Examination of teachers' emotional adjustment levels (Example of Elazig province)

The events, facts or situations that people encounter in the life process, who are emotional beings, both affect the emotions of the individual and can affect the emotions of the individuals and their lives. Emotional adjustment levels of teachers who direct and shape the future of countries and societies are both affected by their school life and can affect their school life. Studies to determine the emotional adaptation levels of teachers and to eliminate the negativities they experience in this sense are very important in terms of increasing the efficiency of the education-teaching process and the happiness of all stakeholders of the education process. In this study, it was aimed to determine the emotional adjustment levels of teachers. The universe of the research consists of teachers working in pre-school, primary, secondary and high schools in the city center of Elazig in the 2022-2023 academic year, while the sample of the research consists of 24 teachers who voluntarily participated in the study. In the preparation of the research, phenomenological design, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used. "Semi-structured interview form for determining teachers' emotional adjustment levels", consisting of seven open-ended questions and developed by the researcher, was used as a data collection tool in the research. Semi-structured interview forms were applied to the teachers through face-to-face interviews by the researcher, and the interview process was recorded with the approval of the teachers. The data obtained during the interview process were transferred to the NVivo 12 program and evaluated by content analysis method. As a result of the research, it was stated that the teachers expressed the feelings and bodily reactions they encountered in their professional and private lives as emotions; they generally observe their emotional states in the classroom and school environment; In the school environment, it was determined that they mostly felt positive emotions such as happiness, energy and excitement, as well as negative emotions such as anger, fatigue and uneasiness. It has been determined that teachers generally avoid reflecting their true feelings to their administrators and teacher friends, and that they reflect these feelings to the students, with whom they communicate more and spend most of their time. It has been determined that teachers often exhibit a different emotional structure than they have when dealing with students in the school environment, they make an effort to display the emotions expected from them in school and classroom environments, and instead of reflecting their real emotions, they suppress their real emotions and display a different emotional structure that is expected from them. As a result, it can be said that teachers have high levels of emotional adjustment, they suppress their negative emotions in order not to have problems in their working life, to prevent the deterioration of their existing relations with the school administration and teachers, and to be accepted in the school environment, and they ignore the situations that cause negative emotions in them. Keywords: Emotional Adjustment, School, Education, Teacher, Emotion