The investigation of teachers' perceptions of quality of school life and attitudes and beliefs on classroom management

This research aimed to determine teachers' perceptions of quality of school life and attitudes and beliefs on classroom management and to examine throughly their opinions regarding how their perceptions of quality of school life affect their behaviors of classroom management. A mixed method which means using a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods in a particular research was used in this study. The population of the study consisted of all primary school, middle-school and high school teachers that have worked in Tercan which is a county of Erzincan. There was no need for sampling. All teachers that have worked in this county were tried to access in order to collect data. The quantitative data was gathered from a total of 198 teachers, 32 primary, 98 middle and 68 high, that participated in the study on a voluntary basis. In addition, 10 teachers who were determined by using maximum variation sampling method participated in the qualitative process of the study on a voluntary basis. The Quality of School Life Scale (QSLS) which was developed by Sarı (2007), The Attitudes and Beliefs on Classroom Control (ABCC) Inventory which was developed by Martin, Yin and Baldwin (1998) and translated into Turkish by Ekici (2008) and semi-structured interview form which was developed by the researcher were used in order to collect data. The data was collected during the 2nd semester of 2015-2016 academic years. In analyzing quantitative data, Mann Whitney U Test and Kruskall Wallis Analysis were employed as well as descriptive statistics. In addition, the content analysis methods were used to analyze qualitative data of the study. The results of the study show that teachers' perception about quality of school life is medium level and positive. Teachers perceive their own status and the school management more positively and their perceptions about the students are the most negative. The level of middle-school teachers' perceptions about school life quality is lower than primary and high school teachers. Teachers whose field of study is social scinces perceive quality of school life more positively than the other teachers. There is no significant difference in perception of the teachers about school life quality according to their genders and terms of office. The results also show that teachers employ interventionist attitude with regard to instructional management and interactionalist attitude about people and behavior management. There is no significant difference in attitudes and beliefs of the teachers about classroom management according to their genders, terms of office, fields and grades of study. The teachers who perceive the quality of shool life more positively have a more interactionalist attitude in the people management. Furthermore, there is no significant difference in attitudes and beliefs of the teachers on instructional and behavior management according to the level of their perceptions about quality of school life. According to the results of the study, positive feelings for the school affects teachers' behaviors with regard to instructional management positively and negative feelings causes that the teachers employ more interventionist attitude regarding people and behavior management. The positive relationship between the teachers provides that they feel more free and safe in the lessons and make interdisciplinary connections more easily. In addition, negative relationship decreases the productivity of the lessons by causing depression and nervousness. The healthy communication between teacher and student provides that the teachers are more active while managing the instuctions and more positive about discipline. However, the problems of communication between teacher and student causes that the teachers inclines away from the students and reacts more authoritatively in the classes. The structure of the curriculum force that the teachers give lessons towards examination and this situation causes some sensual impressions like anxiety, stress and tiredness on the teachers. The school principals' negative attitudes towards the teachers causes that the teachers behave more authoritatively in the lessons and cannot give the lessons effectively. In addition, their negative attitudes towards the students also direct the teachers to give the students shelter and make maintaining discipline difficult. The positive communication between teachers and parents create the desire of following the students and teaching on the teachers. The negative communication also causes that the teachers develop negative attitudes towards the students. Keywords: Quality of school life, classroom management, attitudes and beliefs on classroom management.