The analysis of teachers' teaching styles based on the theory of successful intelligence (Example of Diyarbakır city)

The purpose of this research is to determine teachers' teaching styles based on the theory of successful intelligence. Successful intelligence theory developed by Sternberg aims at developing metacognitive abilities og individuals both in academic their studies and in their life. Within the aim of this research, the Teaching Styles for Successful Intelligence Questionnaire (TSI-Q) including 23 items, and developed by Palos and Maricutoui (2006) was adapted to Turkish. The sample of this research was composed of 273 teachers from six different branches working at high schools. In the linguistic equivalence study, it was obtained that there were strong, positive and significant correlations between responses of the participants to the English and Turkish forms of the scale. The construct validity of the TSI-Q's Turkish form was tested by means of exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). According to the results of EFA, a four-factor structure explaining 61% of total variance was parallel to the original form of the scale. The fit indice reported in CFA were ratified this four-factor structure. The emerging factors were called as memory, analytical thinking, reproductive thinking and practical thinking as in the original form of the scale. Within the scope of the reliability, Cronbach's alpha internal consistency coefficient of the TSI-Q was calculated .95, and internal consistency coefficients for subscales was respectively found out .82, .83, .86 and .87. The item analysis result revealed that item total correlations were over the threshold value of .30. At the second stage, the data was analysed in accordance with the variables of gender, education level, branch, and seniority descriptively. In order to analyze the data obtained from the research, descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard variation), independent sampling t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Scheffe and LSD tests were used. No signifacant differences were found between opinions of teachers towards their teaching styles based on the theory of successful intelligence in terms of variables. However, it was discovered that within the framework of successful intelligence theory, the self-perceptions of the teachers on their teaching styles were quite high. Within the context of the successful intelligence; creating an awareness for analytical, creative and practical thinking skills of the teachers plays significant role in increasing the quality of education in modern educational systems. Key Words: Theory of successful intelligence, teaching styles, memory skills, analytical thinking, creative thinking, practical thinking.