Teachers' perceptions of organizational change: Digital transformation in education

The purpose of this study is to explore the perspectives of teachers about educational change initiatives in Turkish Education System. In particular, it explores teachers' perception of Digital Transformation in Education [DTE] under four main themes; overall perception, emotion and attitude towards DTE, opinions about DTE process, and opinions about the outcome of DTE. The participants of the study were teachers working at public schools in Yozgat. This study adopted phenomenological research of the qualitative research method. The data of this study was collected through individual semi-structured interviews which were conducted with 27 teachers working at K-12 public schools. The interview questions were prepared by the researcher. Interview sessions were recorded and then transcribed by the researcher. Upon the analysis of the interview data, it was found that the general perceptions of the teachers towards organizational change were positive, their feelings and attitudes towards the particular organizational change, DTE, were positive and this change was found as contributing to the teachers professionally and bringing about positive changes in their interpersonal relations. When teachers' opinions about the process are examined, it was seen that teachers learn the educational change attempts via media and official correspondences. Their opinions on the successful implementation of the change attempt are mostly negative, teachers' opinions are not taken into consideration before implementation of the change process, attitudes of managers are influential in change. Due to the problems related to planning and implementation, and lack of infrastructure; the participants thought that the change process could not be implemented successfully. In terms of the results of organizational change, it was found out that digital transformation has more positive outcomes for teachers. KEYWORDS: Change, Organizational Change, Digital Transformation, Teachers, Qualitative Research