Homeroom teachers' implementation of differentiated instructional design and competence in this design

Differentiated instruction has been put to work in recent years, both in the world and in our country's education system, in order to improve the quality of the curricula and to enable students to use their full potentials. In the planning and implementation of this design, teachers play the most important role. Teachers' proficiency and implementation levels are directly related to how well they plan and implement differentiated instructional design, and how they increase the quality of education. The aim of this research, which was designed in a quantitative design, is to determine teachers' levels of differentiated instruction implementation and competence. In line with the aim of the study, whether there is a significant difference between the implementation and competency levels of teachers according to the variables of teaching experience, educational background, career stage and the status of receiving training on differentiated instruction, and whether there is a significant relationship between implementation and competency levels were determined as the sub-problems to be answered. The universe of the research consists of 686 homeroom teachers working in public schools in the district of Avcılar in Istanbul in the 2022-2023 academic year. The sample of the study was determined as 250 with simple random sampling method. The research data were collected with the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher and the "Differentiated Instruction Implementation and Competency Level Scale" developed by Çam (2013). The obtained data were analyzed with arithmetic mean and standard deviation, independent t-test and Welch test. According to the findings, it was seen that teachers' implementation of differentiated instruction and their competency levels related to it were at a medium level. There was no significant difference in the level of implementation of differentiated instruction according to the variables of teaching experience and educational background. A significant difference was found in the levels of implementation of differentiated instruction according to the variables of career ladder and receiving training. There was no significant difference in teachers' levels of competence in differentiated instruction according to the variable of educational background. A significant difference was found in the competency levels of teachers regarding differentiated instruction according to the variables of teaching experience, career ladder and receiving training regarding differentiated instruction. The results obtained from the research were evaluated in the light of the literature, and suggestions were developed for researchers and practitioners.