Thoughts of elementary school teachers regarding the conditions of in-service training practices oriented towards them

This research was conducted in order to analyze the thoughts of elementary school teachers on the conditions and efficiency of the in-service training programs oriented towards them. The population of this research is composed of a total number of 29 teachers present in Tuzla District in Istanbul during 2012-2013 academic term. Research sample, on the other hand, is formed of 253 teachers working in 13 schools and who were selected through random disproportionate cluster sample. Research-related data was collected through Scale of Teacher Opinions regarding in-service Training Activities? and ?Personal Information Form?. The scale is composed of two parts, the first part including personal information and the second part covering 40 assessment expressions in order to measure the opinions of teachers regarding in-service training activities. The data received from the scales were coded and analyzed in computer environment with the help of SPSS package software. The frequency and percentage distribution of the data, related with the first part of the scale was calculated. Arithmetic average and standard deviation were used to determine the opinions of teachers; to be able to put forward opinion differences the t test and Mann Whitney U test were used in bilateral comparisons; Variance analysis and Kruskal Wallis-H test were used to compare more than two variable groups. Whether there was a meaningful difference in opinions or not was tested based on the meaningfulness level of p=0.05. Findings obtained from the research are as follows; Level of assessment of the teachers regarding in-service training activities is at the level of average numbers in terms of time, scope, method, technique, practice efficiency, environment and contribution to practice. The teachers? sex, marital status, parenthood status, working conditions, professional seniority, working status, branch, graduation type, graduation, age, number of participation to in-service training, status of working as a trainer in in-service training, the last time of participation to in-service training, type of participation in in-service training, have shown no significant difference regarding their level of assessing in-service training. Teachers? levels of assessment of in-service training have been found to be meaningful depending on their participation in in-service training outside the city. The difference is in favor of the ones attending in-service training out of the city. Key words: In-service Training, Teacher Training, Training Program