An analysis of primary school teachers' level of individual innovativeness and the factors affecting it

The purpose of the present study was to examine primary school teachers' individual innovativeness levels, reveal the factors that affect their individual innovativeness, evaluate these factors in terms of some demographic variables and delineate the distribution of these factors according to innovativeness categories. This descriptive research was conducted using mixed methods research design incorporating both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. The sample of the quantitative strand of the study consisted of 700 primary school teachers working at schools located in Şehitkamil and Şahinbey districts of Gaziantep province during in the academic year of 2012-2013. Quantitative data regarding teachers' individual innovativeness levels and innovativeness categories were gathered via "Individual Innovativeness Scale", which was developed by Hurt et al. (1997) and adapted into Turkish by Kılıçer and Odabaşı (2010) who carried out linguistic and cultural adaptation of the scale into Turkish. The study group of the qualitative strand was composed of 15 teachers working at primary schools where quantitative data were collected. Qualitative data were gathered via semi-structured interviews with primary school teachers. Parametric analysis techniques were used in the analysis of the quantitative data. Qualitative data was analyzed using the content analysis technique. Main results of the study were as follows: it was found that participant teachers were innovative at a moderate level. Total score of innovativeness and scores of the sub-dimensions did not differ in terms of gender and age; however, the scores differed significantly only in the resistance to change sub-dimension in terms of education level variable. Teachers were categorized as early majority, early adopters, late majority, innovators and laggards, respectively. Some implications were drawn based on the findings of the research. Key Words: Innovation, Individual Innovativeness, Primary School.