Perception of classroom and branch teachers working in primary schools towards in-service education

Abstract

The need for in-service education for teachers is recognized by all who are concerned with improvement of school practice. A successful in-service education involves many different kinds of activities. This study aims to determine the perceptions of classroom and branch (social studies, science and technology, foreign language, physical education etc) teachers working in primary schools in Canakkale, Turkey towards in-service education. Accordingly, out of 189 teachers attending in-service education held by Ministry of Education, 92 teachers were presented a scale which consisted of 12 problems and were required to choose 4 of them which they believed were the most annoying ones. In this way, 368 problems were designated by teachers. When the most frequent problems were analyzed, the top-three problems were: “there are no attractive activities”, “people in charge do not have necessary qualifications” and “In-service education activities are impractical”. On the other hand, when the least frequent problems were analyzed, the period between the application and implementation of the in-service education is too long, and the refusal of the application by the higher authorities due to various reasons (planlessness, farness, negligence etc) were designated as the least discomforting problems by the teachers. Furthermore, a significant correlation was not obtained among the teachers due to gender, experience and branches. Key words: Classroom teacher, branch teacher, in-service training, problems of teachers.