, external factors were discussed such as lack of resources, overload contents to teach, students’ and teachers’ conditions, societal expectations, exam-based assessment and the unofficial role of English in Thailand.

This concern of investigating the relationship between teacher’s beliefs and practices also becomes the impetus of some research studies conducted in Turkey. The results were conflicting: while some studies found a connection between teacher’s beliefs and practices (e.g. Caner et al., 2010: Hatipoglu, 2006), others revealed a disconnection (e.g. Seban, 2008; Uzuntiryaki et al., 2010).

In their case study focusing on the learner-centeredness in Turkish context, Hatipoğlu (2006) found a strong relationship between beliefs and practice. She observed that teachers present an appropriate classroom environment to their beliefs about learner-centred learning. Caner et al. (2010) investigated teachers’ beliefs about foreign language teaching practices in Turkey. The study focused on the early phases of primary education. The school did not seem a regular type of Turkish primary school because it offered English classes at the first three years, which was not the case in Turkish educational exam. This study involved two English language teachers and the data was collected through questionnaire and observation. The results showed that the teachers provided relevant teaching procedures to their reported beliefs.

Seban (2008) carried out a qualitative research study in Turkey and investigated the relationship between primary class teachers’ beliefs about teaching writing and their instructional practices and found inconsistency between teachers’ practices and self-reported beliefs. Uzuntiryaki et al. (2010) conducted a qualitative study aiming at exploring Chemistry pre-service teacher’s beliefs about constructivism and understanding whether there is parity between their beliefs and practices. The findings showed no clear connection between beliefs and practice, in that classroom practices did parallel the constructivist elements with the issues suggested in interviews.

Taken together, these contrary findings show that the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their practices is still debatable. In response to this intriguing complexity, this study attempts to profile English language teachers’ beliefs about the ideal foreign language teaching environment in Turkey and understand whether English language teaching is informed by teachers’ beliefs.

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The status of English in Turkey

Two motivation types seem predominant for Turkish learners in learning English: integrative and instrumental motivation. Integrative motivation concerns the interest to a foreign language shown in a society (Lambert, 1974, cited in Gardner and MacIntrye, 1991). In Turkey, English is seen as a world language and many people struggle to learn it effectively because knowing English means to be distinct from other people. Instrumental motivation, on the other hand, refers to “the practical value and advantages of learning a new language” (Lambert, 1974: 98). This role of English is also emphasised by Ministry of National Education (MEB) stating that “teaching and learning of English are highly encouraged as English has become the lingua franca, namely, the means of communication among people with different native languages” (Talim Terbiye Kurulu, 2006: 16).

The curriculum of English teaching in Turkey shows that there are attempts to follow the current trends in English language learning and teaching fields. However, the status of a foreign language in a country cannot solely be identified according to the theoretical views but it is also important to know what types of testing procedures are offered to test learners’ proficiencies. Considering these two issues, in essence, there is a big dilemma, in that teachers are expected to develop students’ productive skills and the proficiencies of learners are tested through structure-based examinations.

This approach of neglecting productive skills makes it a perennial problem to learn how to use language effectively because learners do not need to develop their productive skills to prove their proficiencies in English. When the structures of language tests are examined, (e.g. Secondary School Placement test (SBS), Foreign language test (YDS), Foreign language proficiency examination for state employees (KPDS) and Foreign language proficiency examination of Interuniversity committee (ÜDS)), it is clear that they do not test learners’ proficiencies in using the language but solely include multiple-choice items that address learners’ competencies in reading, vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, Turkish learners of English aim at getting through these examinations rather than developing productive skills, and hence, many learners know the structures of English thoroughly but cannot speak or write in English even at basic level.

The sample of the current study included teachers whose students would take SBS to be enrolled in secondary education. SBS is administered centrally by MEB and students who have just completed 8th grades are invited to take the exam. It includes 80 multiple-choice types of questions in five different disciplines: Turkish, Mathematics, Science, Social Science and Foreign Language. Foreign language is offered in four different languages: English, German, French, and Italian. English was the foreign language of the schools where this study was carried out. English test includes thirteen multiple choice questions which concern students’ lexical and grammatical knowledge.

The aforementioned disconnection between communicative theoretical standings of policy makers and accuracy-based conceptualisation of good language learner is the main concern of the current study. In doing so, with reference to teachers’ beliefs, this study aims at understanding whether teaching procedures are designed according to the theoretical approaches proposed by MEB or to the content of language tests.

MethodologyResearch framework

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This study is informed by the interpretive paradigm. According to the ontological perspective of this paradigm, “reality is socially and discursively constructed by human actors” (Grix, 2004: 61), and therefore, social world cannot be explored but understood because it is dependent on the social actors which cannot be generalised to other contexts. Interpretivists believe that knowledge is something personal, subjective and unique (Cohen et al., 2007). This epistemological position leads to studies aiming at revealing individuals’ world views which may result in understanding the social world. For that reason, individuals’ beliefs, values and attitudes are one of the focal points of interpretive studies.Echoing these, the impetus of this enquiry is to understand teachers’ beliefs and practices with particular attention to their individual viewpoints. In this respect, it is intended to provide an insight into the social context through discussing the congruency between teachers’ espoused beliefs and classroom practices.

Purpose of the study

The current study attempts to profile whether Turkish in-service English teachers’ espoused beliefs are congruent with their classroom practices. Parallel to this, it is attempted to understand the role of teachers’ beliefs in providing particular kind of teaching procedure.To address these issues, this paper reports findings to the following research questions:

1. What are Turkish elementary English teachers’ beliefs about the effective ways of teaching English?

2. What are Turkish elementary English teachers’ beliefs about their current practices?

3. What are the reasons for connection or disconnection between teachers’ beliefs and practices?

Participants

MEB made significant changes in the structure of Turkish educational system in 2012. The compulsory education was increased from 8 to 12 years and divided into three phases each of which involves four years of schooling. However, since the participants experienced the old educational system, it is worth discussing its structure to understand the backgrounds of participants and their students. In the old Turkish educational system, elementary education was compulsory and involved two phases. The first phase comprised five years of schooling and the other three years encompassed the second phase. In Turkey, teachers working at state schools have to follow the syllabi and use materials which are designed by MEB. Students take 3 hours English classes per week in the first phase and 4 hours in the second phase.

The participants of this study include 6 teachers of English working at elementary state schools in a town located in the Northwest part of Turkey. The current study was carried out in that town because of its accessibility to the researcher. The population of the town is 39.000 and it has seven secondary and twelve elementary state schools.

Four elementary schools were selected. School A and C are located in the city centre where families have higher socio-economic backgrounds compared to other schools (see Table 1). Random sampling was used in selecting the participants. Although 8 teachers

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were invited, two teachers were not available due to administrative commitments. The biographic information of participants is displayed in Table 1.

Table 1. The Biographic Information of the ParticipantsCode Gender Degree Years of

ExperienceSchool

T1 Female B.A 2 AT2 Female B.A 1 AT3 Female B.A. 1 BT4 Male B.A 15 CT5 Male B.A 10 CT6 Female B.A. 2 D

As displayed in Table 1, all participants hold bachelor degrees. While four teachers were novice teachers, two teachers had more than 10 years of teaching experience.

Data collection and analysis

Research studies show that beliefs can be investigated quantitatively or qualitatively. In quantitative studies, researchers generally use surveys and implement pre-identified scales to check correlations between variables. One of the most commonly used scales is Horwitz’s (1987) Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory (BALLI).

Using quantitative methods to investigate beliefs receives criticism because “they are not suitable for examination of issues that require reflective thinking owing to the pre-categorized nature of the questions” (Maiklad, 2001: 74). Quantitative methods “only measure beliefs in theory and not actual occasions of talk and writing” (Kalaja, 1995: 197). Using quantitative methods is useful in reaching larger data set and conducting statistical analyses to check differences between variables but limitative in providing in-depth data. However, to understand beliefs, it is significant to address the reasons behind them. Therefore, using qualitative methods such as interviews, observations, narrative writing, and journal keeping seem more appropriate to investigate beliefs because they can yield in-depth data. Due to time constraints, it was not possible to collect data through observing teachers’ classroom behaviours. For that reason, rather than teachers’ observed practices, their self-reported practices were addressed in this study.

Interview was used as a data collection tool. Interview is an effective method in understanding complex and deep issues (Cohen et al., 2007) and regarded as a major research tool to explore how interviewees interpret their world and make sense of their experiences (Brown & Dowling, 1998). The interview was semi-structured. This type of interview allows for flexible and natural conversational environment as it includes general themes rather than specific questions (Borg, 2006).

After selecting the prospective participants, I contacted school administrators to explain the scope my research study and asked for permission to interview teachers. Afterwards, I informed the teachers about my study and invited them to sign an informed consent form. In this form, the objectives of the study were explained and participants were informed that the participation was on voluntary basis. Participants were assured that any information they gave would be solely used for the research purposes and their

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anonymity would be preserved. Before data collection, I asked interviewees’ permission for audio recording. During the data collection, no questions were directed which were not committed to personal privacy and which might cause harm, detriment and unreasonable stress during the interviews. The data was only stored in researcher’s computer and audio files were deleted after transcription for the sake of participants' personal privacies.

