ABSTRACT

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.

摘要

尽管他们有经验，但随着他们在教师教育计划中获得的知识的新近程度随着时间的推移而逐渐消失，教师需要不断地在专业上发展自己——这意味着他们需要足够自主地为自己的专业学习负责。因此，本研究将“教师的专业自主性”定义为教师与同事合作进行专业发展的能力、动机和时间；并提出教师专业自主问卷（TEPAQ）来衡量该结构。首先，对15名新手和有经验的教师进行了两次焦点小组访谈，并编写了一个项目库。这个初始版本的 TEPAQ 接受了专家反馈会议和试点。主要数据来自在土耳其 36 个城市和 7 个地区的州立大学和基础大学工作的 375 名 EFL（英语作为外语）教师。在探索性和验证性因素分析和可靠性分析之后，TEPAQ 最终确定为 5 个因素和 23 个项目。TEPAQ 可以由教师单独使用，也可以由教师教育者或管理人员在制度上使用，目的是评估教师或受训教师专业自主权的优势和劣势，以及他们需要支持和帮助以承担专业学习责任的领域。