The opinions of teachers about the career ladders in teaching profession and the study of these opinions according to the individual variables

The purpose of this study is to determine the teachers? opinions about the career ladders in teaching profession and find out the differences in terms of gender, professional seniority, marital status, school type, professional branch, education, and number of inservice training activities that teachers joined. The population of the research consists of 3385 teachers working at 74 formal elementary schools and 23 high schools located at Bornova district of zmir, Turkiye. The research took place in 2006-2007 academic year and teachers working at 14 elementary schools and 5 high schools were included 33 % in the sample. The data were gathered by the ?The Opinions of Teachers About The Career Ladders in Teaching Profession? questionnaire developed by the researcher.The scale composed of three parts. First part contains general explanations about the questionnaire, the second part is for personal information about teachers, and the third part is the scale itself. Data analysis of the research includes frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test, the analysis of variance and LSD test. Findings of the research are summarized as follows: 1. In general, at all sub scales, teachers expressed their perception as ?disagree? and ?completely disagree?. 2. In terms of ?exam? sub scale, there is a significant difference between female and male teachers. The opinions of male teachers about the ?exam? sub scale are more positive than the opinions of female teachers. 3. A significant difference was found among teachers? opinions regarding to professional seniority at ?exam? sub scale. The teachers having 8-13 and 14- 19 year professional seniority have more positive opinions about the ?exam? sub scale than the teachers having 1-7 year professional seniority. 4. In terms of marital status, there isn?t a significant difference between the married and single teachers? opinions at any sub scales. 5. No significant difference was found between the elementary school teachers and high school teachers in terms of school type at all sub scales. 6. Regarding branch variable, there is no difference between the class teachers and subject teachers at all sub scales. 7. The teachers graduated from science and literature faculty, and the teachers having a master degree have more positive opinions in ?Advancing in Teaching Career Ladders? than the teachers graduated from the faculty of education and other faculties. 8. No significant difference was found among all groups in terms of number of inservice training activities at all sub scales.