Teachers' opinions and self-efficacy perceptions on the changes made by the Ministry of National Education in the field of measurement and evaluation

The Ministry of National Education (MoNE) implemented a series of changes at the beginning of the 2023-2024 academic year in the field of assessment and evaluation, covering primary education and secondary education. Although these changes were carried out centrally by MoNE, it is essential to determine whether the educators who apply these changes in practice have adopted these views, their awareness stage, and their perceptions of self-efficacy in the subjects that have been changed. Examining teachers' perceptions and attitudes towards these innovations offers important information for both better understanding and guiding educational policies and supporting the professional development of teachers. The primary purpose of this study is to examine teachers' opinions and self-efficacy perceptions regarding the changes made by the Ministry of National Education in the field of assessment and evaluation and to test whether there are statistically significant differences in the determined opinions and self-efficacy perceptions according to demographic (gender) and professional variables (school type, education level, type of school graduated from, branch, teacher-administrator status). Survey research, one of the quantitative research methods, was used as the research model. The study population consists of public and private school teachers working in Sakarya province during the 2023-2024 academic year, and the sample consists of 564 teachers and administrators. The data collection tool consists of a questionnaire developed by the researcher and consists of four parts (volunteer form, personal information form, opinion, and self-efficacy questionnaire). Since the implemented changes vary according to the educational stages, self-efficacy research was conducted with different questions in the fourth part of the questionnaire. For this reason, the data collection tool contains 38 items for educators working in pre-school and primary schools and 45 items for educators working in secondary and high schools. The data were collected and analyzed online via Microsoft Forms. Frequency and percentage values and Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis tests were used in the analyses. Additionally, JASP 0.18.3 was used for descriptive statistics, and Microsoft Excel programs were used for graphical representations. According to the research, while educators' level of approval of the changes was found to be moderate, it was observed that administrators found the changes more appropriate than teachers. Among the changes, it is seen that the participants mostly agree with the statement "the teacher should be more involved in the process when determining the subject question distribution table (table of specifications)." while they least agree with the item "I think the exam week practice prevents the processing of my lessons.". According to the results of the research, Turkish and Turkish language and literature (TLL) teachers find the implementation of examinations across four skills less appropriate than foreign language teachers. Differences were detected for all variables in the opinions regarding the changes made by the MoNE. In the second part of the research, the self-efficacy perception levels of educators working in pre-school and primary schools and educators working in secondary and high schools were quite high. While the self-efficacy perception levels of administrators working in pre-schools and primary schools were found to be higher than those of administrators working in middle and high schools, the opposite was observed for teachers, with those working in middle and high schools having higher self-efficacy perception levels than those in preschool and primary schools. At all levels, administrator perceptions were higher than teacher perceptions. According to the research, it was determined that educators' self-efficacy perception levels on the issues addressed in the changes were higher than their participation levels regarding the changes. In addition, no statistically significant difference was found in educators' self-efficacy perception levels regarding the changes based on whether they were teachers or administrators or worked in public or private schools. While statistical differences were found in educators' self-efficacy perception levels regarding the changes according to gender, education level, and graduated faculty, no differences were found in educators working in pre-school and primary schools according to branch, but differences were found in educators working in secondary and high schools.