Interview themes were identified with reference to three main areas of teachers’ beliefs proposed in the literature: beliefs about teaching, beliefs about subject and beliefs about self and the teaching role (Calderhead, 1996). Interviewees were asked to explain their beliefs about the effective ways of language learning, teaching and their current teaching practices. The interviews were conducted in Turkish and lasted around 17 minutes.

Regarding the data analysis, the data was transcribed verbatim and the themes and interpretations were coded and categories were constructed considering the recurring themes in interview protocols.

Pilot Study

The pilot study was carried out with an English teacher working at an elementary state school in order to avoid possible problems which might occur in the main study. The analysis of the interview showed that the predetermined themes were useful in revealing teachers’ beliefs and understanding the reason behind particular beliefs and practices.

Findings and Discussion

The qualitative analysis of the data revealed that teachers were in agreement about the function of language. All participants supported that using the target language communicatively should be the main objective of foreign language learning. This showed that teachers are in line with curriculum designers.

On the other hand, this study found that teachers’ practices were not congruent with their beliefs because all participants remarked that their opinions about ideal teaching did not match their teaching practices. They confirmed that they only focused on structural forms of the target language. This finding supports the findings of some previous studies where no consistency was observed between teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g. Duffy & Anderson, 1984; Gahin, 2001: Hoffman & Kugle, 1982; Karavas, 1993; Maiklad, 2001; Seban, 2008; Uzuntiryaki et al., 2010; Yim, 1993; Young and Sachdev, 2011).

This disconnection was reported to be the main factor reducing participants' satisfaction of their teaching: ‘If I were a student here, I would consider myself as I did not know English’ (T1). Table 2 illustrates the categories of answers. The number of interviewees that mentioned the categories is shown in parentheses.

Table 2. Teachers’ Beliefs about Ideal ways of teaching English and Current Practices

Ideal PracticeSpeaking (6) Exam-driven (4) Reading (3)All four skills (2) Disregarding other skills (4) Translation (2)

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Using different resources (1)

Following the course book (4)

Writing (1)

Vocabulary (3) Pronunciation (1)Speaking (1)

Effective ways of teaching English

All participants agreed that English should be learned communicatively and the main objective should be improving students’ speaking skills because ‘you cannot consider yourself that you know a foreign language unless you can speak in that language’ (T1). According to another participant, ‘it is not very important if you do not know how to write in English. The important thing is communication. Therefore, students should develop their speaking skills’ (T4).

The quotes illustrate that all participants considered language as a tool for communication. For that reason, they remarked that improving students’ speaking skills should be the main concern of English language teachers. Besides speaking, some teachers stated that teachers should aim at developing students’ all four skills including reading, writing, speaking and listening:

“Language is integrated. Therefore, all skills should be included in teaching process. It is meaningless for students to focus on one or two skills.” [T3]

These quotes showed that participants were aware of the functions of language as a communication tool because learning a foreign language requires using it effectively. This supported that they followed the current trends in the field.

Current teaching practices

Despite their communicative perspectives, all participants remarked that they could not provide teaching procedure appropriate to their beliefs. They confirmed that they only focused on reading, grammar and vocabulary because students’ main objective in learning English was to get through SBS because English success was based on their performances in this examination:

“We are teaching English according to the SBS exam. Therefore, students are currently studying on multiple-choice tests and we aimed at teaching how to answer these questions correctly. They are trying to memorise everything. For that reason, I believe that English is not taught thoroughly.” [T1]

As a result of this exam-based educational policy, participants declared that they disregarded other language skills: ‘We generally focus on vocabulary items because vocabulary is very important in the exam’ (T2). Another point about the current practices was the overreliance on the course books: ‘You have to follow the course book because SBS is designed according to the topics and vocabulary covered in textbooks’ (T3). In this vein, there was a consensus that their practices mainly relied on reading and vocabulary. Additionally, two participants stated that they used translation as a teaching method:

“In pre-service education, lecturers suggested us not to use mother tongue while teaching English. But it is not possible to put this into practice. Students do not

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understand anything when you do not translate. All students try to translate and if they cannot understand, they ask me to translate. [T2]” Only one interviewee reported that he was trying to refer to all four skills and ‘pay attention to students’ pronunciation, present listening and speaking activities where necessary and give importance to their writing skills’ (T4).

These comments supported that current teaching practices mismatch theoretical approaches proposed by MEB. Teachers are expected to follow a communicative teaching environment but different reasons seemed to obstruct this. This impracticality of educational reforms in Turkey was also addressed in a research study carried out by Grossman et al. (2007) with the aim of understanding teacher educators’ attitudes towards curriculum reform implemented in National Educational Development Project (NEDP). The analysis of the survey revealed that 49.5% of 78 teacher educators agreed that educational leaders are not sincere about wanting to reform education and 72.9 % of 124 respondents thought that education in Turkey is too political. With regard to the overall satisfaction about NEDP project, 82.8% of 157 participants reported that it does not meet its overall goals.

The findings of this study confirmed the disconnection between curriculum designers’ theories and teachers’ classroom behaviours. Considering this, the practicality of theoretical frameworks proposed by policy makers seems problematic. To unpack this complexity, policy makers should not disregard the characteristics of classroom environment, which is essential for designing an implementable curriculum.

Reasons for the disconnection between beliefs and practice

With regard to reasons underpinning this disconnection, as displayed in Table 3, different factors were reported to be influencing teachers’ decision-making in teaching English.

Table 3. Reasons for the disconnection between teachers’ beliefs and practicesReasons

Time constraints (5)Overload Syllabus (4)Preparing for the exam

(4)Lack of resources (4)Large classes

(3)Course book (3)The status of English

(2)In this study, time constraints, over loaded syllabus, preparing for the exam and lack of resources were reported to be the main reasons for providing structure-based English language teaching. Some of these factors parallel the findings revealed in some previous studies. Gahin (2001) also referred time constraints and Maiklad (2001) mentioned overload contents to teach, large classes, the status of English and exam-based assessment as factors leading to disconnection between teacher’s beliefs and practices.

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All participants agreed that, the syllabus was too overloaded to complete in a term: ‘When you include extra activities, it is not possible to cover the topics in the syllabus’ (T6). In this respect, one participant pointed out a dilemma that they go through:

“You need to decide, whether to include all activities in the course book and not to worry about completing the syllabus or skip some activities in the course book to complete the syllabus.” [T4]

These quotes showed that teachers did not think that the curriculum was implementable because it included topics which were difficult to cover in one term. To overcome this, all participants agreed that 3 and 4 hours of English classes were very limited and they suggested increasing class hours: ‘If I had 9 or 10 hours English classes, I believe I could teach English very effectively’ (T2).

Exam-driven policy was seen as another reason which affected their teaching procedure, students’ expectations and attitudes towards English learning: ‘When you ask students to speak, they ask you to hand out tests so that they can study for the examination’ (T1). Another participant stated that ‘when I correct students’ pronunciation mistakes, they said that they do not need to pronounce correctly for the exam’ (T3). This also affected students’ attitudes towards learning English: ‘Their main concern is getting high scores in the exam’ (T6). For that reason, teachers tended to skip activities which referred to students’ productive skills and they only focus on vocabulary and grammar. This was because the content of SBS included all topics covered in the course books. This obstructs presenting different activities and the course book was followed all the time so that students would be ready for the exam by the end of the year.

Lack of resources was another problematic issue which reported to affect teachers’ current practices. Some participants stated that they did not receive the CDs, and therefore, they either skipped listening activities or read aloud the typescripts. This decreases the effectiveness of listening activities because students could not listen to native speakers. For that reason, it is important to provide audios which will enable students to get familiar with native accent of the target language. Additionally, concerns were voiced about the large classes: ‘It is not possible to present speaking activities because some classes have 30 students’ (T4).

The structure of course books was mentioned as another factor. The majority of participants agreed that course books are effective in terms of including different activities for developing different skills. However, as discussed above, due to students’ expectations and time constraints, they stated that it was not possible to carry out all activities. On the other hand, two participants believed that the level of course books were not suitable for students because they had to cope with very difficult grammatical rules and vocabularies especially in the 8th grade:

“Course books can be effective in theory but authors do not consider students’ and teachers’ psychologies. Topics and activities are too difficult for students and therefore, they get bored while studying English.” [T5]

The same teacher also remarked that teachers did not have chance to take initiative:

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“In the past, I was doing my daily and annual plans. I was writing the objectives of each topic by myself. But now, top-down plans are designed by MEB. Everything we do in classrooms is pre-determined.” [T5]

The status of English in Turkey was considered as another influential factor for teachers’ practices. Some participants stated that using language was not important in Turkey. Therefore, developing speaking skills was not emphasized in any educational level.

Implications

This study aims at understanding teachers’ espoused beliefs about the effective ways of teaching English and revealing the relationship between their beliefs and practices. In doing so, it is intended to identify factors determining teachers’ practices in teaching English. Although this was an exploratory case study, the findings allow generating some pedagogical recommendations.

The current study showed that teachers believe in the essentiality of teaching English communicatively. This shows that teachers support the theoretical approaches proposed by curriculum designers. However, despite their communicative perspective, teachers remarked that their current practices solely rely on grammar and vocabulary. This illustrates the disconnection between teachers’ beliefs and practices and this is reported to be detrimental to teacher satisfaction because teachers reported that they were not satisfied with their current practices. To overcome this, it is important to understand the reasons for the disconnection between teachers’ beliefs and practices in order to avoid factors obstructing teachers to present classroom environment appropriate to their beliefs.

