Abstract
The study aimed at examining Iranian (N= 218) and Turkish (N=142) high school EFL teachers’ opinions about teacher autonomy over (a) the choice of appropriate teaching methods, strategies and techniques and implementation of the established curriculum (b) teacher involvement in decision making processes and (c) teachers’ use of personal initiative in solving their work problems. An 11-item questionnaire (α= .758) was used to measure autonomy perceptions of the participants. The results revealed that Turkish teachers’ autonomy perceptions were greater than that of Iranian teachers in the three teacher autonomy dimensions. Moreover, it was observed that male and master- holder teachers perceive less autonomy than female and bachelor-holder ones; whereas, no significant relationship were observed for the age and marital status variables with any teacher autonomy dimensions. Lastly, decision making dimension was the strongest predictor of teacher autonomy among both Iranian and Turkish teachers.
Highlights
Teacher autonomy has generally been defined as the degree to which a teacher has the desire to make curriculum decisions using his/her personal initiative and intellectual engagement
The cut-off points for the variables were as: Overall Teacher Autonomy (Low = 1-22, Moderate= 23-44, High = 45-66), Pedagogical Curriculum Evaluation and Decision Making dimensions (Low = 1-8, Moderate= 9-16, High = 17-24), and Problem Solving dimension (Low = 1-6, Moderate= 7-12, High = 13-18) (See Table 1)
The percentage scores revealed that Turkish teachers perceive more teacher autonomy than Iranian teachers in the three dimensions of pedagogical curriculum evaluation, decision making, and problem solving because the scores of Turkish teachers were greater than that of Iranian ones (See Table 1)
Summary
Teacher autonomy has generally been defined as the degree to which a teacher has the desire to make curriculum decisions using his/her personal initiative and intellectual engagement. For the first time, Little 176) defined the term as the “teachers’ capacity to engage in self-directed teaching”. Scholars defined teacher autonomy from different aspects. 19) suggests that teacher autonomy involves “the capacity, freedom, and/or responsibility to make choices concerning one’s own teaching”. 89) argues that teacher autonomy refers to “the ability to develop appropriate skills, knowledge and attitudes for oneself as a teacher, in cooperation with others.”. 111) argues that teacher autonomy can be seen as “a right to freedom from control and/or an ability to exercise this right” Aoki (2000, p. 19) suggests that teacher autonomy involves “the capacity, freedom, and/or responsibility to make choices concerning one’s own teaching”. Smith (2000, p. 89) argues that teacher autonomy refers to “the ability to develop appropriate skills, knowledge and attitudes for oneself as a teacher, in cooperation with others.” Benson (2000, p. 111) argues that teacher autonomy can be seen as “a right to freedom from control and/or an ability to exercise this right”
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