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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 199 (2015) 801 - 805
GlobELT: An International Conference on Teaching and Learning English as an Additional
Language, Antalya - Turkey
The role of teacher field knowledge test on teachers' knowledge
Ceyda Serta*
_aUniversity of U§ak, School of Foreign Languages, 64200, Turkey_
Abstract
A field exam (Teacher Field Knowledge Test, OABT) has been performed to score teachers' success in their knowledge of the field to appoint them to state schools. Hence, this study aims to explore the opinions of the test takers who had prepared themselves for this test in order to interrogate this field exam. Therefore, their opinions about the benefits of this field exam are collected. Open-ended questions are prepared and sent via the Internet and the answers were analysed through descriptive analysis. The results reveal that teachers believe in the necessity of the exam which enables to appoint them. These scores they get in the exam are then used to appoint them to state schools.
© 2015 The Authors.PublishedbyElsevier Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.Org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review underresponsibilityof Hacettepe Universitesi.
Keywords: field exam, appointing of teachers, teacher selection test
1. Introduction
Regarding their educational politics, assuming that societies can only keep up and develop through the literate individuals, governments usually take necessary actions in order to carry on their educational activities. Teachers, who are irreplaceable factors of the education system, have a vital effect on both individuals and societies' becoming literate.
Although education in Turkey is of high quality, government has standards for candidates of teaching staff. The test that the government maintained these standards began to be performed in 1999 to employ public servants. Since 1999, it has been organized by OSYM (Evaluation Selection and Placement Centre). Following this, during sixteen years there have been many changes on these tests and beginning from 2001 teaching staff had to take the exam to be
* Corresponding author.. E-mail address: ceyda.sert@usak.edu.tr
1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Hacettepe Universitesi.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.614
able to work in public institutions. Today teacher candidates have to attend both KPSS (Public Personnel Selection Test) and ÖABT (Teacher Field Knowledge Test) to be appointed to the public schools in relation with MEB (Ministry of National Education). The aim of these tests is to assess teacher candidates' professional competency. Only by taking these tests and getting the results which are required by ÖSYM, teacher candidates can be appointed to the public institutions. Addition to that, ÖSYM can have changes in this score grading according to the teacher needs of MEB every year.
When ÖABT is examined, it is observed that the questions cover the outcomes determined by YÖK (Council of Higher Education) and the outcomes of course contents in Education Faculties. Beginning with ÖABT, teacher candidates have 250 questions to answer in three sessions; in two sessions they answer 200 questions of World Knowledge, General Ability and Educational Sciences tests and in the third session they answer 50 questions to be assessed of their own field knowledge (FK). However, the positive and negative effects of this type of test on teacher candidates must be researched. It is a scientific necessity to find out whether this test has any professional contributions to teacher candidates who take the test. This present study mainly aims to find answers to these questions:
• Does ÖABT have any professional contributions to teacher candidates?
• Is it necessary to take professional support for the field exam?
• Is the field exam a necessary test to take?
1.1. Literature review
When the related literature was researched, no study related to this subject was found, as it is a new implementation in Turkey. However, there are many studies concerning teachers' perceptions and worries towards KPSS, which was the only exam between 2002-2013 (Eraslan, 2004; Bastürk, 2007; Çimen & Yilmaz, 2011; Atav & Sönmez, 2013; Erdem & Soylu, 2013; Gö^e, 2013).
In Turkey, there have been many studies focusing on the perceptions of teacher candidates about KPSS (Erdem & Soylu, 2013; Gö^e, 2013; Atav & Sönmez, 2013). In these studies, participants claimed that only with a field test there would be a fair election, that field exam would enable them to improve themselves, and they would be more beneficial for students. These teachers also stated that they believed in the necessity of a field test which would assess their field knowledge.
2. Method
Since this study aims to present the perceptions of the teachers and intended to describe the situation in numbers, it is both a qualitative and quantitative study. Also the gathered data are analysed through descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis reflects the feelings and opinions of the individuals that are interviewed and it enables the researcher to provide the results in summarized and commented way (Yldirim & Çim^ek, 2011).
2.1. Participants
Teacher candidates graduated from Education Faculties of different universities constitute the population of this study. The faculties of teachers they graduated from are as follows: 32 from Education Faculties (26 English Language Teaching Dept., 6 from Social Sciences Teaching Dept.), 1 from Faculty of Arts and Sciences and 1 from Faculty of Theology. For the reliability of this study the participants had to take the ÖABT.