It is seen that the theoretical approaches proposed by curriculum designers are not implemented in classroom. While the objectives of English language teaching are declared to be developing students’ all four skills, teachers reported that they only focus on developing students’ grammatical and lexical competencies. This disconnection illustrates that there is a problem about the implementability of the English language teaching curriculum in Turkey.

In designing curriculum, taking the classroom practice into account is essential because it is not viable to expect teachers to teach English communicatively while students do not need to communicate in English to prove their competencies. In this respect, the focus of exam system should be changed to using the language communicatively because this study shows that testing tools play important role in teacher’s classroom decision-making. Therefore, not only learners’ grammatical knowledge but also different competences should be addressed in language tests so that students have a reason to develop productive skills.

Additionally, concerns have been voiced regarding the overloaded syllabus. Teachers remarked that their first duty is to cover all topics included in course books rather than designing appropriate teaching procedure to the needs of the students. For that reason, it may be more effective to design adaptable syllabi where teachers can select appropriate activities according to the needs of their students. In doing so, there was a strong consensus that English language class hours should be increased so that teachers can have time to refer students’ productive skills as well.

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Another concern was about the lack of teaching resources. Considering the nature of foreign language in terms of representing real life situations, it is important for students to deal with authentic materials. To address this, appropriate materials should be provided to teachers. Large classes were another problem reported by participants. This is rather important issue because learning a language requires findings the opportunity to use it. Therefore, each student should be involved in language classes, which is very difficult to provide in classes with more than thirty students. To avoid this, language classes should have the environment where each student can use the language communicatively.

Conclusion

Considering that the current study is the first of its type focusing on the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices in English language teaching in Turkey, this study may contribute to the field. However, it is important to reiterate that there are some limitations of this study.

Firstly, this study did not deal with teachers’ observed practices but their reported practices. Therefore, it is not certain whether participants provide relevant information in interviews about their real teaching practices. For that reason, further research studies are required within the scope of investigating the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their observed practices. Secondly, this study did not involve participants from different contexts and findings may not be generalisable to other contexts. It is therefore necessary to conduct research studies involving schools and teachers from different contexts in Turkey. Thirdly, this study focused on teachers’ perspectives. To understand the situation in-depth, it is essential to involve other stakeholders such as policy-makers, curriculum designers, course book writers and students. Lastly, this study reported the data collected through one method. To support these findings, it is essential to investigate the issue by implementing different data collection tools.

No study was carried out in Turkish context investigating the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices in English language teaching field and enquiries within this scope are useful to portray the educational focus of teacher practices. To unlock this unvoiced issue, further research studies in different fields of education should be devoted to understand Turkish teachers’ beliefs and practices and explore whether theoretical approaches proposed by policy makers are addressed in classrooms.

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Factors Motivating and Hindering Information and Communication Technologies

Action Competence

Adile Aşkım KurtAnadolu University, Turkey

[email protected] .tr

Yavuz AkbulutAnadolu University, Turkey


H. Ferhan OdabaşıAnadolu University, [email protected]

Beril CeylanOsmangazi University, Turkey

[email protected]

Elif Buğra KuzuAnadolu University, Turkey


Onur DönmezOsmangazi University, [email protected]

Özden Şahin İzmirliEskişehir Osmangazi University, Turkey

[email protected]

Abstract

Information and Communication Technologies Action Competence (ICTAC) can be defined as “individuals’ motivation and capacity to voluntarily employ their ICT skills for initiating or taking part in civic actions”. Since academic staff and teachers in ICT related fields have crucial roles in training action-competent individuals, this study

The present study is conducted through the funding provided by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) for the project entitled ‘Information and Communication Technologies Action Competence’ (Project Id: 110K565).

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aimed to determine the views of preservice teachers and instructors in Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) departments about the motivating and hindering factors regarding ICTAC. Researchers used purposeful sampling technique and identified seven instructors and 16 students attending outlier CEIT departments from four different Turkish state universities. Since there is no contemporary framework on factors motivating or hindering ICTAC, the study was conducted with a qualitative approach and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Factors motivating and hindering ICTAC were identified through a content analysis. Findings of the study are believed to guide ICT and ICT education professionals in training students with higher levels of ICTAC and guide the course developers to focus on relevant social responsibility issues.

Keywords: Information and communication technologies action competence; Computer Education and Instructional Technology Departments; higher education

Introduction

Competence is an underlying concept for individuals to show better performance. Since there is no way to observe competence directly, it can indirectly be measured with performance indicators (Bassellier, Reich and Benbasat, 2001). The competence concept can be addressed as a performance, skill or personality trait. Such different uses raise the uncertainty regarding the definition of the concept. Odabaşı et al. (2011) define competence as individuals’s self-confidence and ability to handle a problem with different perspectives through their professional knowledge and interdisciplinary processes. Within the context of the action competence, the term can be defined as a wholistic construct involving different literacies, critical thinking, responsibility, motivation and vision, all of which are necessary qualities to solve a societal problem.

Ehlers (2007) enlists the factors that support the development of action competence as social interaction, disagreement/conflict, discomfort and problem solving experience. Furthermore, Scott (2011) states that it is quite important for action competent individuals to carry out activities, which could influence the society and young individuals in making real-life decisions. Some can state that the fields and scope of action competencies may change with culture, which is a common-sense argument. Moreover, the type of action competence as determining the problem, conducting in-depth research in the field, developing a vision, planning and taking action, and evaluating may vary depending on the particular subject as well (Mogensen, 1997).

Action competence is an area of study that may allow practical implementations on different fields such as environmental problems, health problems, peace and curricula. Action competence involves more than just being aware of the problems or having certain skills. The first phase of this competency involves recognition and awareness of the field. In addition, the difference between action competence and other applications emerges in the phase of ‘taking the action’. In the related literature, there are a lot of studies on action competence addressing health and environment. One of the fields where the reflections of action competence are rarely seen is the field of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT).

ICT’s are a natural extension of our daily lives. By 2011, almost 34 % of the world population had Internet access, and between December 2000 and June 2012, the ratio of Internet access increased by 56 % throughout the world (Internet Usage Statistics, 2012). According to a comprehensive survey conducted by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) in April 2012, the ratio of the households with Internet access across Turkey was 47.2 %

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(TUIK, 2012). This ratio was found to be 8.66 % in a similar study carried out by TUIK in June 2005. This result demonstrates that Turkish household Internet access increased by 545.03 % between 2005 and 2012 (TUIK, 2012). Moreover another report by TUIK (2010) states that three out of five Internet users use the Internet daily, and houses take the first place in computer and Internet use. These reports suggest that Turkey has a higher level of ICT use than the world’s average. In this regard, ICTs could be considered among the primary tools for conducting actions that may have positive influence on social life. However, it is striking that there are very few studies employing ICTs for the benefit of societies. This situation underlines the need for the concept of ICTAC.

ICTAC can be defined as individuals’ motivation and capacity to voluntarily employ their ICT skills for initiating or taking part in civic actions (Odabaşı et. al., 2011). Since academic staff and teachers in ICT related fields have crucial roles in training action-competent individuals, this study aimed to determine the views of preservice teachers and instructors in Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) departments about the motivating and hindering factors to ICTAC. In line with this purpose, the current study addressed the following research question: What are the factors that motivate and prevent contribution to the solution of societal problems with the use of ICTs?

Methodology

Research Model

Since there is no contemporary framework addressing facilitating conditions and barriers to ICTAC, the current study was designed with a qualitative approach and the data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The semi-structured interview technique has certain benefits such as providing the researcher with flexibility, achieving a higher rate of response, observing non-verbal behavior of participants, supplying the researcher with control over the environment and reaching in-depth information (Neuman, 2003; Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2006).

Participants

A recent 44-item Likert scale on ICTAC developed by Kurt et al. (2012) was administered to 83 CEIT instructors and 2570 students. Both implementations had high internal consistency coefficients (i.e. 0.95 and 0.97) and a robust single-factor structure. After the descriptive analyses, four outlier universities (i.e. two high-level, two low-level) in terms of the ICTAC average were detected. Then, seven instructors and 16 students enrolled at these universities were selected as the participants of the current study, which represented a purposeful sampling procedure. Two of the instructors were females, and the other five were males. Six of participant students were females and the rest were males. The real names of the participants were not mentioned in the study due to privacy issues and all were given pseudo names.

Data Collection

Parallel to the purpose of the study, a semi-structured interview form was prepared by the researchers. Five field experts were asked for their views about the validity of the interview form. In line with the experts’ views, the interview form was modified. The participants were interviewed on the dates and at the times they preferred, and the interviews were held in a place approved by each participant. At the beginning of the

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interviews, the participants were informed about the overall purpose of the interviews and were asked for their oral permissions for audiorecording of the interviews even though they had previously given written permissions.

