Teachers' feelings towards their professions and the effect of teachers' feelings on their teaching approaches

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of teachers' feelings toward their profession on the teaching approaches they use. For this purpose, firstly, the feelings of the teachers towards their profession were determined and it was examined whether these feelings changed according to the variables of gender, level of duty, seniority, place of duty and level of education. In the next stage, the teachers' level of use of teaching approaches was determined and it was examined whether the level of use of these approaches differed according to the variables of teachers' gender, level, seniority, place of duty and level of education. Finally, the effect of teachers' feelings towards their profession on their teaching approaches was determined. The sample of the research consists of 300 teachers working in official kindergartens, primary schools, secondary schools and high schools in Giresun province in the 2023-2024 academic year. The scales used in the study are the "Teaching Approaches Scale" and the "Teachers' Feelings Towards Their Profession Inventory" which was developed by the researcher. Descriptive analyses, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Pearson correlation analysis and structural equation model were used in the analysis phase. According to the research results, the emotions of teachers towards their profession in Turkish culture were determined as anxiety, happiness, sadness, hope, anger, pride, love, patience, responsibility, disappointment and shame. Both the emotions of anxiety, sadness, anger, frustration, and shame, and the emotions of happiness, pride, hope, love, patience, and responsibility have each formed meaningful relationships with the emotions within their own group in a positive direction. In terms of demographic variables, statistically significant differences were found between male and female teachers in terms of feelings of sadness, pride and responsibility towards their profession, and female teachers were found to have higher mean scores. No statistically significant difference was found between the two groups for other emotions. No statistically significant difference was found between teachers according to educational status for all emotion scales. No significant statistical difference was found between teachers working at different levels except for feelings of love and responsibility; preschool teachers reported significantly higher levels of feelings of love and responsibility than primary and secondary school teachers. On the other hand, it was determined that teachers used both teacher-centered and student-centered teaching approaches at a high level. No significant statistical difference was found in the levels of teaching approaches according to the gender, educational status and stage variables of the teachers. Finally, no significant relationship was found between teaching approaches and anxiety, frustration and shame scales; structural equation modeling was applied between the emotions that had a significant relationship and teaching approaches. According to the analysis results, the emotions of happiness, responsibility, love, sadness and anger formed a model with the student-centered teaching dimension; the emotions of hope, pride and patience formed a model with the teacher and student-centered teaching dimensions. Accordingly, while teachers' feelings of hope, pride and patience towards their profession affect both teaching approaches, feelings of happiness, responsibility, love, sadness and anger affect student-centered teaching approaches.