Evaluation of the Turkish education system in the context of critical pedagogy principles: A scale development study

The aim of this research is to develop a valid and reliable scale to evaluate the Turkish education system in the context of critical pedagogy principles. Other aims of the study are to reveal teachers' views on education policy, educational programs and the role of the teacher in the context of critical pedagogy principles, and to examine the differences in teachers' perspectives on critical pedagogy in terms of education level, seniority and branch variables. During the scale development process, firstly, an item pool of 40 items was obtained. Similar expressions were eliminated and the item pool was presented to expert opinion. A content validity study of the scale was conducted by analyzing expert opinions. The scale form, consisting of 38 items, was applied to 251 people through a pilot application. "Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)" was conducted for the construct validity of this scale developed with the data obtained. After exploratory factor analysis, a structure consisting of 28 items and three factors was obtained. With this scale form, data were collected from 615 teachers and validity and reliability analyzes were conducted. "Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)" was conducted to determine the construct validity of this developed scale. The structure consisting of three factors explained 63% of the total variance. In confirmatory factor analysis, the three-factor structure was confirmed. In the study, within the scope of confirmatory factor analysis, the χ2 / df (chi-square / degrees of freedom) value was found to be 3.50, the AGFI value was 0.85, the GFI value was 0.86, the RMSEA value was 0.064, the NFI value was 0.91, the CFI value was 0.93, the PGFI value was 0.736, the TLI value was .930. Some of the fit indices indicate good fit, some indicate acceptable fit. Cronbach Alpha values for the dimensions of the scale were found to be .959, .936 and .836. It has been determined that the "Critical Pedagogy Scale", which evaluates the Turkish education system in the context of critical pedagogy principles, is a valid and reliable measurement tool. In addition, the research results show that teachers' level of participation in critical pedagogy principles is at a medium level. With the final scale, significant differences were found in the variables of education level, seniority and branch of teachers' perspectives on critical pedagogy. Within the scope of the study, suggestions were made for practitioners and researchers, taking into account the research results.