Data Analysis and Interpretation

Following the interviews, the audio-records were transcribed. For the trusthworthiness of the transcriptions, field experts in qualitative research methods were asked for their views on robustness. Afterwards, the responses given to each question were marked on the related indices, and a classification was made on the basis of each question. As a result, the data were ready for the analysis. In the current inductive analysis, the research data are coded; themes are determined; the data are organized according to the themes and codes; and in the last phase, the findings are interpreted as suggested by Yıldırım and Şimşek (2006). Moreover, the coding scheme was used by independent researchers to sustain inter-coder reliability, which was calculated as 86 % with the formula of Miles and Huberman (1994): Number of agreements / (Number of disagreements + Number of agreements)*100. In the next section, the data were organized based on the themes followed by the interpretation.

Findings

The semi structured interviews with instructors and students focused on motivating and preventing factors for ICTAC. Table 1 summarizes the themes and sub-themes emerged themes obtained from collected data.

Table 1. Themes Reflecting the Summary of Instructor PerceptionsFactors motivating ICTAC

AwarenessLiteracyCurriculumMotivation

Factors preventing ICTACTimeFinancial problemsSocial supportLiteracyLack of the freedom of thought

Among motivating factors for ICTAC, instructors specifically mentioned of awareness followed by literacy and curriculum. In terms of awareness, one of the instructors (OÖ1) stated “Awareness is something like keeping up with the current agenda regarding this subject… ICTs help follow the current agenda and raise awareness”, while another instructor (ÖÖ2) stated “… awareness is very important for me. I believe I have reached this awareness thanks to the curricula”.

One of the instructors (ÖÖ1) mentioned literacy as “First of all, of course, we should be knowledgeable about this subject. We have to read so that all other people around can see what these literacies are and what these technologies contribute to or take away from people. In order to see the results, we are supposed to have full grasp of the subject. I think, information literacy is quite important both for our own development and

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for us to become beneficial to others”. Similarly, the instructor stated “… the use of ICTs for the benefit of the society is itself a motivating factor. In a sense, you are getting close to the societal problems as your literacies (media literacy, information literacy and liberal education) increase. You become more interested in the societal problems. Perhaps, you learn to view societal problems from different perspectives with literacy”. Another instructor (EÖ2) emphasized the importance of literacy by saying “This is very important; it is quite important to use technology and to acquire the skills that we call as computer literacy. Lack of these skills will result in problems”. Depending on the instructors’ views, it could be stated that the instructors emphasized different domains of literacies such as information literacy, media literacy and computer literacy. As pointed out by the instructors, in order to provide solutions to societal problems within the context of ICTAC, individuals are supposed to be literate in more than one field. Thus, individuals with literacies in different fields can actively use their literacies in solving societal problems.

Another important motivating factor mentioned by the instructors was curriculum. With respect to their field of study, CEIT instructors stated that curriculum was a motivating variable for them. The instructors’ views about this subject were as follows:

“First of all, what motivates me most as an academician is of course the curriculum. This really affects me a lot. Not only the advantages brought about by the academic world we live in, but also the current working conditions inevitably influence us regarding this subject; the subject that the curriculum leads us to. I think this is the most important factor. Of course, what raises this consciousness is the curriculum...”. [ÖÖ2]

“...even there is no CEIT departments, programs or undergraduates, teacher training curricula must cover CEIT courses. … even within the scope of the liberal education, CEIT experts are the ones to teach ICT literacy. I think this is the responsibility of those who know this field well...”. [BÖ2]

Among the instructors, BÖ2 and BÖ1 considered motivation as one of the factors that facilitates ICT-based contribution to the solutions of societal problems. BÖ2 stated “…motivation is something necessary at all times. That is, I think motivation is the primary thing in solving societal problems, if there is no willingness… You will not do anything if you don’t have any desire, well, you won’t even move...”. In this regard, BÖ1 said “We should increase the motivation of our society without any hesitation or fear...”, Another instructor (ÖÖ1) addressed personality traits saying “First, I regard it as a conscientious duty. What comes first into my mind is the desire to become beneficial for people by sharing my knowledge or what I own. That is, your knowledge motivates you to share it with other people; this increases your motivation and encourages you. It is a source of happiness. Sharing with others makes you happy”.

During the semi-structured interviews, the instructors stated that the factors preventing contribution to the solution of societal problems with the use of ICTs were time, financial problems, lack of social support, literacy and lack of the freedom of thought. Instructors emphasized the factor of time through the following statements:

“Time is certainly one of the biggest problems. I am talking of my courses, my faculty and myself. We have to teach courses to our students here, at faculty... Well, time is of course an important problem.” [ÖÖ1]

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“...well, I can say time is something like, within my actual living conditions I don’t have much time to establish relationship with the society. Time is crucial for me, and it influences me.” [ÖÖ2]

“Now, I teach for 30 class-hours a week. This is an inhibitory factor for me… I don’t have extra time for other activities. Well, if I talk about one of my routine days, here, I leave school at half past eight at night, and I’m home at ten thirty. I eat my dinner by twelve o’clock. And I study till three in the morning.” [EÖ1]

Another instructor (EÖ1) emphasized the importance of financial problems and reported that seeking for solutions to societal problems without expecting any financial benefit was in the second place. Regarding this, the instructor stated

“We are in a terrible financial situation. That’s, well, besides our salaries paid by the government, we have extra jobs. As we are computer experts, we certainly know a lot of people in every field. Well, for sure, they bring us more income. Thus, in such a case, of course, you feel yourself guilty. Normally, my main profession, my job is here. Actually, the salary I get should satisfy me, and if it did, why would I try to earn extra money outside the university. Well, this thought even disturbs me… That’s, our first concern is of course to make the ends meet, to earn our living. This is our priority, so when I can not meet this need in my own work-place, where I get my salary, I naturally have to divide myself into different jobs.” [EÖ1]

Similarly another instructor (OÖ1) mentioned the financial state saying “ICTs are at least supposed to contribute to or strengthen the living standards of a person who tries to solve a problem. Well, at least, it should provide (financial) support in the process of solving that problem”.

Among the factors preventing ICTAC instructors also mentioned the social support. One of the instructors (ÖÖ2) mentioned the importance of the social support with “Here, social resistance could be important. It’s one of the most important things because we have two concepts: digital natives and digital immigrants. Regarding these two concepts, ı believe unfortunately, one of the most important obstacles is the digital immigrants’ resistance. Also, I think habits and attitudes also have influence … I certainly believe that the resistance of people around, that is the characteristics of other people, is influential”, while another instructor (BÖ2) reported that social support could be a preventive factor saying “...for example, financial issues, the social support etc. etc. ... even if they all seem to be the contributory factors, well, they might sometimes be preventive factors as well...”

Literacy, which was reported by the instructors as a motivating factor to ICTAC, was also considered as a preventive factor. Regarding this, one of the instructors (OÖ1) stated “I can talk about the incompetence in technology literacy. For example, when we give training on smart boards, the first response by elementary or secondary school institutions in our region is asking such questions as how difficult it is to learn, or how long it will take to learn, or how much it will cost”. Another instructor (ÖÖ1) said “In fact, one of the biggest problems is our lack of competence in technology”. ÖÖ2, another instructor, believed that literacy in different fields could be a motivating and preventive factor simultaneously saying “…and I can talk about the time regarding the growth rate of technology. These are motivating factors because technology is developing very rapidly. Sometimes, even we can not keep up with it...”

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Besides the preventive factors mentioned above, an instructor (EÖ1) stated that there was no freedom of thought at universities which could be an important preventive factor:

“But, we are in such a situation that the moment students come together in the university campus and try to make a speech, the police take action and disperse the student groups. Well, we are now in the forefront. Our students can not freely express their thoughts…. When I am in class as an instructor and when, to tell the truth, for motivation purposes, I sometimes say “today, there is something like… well I read in a newspaper that… what do you think about it?”, I can feel tension in class. How come? Will the professor criticize the government? Or is the professor in line with the opposition party? Questions like these… immediately, they just think about personal or political issues. We do not give these to our students: well, here, we should be those who should discuss such things because, before anything else, we are educators. If we don’t discuss, this country will not go better. Now, thanks to the education here, we teach our students how to criticize and discuss. But we believe they should not criticize or discuss. Thus, we can not expect them to respond using technology. And they can’t do so physically with their words” [EÖ1].

The illustration of the factors, which were reported during the semi-structured interviews by the CEIT instructors as motivating and preventing factors were demonstrated in Figure 1.

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Figure 1: Illustration of the Factors Motivating and Preventing ICTAC as Perceived by the Instructors

The semi structured interviews with students focused on motivating and preventing factors for ICTAC. Table 2 summarizes the themes and sub-themes emerged themes obtained from collected data.

Table 2. Themes Reflects the Summary of Student PerceptionsFactors motivating ICTAC

MotivationAwarenessLiteracyCurriculumFinancial status

Factors preventing ICTACSocial supportCurriculumFinancial statusTimeMotivationLack of knowledge

The themes regarding the factors that motivate ICTAC as perceived by students included motivation, awareness, literacy, curriculum, financial status. Regarding motivation, one of the prominent themes, the students reported “Well, this is something that should the considered personally. Because this is something that motivates not just me but the country I live in, the people around and everybody. Since it is something based on human instinct. I think it is related to demonstrating your reaction and putting forward and sharing a solution” [EÇ3], and “this is related to consciousness, well related to all our consciousness; if we become more motivated, or if we do a thing just because we want to do it rather than considering it as a task assigned to us, I think this is then the most motivating factor for us” [ÖÇ3]. Another student stated “as there is no extrinsic reinforcement to increase my motivation, there is no action taken. All the time, what you have done remains only in your external harddisc” [OÖÇ1]. Depending on these views, it could be stated that the students emphasized the importance of intrinsic motivation in ICTAC in addition to external reinforcements. In this regard, intrinsically motivated people are expected to demonstrate actions easier once they have extrinsic reinforcements.

