Teachers' evaluations and recommendations for technology supported teacher professional development

In this century, technology which is rapidly and continuously changing the way things are done, is not only becoming a part of our daily life but also being very effective in every field especially in education. The Ministry of National Education has established the technological infrastructure of schools ensuring the development of software to be used by carrying out an educational change with FATİH project. Professional development needs raised for new technologies used in this project made the ministry to organize face-to-face and later distance in-service training activities. Technology supported professional development (TSPD) is an in-service training method that is realized through distance education by integrating learning materials such as prints, graphics, animation, audio and video in an interactive structure and providing access to the generated content over Internet. It is stated that in TSPD environments; motivation, Internet self-sufficiency, perceived usefulness and perceptions of behavioral intention are positive and not perceiving computer anxiety can make learning successful. Perceptions and evaluations related to FATİH project teacher trainings until now express the success of activities. In this study, teachers participating in the organized in-service distance education namely the Interactive Classroom Management (ICM) Technology-Supported Teacher Professional Development activities (TSPDA) evaluate factors influencing acceptance of web-based e-learning such as motivation, computer self-efficacy, perceived usefulness, behavioral intention towards the activities they participated in, and give suggestions for similar future programs. In this thesis study, a convergent parallel design mixed research method is used. The universe of the research constitutes of teachers in Aksaray province Anadolu High Schools who have completed ICM TSPDA given by Ministry of Education in 2016-2017 education year. For quantitative research, 271 teachers were identified by simple random sampling method; a study group of 30 teachers were identified using an easily accessible case study for qualitative part of the research; using criterion sampling techniques. Chen and Tseng (2012)'s "Web-based Factors Affecting E-learning" translated into Turkish by the researcher was used as the data collection tool in the quantitative part of the research. In the qualitative section, the semi-structured interview form designed by Taşlıbeyaz et al. (2014) was used to determine their perceptions and satisfactions. In the quantitative research, descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage distribution, mean and standard deviations) analysis and in qualitative research document analysis was used. As a result, the teachers claimed to be partially motivated by the ICM TSPDA. Moreover, it can be said that the teachers' self-efficacy of Internet is high, and computer anxiety is low, which can positively affect success in distance in-service education. Teachers' views on perceived usefulness and behavioral intention factors are "partially-agreeing". It can be said that preference of TSPD depends on responding teachers' interests and needs, flexibility and comfort of educational environment, positive attitude towards teacher's willingness and effectiveness of education. However, a large majority of teachers appears to expect a tangible reward after the TSPD. In TSPD or face-to-face in-service education, it is suggested to provide motivational awards such as salary increase, seniority, change of title, promotion in professional career or appreciation letter which may increase the motivation of teachers. In addition, efforts to prepare sustainable personalized technical support and guiding environments should be undertaken as teachers have indicated that they are receiving help from family members and close friends to overcome technological problems.