Teachers’ Attitudes and Opinions about Design and Skill Workshops and Ranking of Workshops by Teachers

Abstract

In this study, the aim was to both develop a valid and reliable measurement tool for determining teachers’ attitudes as well as to determine their opinions towards design and skill workshops (DSW). In addition, the researchers aimed to determine how teachers rank design and skill workshops based on their importance. Since an attempt was made to describe the existing situation at just one point in time, a cross-sectional survey model was used. Teachers working at schools with DSW located in the cities of Ankara and Istanbul, Turkey were chosen as participants. Criterion sampling method, which is a purposeful sampling method was used for determining the sample of this study. A total of 123 teachers working at four primary schools in Ankara as well as 99 teachers working at three secondary schools, one primary school, and two high schools in Istanbul during February 2019 participated to this current study. As a result of interviews with the teachers and members of the General Directorate of Teacher Training in the Turkish Ministry of National Education (MoNE) the scale items were written. As a result of the principal components analysis for attitude scale, a valid and reliable measurement tool with 10 items emerged after removing overlapping item. According to rankings of the various workshops’ importance, the teachers were divided into two groups, including those who thought that software and science were more important and those who thought that drama and visual arts were more important.