Awareness claimed to be another motivator. One of the students (BÇ2) mentioned “Well, of course, awareness is the most important one (of the motivators), being a conscious user... when you become a conscious user comes first. You can then help others consciously”. Regarding this topic, another student (EÇ2) reported “first of all, you should be aware of it. I feel something doesn’t go right. Then comes the question of ‘what can I do?’… Thus, if you raise your awareness, then it is okay. There is something wrong, but the next step is ‘what can I do?’, and then you have to follow your instinct. Here, I have reacted, but that shouldn’t be all. Well, our reactions should stay permanent”. Depending on these views, it could be stated that the students emphasized the sustainability of

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actions and they believe they could take more effective actions once their awareness is raised.

The students also emphasized the concept of literacy. “Today, we live in a computer age. Computers are everywhere, in all businesses, and even in governmental institutions. Many things are done with the computer, and this encourages people to use the computer and benefit from information and communication technologies…”[BÇ2]. Furthermore BÇ3 sateted: “well, for people to develop themselves, for the society, we live in a computer era… because in our country, the Internet-use rate is increasing, but there is lack of literacy. Well, thinking about the television or the Internet itself, there are few publications in this field...”.

Another point mentioned by the students was the CEIT curriculum. Some of the students thought that the CEIT curriculum contributed to becoming an ICT-action-competent individual, while others believed that only some of the courses in the curriculum had contributions. Regarding this theme, the students reported their views as follows:

“To tell the truth, technically, I didn’t learn much in CEIT. Only in theory. How can a picture draw attention? Or how can one remember it easily? Well, regarding this topic (design), let me tell you something; the course that I found most useful was Instructional Design. That was the only course that guided me for four years” [OÇ1]. “Well, to me, our curriculum in CEIT was sufficient to do such things (conduct actions). What is important is that we should make the most of it” [OÇ2].

The students stated that the financial state was among the factors motivating ICTAC. Regarding this topic, one of the students emphasized the importance of the financial conditions saying “financial state… this is an important point… it depends on the financial state if a person wants to deal with others’ problems rather than with his or her own ones. The reason is that even the birth of philosophy was a result of the wealth in Greece. They didn’t have any problems; that is, they developed thought, or philosophy, as they didn’t have anything else to engage with. So, this is something closely related to financial state. The better a person’s financial state is, the more effective he or she can be in certain issues” [EÇ4]. This quotation seemed to represent the financial state as either motivating or hindering. The researchers worked out the meaning from the context that financial state fantasized by the participant was a motivating factor. However, the fact that the participant was not happy with the current financial state was a hindering one.

It was thought that the motivating factors reported by the students were influenced by the students’ lack of knowledge regarding the scope of ICTAC. Therefore, it could be stated that informing students about ICTAC could enrich the motivating factors reported by participating students. The themes addressing the factors that prevented ICTAC were social support, curriculum, financial state, time, motivation and lack of knowledge. Regarding social support, the students reported their views as follows:

“...For example, when I start talking about such a thing, or when I want to do so, people around me tell me to sit and deal with my courses; they also say ‘will it do any good for you? What goodness will it bring when you do a favor?’...” [ÖÇ4]. “...Well, if my parents don’t support me, I may not help other people even if I do want to do so...” [BÇ1].

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“Of course, it has great influence, I mean the social support. Most people demonstrate biases. It is quite difficult to change this... the previous generation does not know how to use a computer; well what they have witnessed is generally a little child playing video games on computer, and they waste their time on the computer. Thus, when they see us in front of a computer, they immediately develop prejudices. Even if we do our job on the computer, they think we waste our time. So, honestly, this prejudice influences us negatively” [BÇ2].

“…How will people react when you want to take an action? That’s important. It is important whether you will be able to draw others’ attention to your project...” [BÇ3].

The students’ views demonstrate that the social support is effective especially in the phase of taking action. In this regard, it could be stated that in taking individual actions, other peoples’ views and reactions are considered important especially by students as they seek approval for what they want to do.

Curriculum was another factor mentioned by the students as preventing ICTAC. While most courses found in the curriculum of the CEIT departments are common, some elective courses may vary depending on the department. Regarding this topic, some of the students reported that there could be differences in students’ viewpoints about societal problems and about the actions to be taken based on the nature of the curriculum. Some students stated that certain courses found in the curriculum of the CEIT departments could help them gain ICTAC. Following statements address this theme:

“There are generally similar courses in the curriculum of all universities, but the elective courses differ. Moreover assignments and projects vary. Thus, I can say it depends on the (curriculum and activitis within the) university” [OÇ1].

“…CEIT departments can not equip students with such skills. Well, in fact, it has quite little influence. There are no activies related (to ICTAC). Think of a citizen who designed a website, prepared the content with his own ideas, addressed some people with the website, shared some others’ ideas. On the contrary think of a CEIT graduate who has designed a website, but without a sufficient content. Even though I know how to design, the latter becomes meaningless. CEIT department teaches me how to design again. But, in such an action plan, the design is certainly effective, but as I said before, the CEIT department does not provide any further benefit” [EÇ4].

The students further mentioned the financial state under the factors preventing ICTAC, which was also found among the motivating factors. Regarding this topic, one of the students (BÇ4) reported “a person should have a good financial state to make financial contribution… the financial state is of course very important; well, a person who wants to make a contribution can not do so if his or her financial state is not good ”, while another student (ÖÇ2) stated “If what I want to do exceeds my financial state, then I cannot do anything. It could only be related to the financial state...” Another student (BÇ2) emphasized the importance of financial state saying “...Also, there are various computer software. They sell these programs, and this influences us financially”. It could be stated that it is an expected situation for students who do not yet have economic freedom to think in that way. Thus, regarding the ICTAC, students could be made aware of the fact that financial state is not important in taking action for a particular societal problem and that they can demonstrate ICTAC without making any financial contribution.

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Regarding time, which was one of the themes related to preventive factors, one of the students (OÇ4) stated “Of course, this is my own life. (I cannot sustain an action) If it covers my whole life... and I have to earn my life. Now, after graduation, I will have my own future. And, I have to learn. Well, if it covers only a part of my life, then it is okay for me”, while another student (BÇ2) reported “...in term of time, we can have problems when we have to do a job in a shorter time which would actually take a long time...” It could be stated that as in all taks, students can individually contribute to the solution of societal problems and increase their individual satisfaction with effective time management and planning.

The students mentioned the theme of motivation saying “...There could be motivation...when you want to work on raising the society’s awareness level, or when you feel you are not competent in this subject, then there may occur the motivation problem...” [BÇ2]; “…as I said before, lack of motivation is the most important reason of this ... as we said before, there is no intrinsic motivation, and we don’t have any motivation, then to tell the truth, we can’t do it as a society” [ÖÇ3]. ÖÇ4 touchest the same topic “Well, what decreases my motivation (is lack of social support). When you say ‘I will do something’, (they discourage) instead of supporting you. When you meet such negative situations more, well, the first time, you do it, the second time you do it again, but the third time, you feel it is none of your business…” [ÖÇ4]. Students agreed with instructors on motivation as a preventing factor for ICTAC. It could be stated that students’ intrinsic motivations could be increased through presentation of examplary actions. At the same time, students should be made conscious of the fact that the experienced problems are not only particular individuals’ or institutions’ concerns but also society suffers from them.

Besides aforementioned factors, one of the students (BÇ1) considered lack of knowledge on problems fields as an important hindering factor. “First of all, I should deal with it, and then we should all, as a society, be aware of what to do. Thus, I have to learn about it (problem)”. Similarly, another student (OÇ3) reported “I don’t think I’m competent in these subjects… ICT literacy, organizing (and sustaining actions)…” In this regard, in order to increase students’ knowledge in different fields, it could be beneficial to direct them toward a rich array of elective courses and different activities; and to have them participate in relevant student and social clubs. In this way, they could overcome their lack of knowledge in different fields.

The illustration of the themes which were reported during the semi-structured interviews by the CEIT students as motivating and preventing factors were demonstrated in Figure 2.

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Figure 2. Illustration of the Factors Motivating and Preventing ICTAC as Perceived by the Students

Conclusion

Current study reports findings on the factors motivating and preventing ICTAC. Semi-structured interviews conducted with purposefully sampled CEIT instructors and students were reported in the current study. Analyses of data coming from instructors revealed that awareness, literacy and curriculum were among the motivating factors. These factors could be associated with the cognitive domain, which is one of the components of the action competence as described by Breiting, Hedegard, Mogensen, Neilsen and Schnack (2009). Cognitive domain includes literacies regarding the problem area and clues for possible actions. Among the factors preventing ICTAC, the instructors mostly emphasized the time and financial limitations. Considering the common responsibilities such as offering courses, conducting research and training students, time inevitably seems to be an important preventive factor. Integration of professional development activities addressing time management could help instructors carry out a number of activities in a more productive manner. Additionally financial state was determined by the instructors to be a preventive factor. It could be beneficial to take different professional development activities into consideration. These activities might be carried out in a more productive manner if instructors are convinced that they can contribute to the solution of the societal problems without any financial contribution or dedication.

