Autonomy for ourselves: development and validation of Teachers' Professional Autonomy Questionnaire (TEPAQ)

Creative Commons License

Okay A., Balçıkanlı C.

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING, cilt.47, ss.513-530, 2021 (SSCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 47
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/02607476.2021.1927681
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR TEACHING
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Periodicals Index Online, Communication & Mass Media Index, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Index Islamicus, Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, PAIS International
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.513-530
  • Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Despite their experience, teachers continuously need to develop themselves professionally as the recency of the knowledge they acquire in teacher education programmes wears off in time - which means they need to be autonomous enough take responsibility for their own professional learning. This study, therefore, defines 'teachers' professional autonomy' as teachers' capability, motives, and time to develop themselves professionally in collaboration with their colleagues; and it proposes Teachers' Professional Autonomy Questionnaire (TEPAQ) to measure the construct. First, two focus group interviews were conducted with 15 novice and experienced teachers, and an item pool was written. This initial version of TEPAQ was subjected to expert feedback sessions and piloting. The main data were gathered from 375 EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers working at state and foundation universities in 36 cities and 7 regions of Turkey. Following exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and reliability analyses, TEPAQ was finalised with 5 factors and 23 items. TEPAQ can be used individually by teachers or institutionally by teacher educators or administrators with an aim to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses regarding teachers' or teacher trainees' professional autonomy and the areas they need support and assistance to take responsibility for their professional learning.