The relationship of career ladder practice with teachers' professional development and professional motivation

The aim of this research, is to reveal the relationship between the new teaching career steps application and the professional development and professional motivation of teachers. For this purpose, data were collected from 414 teachers, 144 teachers, 226 specialist teachers, 38 head teachers, who volunteered in the city center of Düzce in the 2022-2023 academic year. Data were collected by quantitative relational survey method from the participants. In this direction, the scale that was prepared on Google Forms and consisted of three part, was directed to the participants. In the first part of this scale, participants have been asked about their demographic characteristics. In the second part, the Teachers' Professional Development Self-Efficacy Scale developed by Yenen and Kılınç (2021); and in the third part, the Motivation Scale of Teachers developed by Yıldız and Taşgın (2020) was used. The collected data were transferred to the SPSS 25.0 program for analysis. Afterward, the t-Test and ANOVA test were applied to determine the level of effect between the variables. Tukey, Gabrşel and Games-Howell tests were used to calculate the size of the effect. Also, Pearson correlation analysis was used to examine if there was a relationship between the variables. Additionally, regression analysis was used to determine to prediction extent of variables on each other. As a consequence of the analysis, the findings revealed that the teachers need most detected as spatial development, institutional development of female teachers is lower than male teachers and younger teachers is lower than older teachers, taking postgraduate education and voluntary participation in in-service training have a positive effect on the professional development of teachers, career steps affect the professional development of teachers positively, career steps application does not have a significant effect on the motivation of teachers regarding professional satisfaction and personal development and also the motivation of the teaching process and students, the low relationship is observed between career steps and institutional development, no significant relationship is observed between career steps and other development areas and professional motivation, career steps do not significantly predict other improvement areas and professional motivation except institutional development. According to the findings, it has been revealed that variables such as gender, age, postgraduate education and participation in in-service training could affect professional development and professional motivation, while career steps on professional development but not professional motivation. Suggestions have been made for practitioners and researchers regarding the revealed results. Keywords: Professional development, Professional motivation, Teaching career steps