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Some may even think that a slight improvement in their current financial status may reflect itself on their dedication to community services.

Literacy was a common factor under both motivating and preventing ones. Since different literacy skills are needed in all phases of action competence such as recognizing and examining societal problems, establishing the action plan and taking action; this was not an unexpected pattern.

The interviews conducted with the students revealed that the most motivating factor for ICTAC was the motivation itself whereas the primary hindering factor was the social support. Both findings can be associated with the value-based characteristic of action competence, which was suggested by Breiting et al. (2009). In other words, motivation and social support could be considered to be one of the filters that guide an individual in the process of determining and conducting the actions. That is, even the individuals with higher motivation may expect additional support from the society before taking any action.

Motivation, social support, curriculum, financial state and time were among the common factors that both motivate and hinder ICTAC. The hindering ones as perceived by the students could be transformed into motivating ones through problem-based personal and professional development activities. These way students could be encouraged to take action.

The fact that time, financial state and social support were mentioned by both the instructors and students, demonstrates the need for in-depth studies on these issues. The current study is conducted in an oriental culture where individuals’ perceived value is largely determined through the society’s judgements rather than objective contributions. Thus, further in-depth studies should be conducted in cooperation with educators, sociologists and socio-psychologists to retain or reject current speculations. Moreover, the current findings might have appeared due to time management problems of the current culture.

The present study could be of significance since it focused on action competence within the context of ICT in a new culture. The concept has been previously studied in several countries, particularly in Northern Europe, within the contexts of environment, health and peace education. The study was also important as it investigated the factors motivating and contributing to the solution of ICT-based societal problems.

ICTAC, which has emerged with the adaptation of action competence to the field of ICT, is a new concept in the field. Therefore, informative meetings involving exemplary actions could be administered with different target populations. Seminars, informative meetings and in-service training endeavours could help instructors –who train future IT teachers and who are role models for them– increase their awareness regarding ICTAC. Furthermore, within the scope of the responsibilities of an individual for the society, the results of the present study may guide the course developers to focus on relevant social responsibility issues such as the Social Service Applications course mentioned by the participants during the semi-structured interviews. The present study may also contribute to future studies to be conducted in different fields, which will examine the factors motivating and preventing ICTAC.

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References

Bassellier, G., Reich, B. H., & Benbasat, I. (2001). Information technology competence of business managers: A definition and research model. Journal of Management Information Systems, 14 (4), 159-182.

Breiting, S., Hedegard, K., Mogensen, F., Neilsen, K., & Schnack, K. (2009). Action competence, conflicting interests and environmental education. Copenhagen, Denmark: Aarhus University Research Programme for Environmental and Health Education, DPU.

Ehlers, U. (2007). A new pathway for e-learning: From distribution to collaboration and competence in e-learning, AACE Journal, 16(2), 187-202.

Internet Usage Statistics (2012). Retrieved November 25, 2012, from http://www.internetworld-stats.com/stats.htm

Kurt, A.A., Akbulut, Y., Odabaşı, H.F., Dönmez, O., Kuzu, E.B., Ceylan, B., et al. (2012). Faculties’ information and communication technologies action competencies. Egitim Arastirmalari-Eurasian Journal of Educational Research, 49/A, 261-274.

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Neuman, W. L. (2003). Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Odabaşı, H. F., Kurt, A. A., Akbulut, Y., Dönmez, O., Ceylan, B., Şahin İzmirli, Ö., Kuzu, E. B., & Karakoyun, F. (2011). Bilgi ve iletişim teknolojileri eylem yeterliliği. Anadolu Journal of Educational Sciences International, 1(1), 36 – 48.

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TÜİK (2010, August). Information and communication technology (ICT) usage survey on households and individuals. Ankara: Turkish Statistical Institute.

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Implications from the Diagnosis of a School Culture at a Higher Education Institution

Bahar GünIzmir University of Economics,


Esin ÇağlayanIzmir University of Economics,


Abstract

Probing into the school culture is the first step for the enhancement of the effectiveness of any school. Conducted in an English-medium private university in Turkey, this study aims at exploring teachers’ perceptions of existing school culture to provide enriched and contemporary understandings of that culture, as well as making implications regarding understanding and improving school culture. Quantitative data was collected using the School Culture Survey (SCS) developed by Gruenert and Valentine, and the School Culture Triage, developed by Wagner and Masden-Copas; and qualitative data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with a sample group of teachers from the school. The results suggest that three dominant aspects of the culture of the school studied are collegial support and collaboration, collaborative leadership and unity of purpose. The outcomes of this research study facilitate a ‘personal critique’ for the given school, and implications can be extended to institutions operating in similar settings.

Keywords: School culture; perceptions; higher education; school improvement

Introduction

The success or failure of a school is closely related to the behaviour of its individual members. Considering that the culture of a school is a powerful influence on members’ behaviour, a clear understanding of the culture of a school is, without a doubt, vital for its improvement. Peterson (2002) claims being able to understand and shape the culture leads to a success in promoting the learning of both staff and students. Barth (2002: 6) takes the significance of school culture one step further and suggests ‘a school’s culture

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has more influence on life and learning in the schoolhouse than the president of the country, the state department of education, the school board, or even the principal, teachers and parents can ever have’.

Due to the crucial role played by school culture in enhancing effectiveness the identification of this culture has been the focus of many studies with many different definitions of ‘school culture’. Schein (1997) and Maslowski’s (2006) definitions suggest that school culture consists of shared basic assumptions, norms and values that influence the functioning of a school as well as the way it copes with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration. According to Peterson (2002: 10), ‘school culture is the set of norms, values and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories that make up the ‘persona’ of the school’. Similarly, others support the notion of culture as a system of commonly shared symbols, myths and rituals that constitute the norms of a school (Bolman & Deal 1997; Rafaeli & Worline, 2000; DuFour & Eaker, 1998 in Brinton, 2007). These beliefs, assumptions and values are significant for guiding employee action and behavior (Burrello & Reitzug, 1993). As noted by Cavanagh (in Davis et al., 1999), school culture emanates from interpersonal interactions between individual teachers and groups of teachers, and their common perceptions and shared meanings which reflect collective beliefs, attitudes and values.

The ultimate aim of creating a variety of definitions of school culture, and conducting research in this area is to create ‘more effective’ schools. With this important aim in mind, it might prove useful to review the five important cultural elements of an effective school established by Snowden and Gorton (in Brinton 2007: 16) that characterise effective schools:

a positive organizational culture emphasis on academic effort and achievement belief that all students can learn ongoing faculty development and innovation a safe and orderly learning environment

As they are rather complex organizations, schools require careful scrutiny for a full insight into the existing culture. The present study, which aims to contribute to the understanding of school culture, was conducted in an English-medium private university setting in Turkey, in which the School of Foreign Languages was the source school.

Aim of the Study

Sustaining a positive learning culture in a school involves identifying and maintaining the positive components of the existing culture, and ultimately, creating a learning environment for a more effective school. With this in mind, the aims of this study are twofold: (a) to explore teachers’ perceptions of the existing school culture in order to provide an enriched and up-to-date understanding of that culture, and (b) to make implications regarding understanding and improvement of the school culture, and increase sensitivity to school context factors, derived from teachers’ perspectives of school culture.

The study attempted to answer the following questions:1. What are the instructors’ perceptions about school culture?

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2. Are there any differences between the instructors’ perceptions of school culture according to gender, professional seniority, institutional tenure and level of education?

Method

The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine the instructors’ perceptions of their school culture. The study is considered as a mixed method design (Leech & Onwuegbuzie, 2009), as it focuses on collecting, analyzing, and mixing both quantitative and qualitative data in a single study. Its central assumption is that using quantitative and qualitative approaches in combination provides a better understanding of research problems than a single approach alone. Sandelowski (2003) describes two primary purposes for electing to utilize both quantitative and qualitative data sources in the same study: 1) to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of a target phenomenon, and 2) to verify one set of findings against another. Thus, the two research methods gain strength from each other; and using both increases research strength and reduces weakness (Rousseau, 1990; Schneider, 1990).School culture, by nature, is a multi-faceted, complex and multidimensional phenomenon that can be better explored when several different methods are applied. Schein (1985) argues that the only safe way to reveal the deeper nuances of culture is by checking of information through different methods. Hence, the application of both types of method ensures better understanding of the phenomenon. Considering the abovementioned benefits, the study was designed following the principles of the mixed method data collection approach.

Setting and Participants

This study was conducted in order to discover the teachers’ perspectives regarding the school culture in the School of Foreign Languages at a private English-medium university in Turkey. Within the school, three main programmes are offered, namely, the English Preparatory, Freshman English, and Second Foreign Languages Programmes, employing about 180 teachers who cater for the language needs of around 1600 students.

