Investigation of secondary school teachers' attitudes and competencies toward the use of museums in education

The aim of this study is to determine and study the attitudes and competence perception of secondary school teachers for the use of museums in education in terms of various factors. The study was conducted in the second semester of 2018-2019 educational year in Istanbul with a group of 330 teachers who worked at 15 different schools from 7 different districts. In this study "correlational survey model", one of the methods of "quantitative research" has been used. "The teacher's attitude scale for the use of museums in education" and "the teacher's competency scale for the use of museums in education" developed by the researcher were used for gathering data. The analysis of content validity, construct validity, discriminant validity and internal consistency reliability were done to determine the validity and reliability of the scales. Data were analysed in accordance with the aim of the study using statistical calculation programme. First, the suitability of the data to the normal distribution was analyzed and as a result parametric and nonparametric analysis were used. The general attitude level of secondary school teachers for the use of museums in education was found high, and the competence perception level was moderately sufficient. No differences were found between the attitude level of secondary school teachers for the use of museums in education, subscales and competency perception according to the variables of gender, years of seniority, education level (undergraduate, postgraduate), school types (secondary school, imamhatip secondary school) and subject matter taught. In the competency perception of secondary school teachers for the use of museums in education, their attitudes differed in most of the scale and the subscales of "student acquisition" and "voluntariness" for the favor of those who received trainings in the use of museums in education. According to the results of the study it has been suggested that the use of museums in lessons could be made widespread through regular in-service trainings and pre-service trainings for the teachers and providing them with hands-on trainings for skills to be able to plan museum visits for their subjects to increase their competency. Key Words: museum, museum education, secondary school teacher, competence, attitude