Investigation of teachers' attitudes towards teaching profession and alternative measurement and evaluation

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between middle school teachers' attitudes towards teaching profession and measurement and evaluation. The survey method was used in the research, which is one of the quantitative research methods. The population of the research is consist on 2734 secondary school teachers working in Battalgazi and Yeşilyurt districts of Malatya in the spring semester of 2018-2019 academic year. The sample of the study consists of 516 secondary school teachers selected from the universe using simple random sampling method. The teachers work in 25 different schools. In the research, "Attitude Scale for Teachers' Profession" developed by Demirel and Ünişen (2018) and "Attitude Scale for Measurement and Evaluation" developed by Çalışkan and Yazıcı (2013), which are two different 5-point Likert-type attitude scales, were used. The attitudes of secondary school teachers participating in the study towards the teaching profession and alternative assessment-evaluation were examined in terms of various variables. Those variables are gender, profession, professional seniority, weekly course hour load, graduated higher education institution and job satisfaction level. In order to determine whether there is a statistically significant difference, t-test, Mann Whitney U, one-way variance analysis, Kruskal Wallis, Pearson correlation and simple linear regression tests were performed. According to the test results, the attitudes of secondary school teachers towards their professions differ significantly in all dimensions of the scale in terms of gender and job satisfaction levels. However, in terms of seniority and graduated school type, only the valuing sub-dimension attitude scores were significantly different. In terms of teachers' weekly course hours and branch variables, there was no significant difference between the attitude points towards the teaching profession. Moreover, it was found out that the attitude scores towards the teaching profession were positive and high. It was found that attitude scores towards alternative measurement-evaluation differ significantly in all sub-dimensions in terms of seniority, branch and job satisfaction levels. It was determined that there was no significant difference according to the gender variable. A positive medium correlation was found between secondary school teachers' attitude scores towards teaching profession and towards alternative assessment and evaluation. In the research, the attitude points of the secondary school teachers towards the teaching profession explain the attitudes towards alternative measurement and evaluation by 19%. Based on all these results, activities and arrangements that will increase teachers' attitudes towards their professions and job satisfaction levels should be raised in order to change teacher attitudes positively towards alternative assessment and evaluation which is of great importance in the education system. After the results were interpreted in the research, suggestions related to the application and researchers were included. Keywords: Teaching Profession, Attitude, Alternative Measurement and Evaluation, Secondary School Teachers