The teacher profile in the School of Foreign Languages consists of teachers from different nationalities (American, British, Canadian, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Turkish), different age groups, ranging from 24-55, and different teaching experience, ranging from 0-20+ years. The overall number of teachers in the three programs is as follows:

Table 1. Number of TeachersNative Speaker Non-Native Speaker Total

N % N % NPreparatory Programme 26 22% 92 78% 118Freshman Programme 11 58% 8 42% 192nd Foreign Languages Programme 18 44% 23 56% 41

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The researchers had access to the school where the study took place, ensuring an authentic commitment to the task, and providing insider knowledge, which as Patton (2001) stated, is valuable to the building of a research relationship to collect effective data.

Sample

The sample for the quantitative portion of the study consisted of 116 instructors at a private English-medium university in Izmir, Turkey. The demographic information collected included gender, age, total years of work experience, total years of experience at the present job, and level of education. Table 2 depicts the frequency distributions of teachers’ background variable.

The sample for the qualitative portion of the study consisted of 11 instructors selected using the purposeful sampling method. This is a non-random method of qualitative sampling where the researcher selects information-rich cases for study in depth (Patton, 2001). Selection of the interviewee sample for the current research was carried out in such a way as to ensure that all three programmes and different levels of institutional tenure were equally represented.

Table 2. Frequency Distributions of Teachers’ Background Variable

Scale nFrequency

%Percentage

Genderfemale 89 76.7male 27 23.3

Institutional Tenure0-5 67 57.86-9 49 42.2

Professional Tenure1-9 51 44.0over 9 65 56.0

Level of EducationGraduate 84 72.4Post-

Graduate 32 27.6

Data Collection

Quantitative Phase

In the quantitative portion of the research, two scales were used. The main scale used was the School Culture Survey (SCS) developed in 1998 by Gruenert and Valentine. A factor analysis found six factors: Collaborative Leadership, Teacher Collaboration, Professional Development, Unity of Purpose, Collegial Support and Learning Partnership. It contains 35 items, each of which is rated on a 5-point scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). Permission to use this survey was granted by its authors.

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This study incorporated five of the six factor scores reflective of the relationship between administrators and teaching staff:

Unity of Purpose (Reliability Coefficients = .82) Collaborative Leadership (Reliability Coefficients = .91) Teacher Collaboration (Reliability Coefficients = .83) Collegial Support (Reliability Coefficients = .79) Professional Development (Reliability Coefficients = .86) Learning Partnership (Reliability Coefficients = .65)

Each of these six distinct concepts plays a key role in understanding the collaborative culture of a school. According to Covey (in Bean 2003: 50) one of the most important parts of school culture is the mission and the vision, which are the two main aspects of unity of purpose. Covey believes ‘culture, by definition, assumes shared vision and values, as represented by a mission statement put together and understood and implemented by all levels of the organization’.

Collaborative leadership is vital for sustaining a healthy school culture because of the positive influence of distributed leadership among participants. As Barnett and McCormick (2003: 68) stated, ‘consensus and commitment to school vision were developed through leadership practices such as communication, leader credibility and the involvement of the school community in collaborative processes’.

Teacher collaboration, in the sense that ‘teachers collaborate, exchange ideas and develop tight collegial connections’ (Bean, 2003: 51) is also one of the more important components of school culture, building professional communities and leading to school learning in the long run. Ideally, teachers throughout a school will work collectively and collaboratively, engaging in such activities as mutual classroom observations, lesson modelling, grade-level and team planning, and evaluation and assessment of teaching practices (Bambino, 2002).

Very closely linked to collegiality is professional development, an important influence on teacher practice which has become an essential aspect of improved teaching (Brownwell, et al., 2006). The result of professional development is that teachers work together, which is considered an important characteristic of a successful school (Strahan, 2003).

The last dimension of SCS is learning partnership, which aims to measure parent-student involvement in the learning process. Since the context of the study is a higher education institution, in which the parent involvement is rather minimal, the items included in this dimension were excluded from the scale used in this study. Instead, the study focused on affiliative collegiality. As Kruse (2001) states “in collaborative settings, the relationships between teachers are not built solely around structures and tasks but around communal experiences and interests of all school members” (p. 359). For this reason, the items that aim to measure affiliative collegiality in the instrument called School Culture Triage (Wagner & Masden-Copas, 2002) were added to the scale with the author’s permission. Affiliative Collegiality aims to measure group cohesion and social interaction among teachers.

After translation into Turkish by the researchers, the scale was submitted to a panel of four English language teachers, two of whom were bilingual. In the light of the suggestions made, the items were amended and piloted with a group of 50 instructors

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from the same institution. An exploratory factor analysis using Varimax rotation was conducted and it yielded a scale of 28 items grouped into 3 dimensions. The scale was found to be highly reliable (28 items; = .92).

Table 3 describes each scale and provides a sample item of each scale. The items are measured on a five-point Likert scale, a score of ‘1’ indicating strong disagreement with the item statement, and a score of ‘5’ indicating strong agreement.

Table 3. Description of School Culture Survey Scales and Sample ItemsScale Description Sample itemCollegial Support & Collaboration

Teachers value collaboration and support each other.

Teachers are willing to help each other when problems arise.

Collaborative Leadership

School administrators value the contribution of teachers in the decision-making process.

Administrators at all levels trust the professional judgment of teachers.

Unity of Purpose Teachers understand and support the school mission.

The approach to teaching reflects the mission of the school.

Table 4 shows the results of the factor analysis for the modified 28-item version of the SCS for the sample of 116 instructors. This table shows that every item had a factor loading of greater than 0.30 with its own scale, and of less than 0.30 with each of the other three scales.

Table 4. Factor Loadings for Modified 28-Item Survey of SCS

ItemFactor loading

Collegial Support &

CollaborationCollaborative Leadership

Unity of Purpose

c6 ,763c20 ,723c11 ,702c25 ,678c15 ,677c22 ,659c10 ,555c7 ,543c3 ,458c2 ,441c12 ,791c1 ,776c19 ,775c9 ,671c13 ,624c5 ,584c14 ,563c16 ,512

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c4 ,445c24 ,442c8 ,433c23 ,805c27 ,761c18 ,701c17 ,562c21 ,528c28 ,504c26 ,468Extraction Method: Principal Component Analysis. Rotation Method: Varimax with Kaiser Normalization. Factor loadings smaller than 0.30 have been omitted.

Qualitative Phase

For the qualitative portion of the study, the researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with each participant over a ten-week time span. The interviews, which lasted for about 40 minutes, were audio-recorded because as Patton (2001) pointed out, a tape recorder is ‘indispensable’. The audio-recorder provides an accurate, verbatim record, capturing the participants’ language, including their hesitations, and tone in far more detail than would ever be possible with note-taking. The researchers followed the interview protocols created by the researchers themselves. The topics covered in the interviews were: (1) collaborative leadership; (2) affiliative collegiality; (3) unity of purpose; (4) professional development; (5) collaboration among instructors.

The interviews were audio taped and transcribed. A coding list was developed, based upon the conceptual framework. In order to improve the reliability of the analyses, the interviews were coded independently by two coders (inter-coder reliability=0.90). After examining all the themes that emerged, the researchers conducted a thematic analysis in which common areas among the participants’ responses were identified, and the views of the participants on these areas were revealed.

While transcribing the recorded data, Mayring’s (2000) descriptive record system was used. This study employed content analysis, an approach frequently used in the qualitative analysis of interview data and open-ended questions (Robson, 2001). In this study, a categorical analysis of content analysis was used. In this process, first, the message is divided into units, and then these units are grouped according to pre-defined criteria. The function of the codes is to ensure that the data is divided into units which can then be grouped in a meaningful way. In that case, codes take function by creating a full and meaningful group of independent parts (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Creating categories and their subcategories allows the researcher to re-examine the data. In this study, the instructors’ perceptions of the school culture were examined in six categories. Table 5 shows the five categories and the codes identified.

Table 5. The Categories and Codes Identified

Categories CodesTeacher Collaboration

- cooperation- exchanging ideas and

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materials- sharing the same physical

environment- group meetings

Professional Development

- short courses- encouragement- personal decision- workshops- MA and PhD

Affiliative Collegiality

- social activities- appreciation- bringing people together- dining together- smoking together- inadequate activities- friendship

Unity of Purpose

- mission and vision- teaching a foreign language- realization of aims and

objectives- student success rates

Collaborative Leadership

- innovation- being involved in decision-

making- awareness- openness

Data Analysis and Findings

Based on the questionnaire responses of all instructors, the internal consistency (alpha reliability) coefficients for the three scales ranged from 0.87 to 0.90 (see Table 6).

Table 6: Reliability Coefficients, Means and Standard Deviations of the Scales of the School Culture Survey

Scale No of Items

MeanM

SD Alpha Reliabilit

yα

Variance Explaine

d (%)

Collegial Support & Collaboration 10 3.59 0.62 0.88 20.55Collaborative Leadership 11 3.14 0.72 0.90 18.78Unity of Purpose 7 3.69 0.67 0.87 14.67TOTAL 28 3.44 0.60 0.95 53.99N = 116 instructors

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In this research, mean scores were associated with the level of presence of a factor which reflected the effectiveness of school culture. The mean scores were ranked as follows: above 4.00, very strong presence of a factor, 3.50-3.99 positive presence, and 3.00-3.50 neutral presence. A negative culture situation was indicated by mean scores of less than 3.00.

