Evaluation of the teachers' perceptions about accountability in education and organizational trust in the context of high-stakes exams: The Rize case

Educational and instructional activities, one of the most crucial organizations that affects the social life, were defined as an operation field radical changes applied throughout the history. Increasing the quality of education in a rapidly modernizing and globalising world glitters the stakeholders of the education as an important issue. The notion of the accountability is one of the concepts set forth in order to increase the quality of education. The exams, defined as high - stakes exams, and started to be applied in the United States of America and opened new discussions on the educational activities. In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the effect of the high – stakes exams which were applied in 2023 – 2024 Educational Year by Ministry of National Education on high school's teachers perceptions for accountability and organizational trust. The participants of this study, conducted correlativelty with the principles of quantitiative research method, were selected by criterion sampling method, one of the sampling method, in accordance with the aims of the study. The study group of the research, which was administered with a phenemonology design, consisted of ten teachers who serve as Turkish Language and Literature and Mathematic teachers in the Central district of Rize province and at the selected schools in the 2024 – 2025 Educational Year. The research data was collected using semi – structered interview form developed by the researcher. The collected data was transformed into findings by using descriptive and content analysis methods. Participants' opinions were evaluated under the themes of as follows: Opinions on the concept of accountability and the place of the accountability in the education, opinions on the accountability practicies in Turkey, opinions on accountability of the stakeholders in the education, opinions on the elements of the trust, opinions on the trust provider elements affecting the trust relationships, opinions on the high – stakes exams and their effects on the educational system, possible effects of high – stakes exams on teachers' perceptions of accountability and organizational trust, opinions on centralization on education and governalization of the exams. Results of the research revealed that majority of the teachers defined the notion of accountability in the educational activities at the context of responsibility, the accountability is propounded in different roles in the educational activites and bureaucratic accountability is the most powerful accountability sub – dimension of the accuntability in practice. Majority of the teachers claimed that the level of the accountability practices of the organizations they work for is sufficient while the organizational trust is created with the aid of obvious elements in an organization. Participants defined the notion of the organizational trust at the core of element of transparency. Teachers put a group of positive and negative arguments at the topic of role and the effect of the high – stakes exams on educational system and the effect of the high – stakes exams on organizational trust.