2.2. Data collection
Researcher, with the support of a specialist, prepared a structured questionnaire and through a web-site, which provides survey service, sent it to new graduate teachers through the Internet and requested them to answer those questions on a voluntary basis. The printed version of the questionnaire was given to some other teachers who were inaccessible through the Internet and the results were entered manually.
3. Findings
The analysis of the data, the process, steps of preparing themselves for the exam, feelings and opinions of the participants are given in tabular and in summary.
The teacher candidates either studied on their own or received professional support from private institutions to refresh their knowledge for OABT. When the answers were analysed it was observed that 50% of the teacher candidates had consulted private institutions, 44% of them had studied individually and 6% of them had prepared themselves both through individual study and professional support.
Table 1. Opinions about sample questions
Yes No Partly
Did the sample test
provide an insight about 50% 32% 18%
the real test?
In February 2013 OSYM, to provide an insight to teacher candidates, published three sample questions formed to each field (total 48) for OABT which was going to take place for the first time. Only half of the candidates stated that these questions were beneficial and increased the awareness of the test. They had an opportunity to see their weaknesses and strengths and on what topics they need to focus on. In contrast, teacher candidates who found these three questions insufficient stated that they did not shed a light on the test and they provided less instruction and consisted of restricted information.
Table 2. The topics that teacher candidates studied mainly after the sample questions
Eng. Literature Linguistics Methods History & Geography Field Knowledge Language Acquisition
Which topics did you focus on? 28% 26% 12% 14% 16% 4%
To succeed in this test teacher candidates graduated from English Language Teaching Department had to review the topics like English Language and Literature, Linguistics, Approaches and Methods and Language Acquisition, since they usually study these topics on the 2nd and 3rd year of their university education. The teacher candidates graduated from Social Sciences Teaching Department had to review mainly History and Geography.
Table 3. Achievements of teacher candidates after taking the first OABT practice test
Number of correct Less than 20 20-30 30+
answers
Number of candidates 24% 44% 32%
68% of the teachers and teacher candidates taking the first practice test remained below 30 correct answers and only 32% of them answered more than 30 questions correctly. Therefore, a test consisting of 50 questions led them to
feel insufficient. Since one correct answer would lead the candidates to forge ahead of thousands of people and enable them to be appointed to public institutions, candidates are required to give correct answers at maximum levels.
Table 4. Percentages of the teacher candidates benefited from the study for OABT
Yes No Partly
Did you make use of the topics
you studied for OABT after %35 %29 %16
being appointed?
When the teacher candidates were asked whether they benefited from the topics they had reviewed for OABT, 35% of them answered positively and stated that they benefited highly in their classrooms while 29% of them mentioned that the study and revision for OABT did not provide any benefits especially for in classroom use. Especially, graduates from English Language Teaching Department indicated that they highly benefited from the study of Approaches and Methods in classrooms, but topics like Linguistics and English Language and Literature did not have a positive function in real classroom environment.
Table 5. The opinions about the necessity of OABT
Yes No
Do you believe in the necessity of 68% 32%
the field exam?
Teacher candidates finally answered the question about their beliefs about the necessity of this field test. Majority of the candidates (68%) stated that this field exam was necessary to take, through this kind of tests their university study would be more efficient and the information they learnt would always remain updated. Additionally, they enclosed that the authorities were too late to implement this kind of test. However, they mentioned that there should be more questions intended to the implementations for the classroom use. On the contrary, 32% of them were not in the opinion of the essentialness of OABT and they believed that teachers need a more judicious test to be assessed according to their field of study.
4. Conclusion and suggestions
The study is aimed to explore whether OABT provides benefits to the teachers. They stated that only the information intended to in-classroom implementations provide convenience to teachers about their profession. Furthermore, it is aimed to reveal the opinions of the teachers about the essentialness of this test. For the necessity of OABT, 68% of candidate teachers stated that it is a good implementation of being assessed of their own field, however, OABT should be enhanced and improved. Another question is to discuss whether it is sufficient to be prepared for the test individually or the necessity of taking professional support. They stated if it is studied regularly the test is achievable without extra support.
For the researchers who are interested in this topic, it is suggested that they can work with a larger group and with teachers who have only pedagogic formation. Since this test has been organised for two years, they may reach more candidates, newly graduates and post graduates who studied for this test and/or took it. Also program planners of Education Faculties may think of a selective lesson at the 4th grade, for those who would like to take the field test.
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Bastürk, R. (2007). Kamu Personeli Se§me Sinavina hazirlanan ögretmen adaylarinin sinav kaygi düzeylerinin incelenmesi. Firat Üniversitesi
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