In the analysis of the first question of the study, arithmetic averages were used to determine the instructors’ perceptions of school culture. For the analysis of the second question, t-Tests were used for independent samples to determine whether the instructors’ perceptions differed according to gender, level of education, professional seniority and institutional tenure.

Question 1: What are the instructors’ perceptions about school culture?

The mean of the instructors’ ‘total’ school culture perceptions was M = 3.44, corresponding on the scale to the answer ‘I neither agree nor disagree’. Thus, it can be concluded that the instructors’ perceptions about school culture were neutral.

Table 7: Items with the Highest and Lowest ValuesMean Items

Collegial Support & Collaboration 3.59

Highest 3.94 Teachers are willing to help each other when problems arise.

Lowest 3.09 Teachers and staff visit/talk/meet socially outside of the school to enjoy each other's company.

Collaborative Leadership 3.14Highest 3.60 Professional development is valued in our

school.Lowest 2.71 Administrators at all levels take time to praise

teachers that perform well.Unity of Purpose 3.69

Highest 3.92 Teachers are kept informed of current issues in the school.

Lowest 3.56 Methodological issues are voiced openly and discussed among teachers.

Table 7 shows that factors with the highest (3.69) and lowest (3.14) means were unity of purpose and collaborative leadership respectively.

Unity of purpose measures the degree to which instructors work toward a common mission for their school. A school that scores high on this factor has teachers who understand, support and perform in accordance with that mission. They also seek out ideas from seminars, organizations and other professional sources to maintain current knowledge, particularly about instructional practices.

Teachers who were interviewed stated that they were aware of the mission and vision of their school and that they believe their school was working towards the set mission and vision. One teacher noted that in order to provide students with the highest standard of foreign language education they keep up with trends in their field.

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Collaborative leadership measures the degree to which school leaders establish and maintain collaborative relationships with the teachers. A school with highly collaborative leadership has leaders who value teachers’ ideas, seek input, engage staff in decision-making and trust the professional judgment of teachers. These leaders support and reward risk-taking and innovative ideas designed to improve the teaching and learning process. These leaders also reinforce the sharing of ideas and effective practices among teachers. The instructors used the following words to refer to the existing leadership in the school: discipline, diligence, transparency and innovation.

The instructors who were interviewed emphasised shared decision making as an important element of leadership. As one instructor noted

“the instructors sometimes wish they could be more involved in the decision-making.”

Another stressed the importance of the voice of instructors: “The administration should develop and demonstrate empathy with the teachers. We are the ones who keep the system going. We are like the ‘soldiers of an army’. Of course they should listen to us because we are the ones who could provide reliable feedback on the system.”

Trust, fairness and transparency, which are also important aspects of leadership, were the other reoccurring themes during the interviews:

“When there is something wrong, or when some people break the rules, the whole staff is reprimanded or given a warning. I follow the rules and do my job properly so this makes me feel frustrated. I am not rewarded or appreciated for the extra work I do, but I am reprimanded because of the irresponsible behaviour of a few teachers. This hurts.”

“In this school there are three departments but they are all parts of the same school. However, the working hours are different. Our lessons usually end at 19.30 but in the prep programme instructors can leave at 16.30. Working conditions should be the same. Otherwise, this inequality leads to frustration and jealousy among the staff”.

“When duties are announced, people check the others’ duties and find out if they are given more or fewer duties than the others. This is because duties did not used to be distributed fairly before. Now it’s changed, though. People should not be asking “why me?”. The reasons why they are given certain duties should be explained. If people know the rationale behind certain decisions, they do not complain or show discontent.”

These quotes suggest that those in authority should clarify the rationale behind decisions which affect instructors in the interests of trust, fairness and transparency.Collegial Support and Collaboration measures the degree to which teachers engage in constructive dialogue that furthers the educational efficiency of the school. A high score on this factor means that teachers trust each other and value each other’s ideas, plan together, observe and discuss teaching practices, and assist each other as they work to accomplish the tasks.

The interviewees indicated that the instructors in this school work together, share ideas and problems, exchange materials and help each other. They also noted that teaching in

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the same programme is an important factor that facilitates cooperation among the instructors. One instructor also emphasised the effect of the physical conditions on the level of collaboration:

“Physical conditions have an effect on the extent to which teachers collaborate. When people share the same room, they naturally work in collaboration. However, it depends on the people’s personality. If you are a person who enjoys working with people, then you naturally do it. You do not need people to provide collaboration opportunities for you. But I think people in this school generally enjoy working together.”

Mutual understanding and personal differences are some other factors that affect the level of collaboration. As one instructor observed:

“In our department there 9 different cultures, 9 different languages are spoken. Of course, this makes it difficult to work together and share the same workplace at times. Some people talk loudly and make a lot of noise, for instance, which is rather disturbing.”

Question 2: Are there any differences between the instructors’ perceptions of school culture according to gender, professional seniority, institutional tenure and level of education?

An independent samples t-test was conducted to examine whether there was any significant difference between male and female instructors in relation to their perceptions of school culture (see Table 8). There was no significant difference in perceptions in terms of gender (t=0.56, df=114, p>.05). The difference was not significant although the perceptions of the female instructors (M=3.45) were slightly more positive than those of the male instructors (M=3.38). Similar results were yielded in terms of professional seniority (t=-0.97, df=114, p>.05), institutional tenure (t=-1.39, df=114, p>.05) and level of education (t=-1.17, df=114, p>.05). In short, no significant difference was found between the groups in relation to perceptions of school culture. This suggests that the given demographic variables do not have an effect on the staff’s perceptions of school culture.

Table 8: Differences concerning school culture based on demographic variablesOrganizational Culture n M SD df t p

GenderFemale 89 3.45 0.58

114 0.56 0.58Male 27 3.38 0.66

Professional Seniority1-9 years 51 3.43 0.66

114-

0.97

0.92over 9 years 65 3.44 0.55

Institutional Tenure0-5 years 67 3.37 0.55

114-

1.39

0.176-9 years 49 3.53 0.65

Level of EducationGraduate 84 3.43 0.59

114-

1.17

0.86Post-Graduate 32 3.45 0.63

Conclusion

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The study at hand is based on the premise that recognition of school culture is vital for improvement. Studies of this kind are believed to contribute to the improvement of any school by making implications for staff and student learning. Awareness of school culture also means that to bring about change, the current culture should be re-examined and restructured, by taking into consideration what is known about a given culture.

The findings of the study suggest that the three most eminent aspects of the culture of the school studied are collegial support and collaboration, collaborative leadership and unity of purpose. The importance of teacher collaboration as the strongest positive element in the given school culture suggests that teachers’ formal and informal professional learning can best be enhanced by building and sustaining the necessary opportunities for teacher collaboration within institutions. Since collegiality, by nature, is personal and cannot be imposed upon teachers, school managers can be encouraged to provide time and opportunities for teachers to engage in personal matters and develop bonding (Cavanagh et al., 1998). This key implication of the study was also reflected by Jurasaite-Harbison (2009) in her research related to teachers’ workplace learning. Teachers are more likely to engage in this kind of learning in schools in which physical and social environments promote professional interactions (Jurasaite-Harbison & Rex, 2010), a conclusion confirmed in the present study. This kind of collaboration should definitely be promoted because it raises morale, enthusiasm, and efficacy of teachers; and helps them become more receptive to new ideas (Barth 1990; Fullan, 1991).

Regarding the unity of purpose element, it can be concluded that there is a common awareness about the mission and the vision of the school among the teachers involved in this study. As asserted in a study by Westhuizen et al. (2005), teachers in high performance schools demonstrate awareness of the school mission and vision, and this awareness and agreement on the school mission leads to commonality in the thinking and the behaviour of the teachers and administrators.

As for collaborative leadership, attitudes seem ambiguous in the school examined, in the sense that there is no clear-cut indication of how teachers actually perceive the effectiveness of leadership in their school. In view of the complexity of leadership, it would perhaps be expected that studies of this kind would not be able to produce a clear evaluation of leadership (Engels et al., 2008).

Teachers’ being ‘neutral’ or ‘undecided’ in studies of this kind could be interpreted in two ways: either there is an absence of clear communication between the teachers and the management; or teachers lack awareness of the culture they are in. For the school examined, it can be implied that the leaders in that school should reflect on and reconsider their roles and responsibilities; and how they are communicated to the staff members. This becomes particularly important when the size, i.e. the number of instructors and teaching programmes of the school examined is taken into consideration. As Burrello & Reitzug (1993: 676) point out ‘leaders are not the sole sources of wisdom in school’. Therefore, they should work for greater opportunity for effective staff involvement in the decision making processes, as well as for improved the flow of communication in the school, and its constant improvement.

Martin (in van der Westhuizen, et al., 2008) draws attention to the ‘uniqueness’ attribute of a school culture, suggesting that the interest should be directed to the unique features of each institution. With that in mind, increasing the understanding of existing school cultures in general can help to identify the core elements of the culture of a particular

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school, and this can then serve as a blueprint to be used by individual schools to identify those elements of their culture which may need to be developed. In conclusion, research studies such as this one are essential for understanding how culture is built from interrelated elements and how such an understanding can help build healthy, strong, productive and successful school communities by facilitating a ‘personal critique’ for all the parties involved in school culture.

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