Personal Professional Development Efforts of Science and Technology Teachers in their Fields

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the personal professional development efforts of science and technology teachers in their fields with regard to some variables. These variables were determined as gender, year of seniority and sufficiency level of the laboratory equipment. Moreover, the relation between the actual efforts exerted by science and technology teachers and the ideal level of efforts to be exerted by them for personal professional development in their fields was examined. In this study, survey model was applied. Research population was composed of science and technology teachers working in the central district of Eskişehir, a province in Turkey. Sampling was not made and it was attempted to get in contact with all 189 teachers covered in the population. However, data could not be obtained from some teachers and therefore, sampling of the study consisted of 130 teachers. As a data collection tool, “Scale of the Personal Professional Development Efforts of Science and Technology Teachers in their Fields” developed by the researchers was utilised in the research. In the comparison by gender, independent samples t–test was utilised while Anova was used in the comparison by the year of seniority and sufficiency level of the laboratory equipment. When the results of the research are examined, it is seen that female teachers use communication skills more effectively than male teachers. Also, as the senior years of teachers increased, the frequency of using and updating the technology decreased.