Relationship between academic optimism of classroom teachers and their application level of constructivist learning-teaching activities

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between academic optimism of classroom teachers and their application level of constructivist learning-teaching activities. The target population of this study is classroom teachers working state and private schools in Turkey. To reach the whole target population is challenging so in this study convenience sample and study groups were formed according to accessibility. While forming the sample group one province from each province was chosen. These provinces are: Tekirdağ, Muğla, Kahramanmaraş, Trabzon, Mardin, Malatya and Konya. The classroom teachers, totaling 630, were chosen from provinces are the sample of this study. In the study ,which relational research model was used, academic optimism (school form) and application scale of constructivist learning-teaching activities were used as data collection tools. These datum acquired by these scales is defined with the model of descriptive statistics techniques, explatory and confirmatory analysis. For definition of the findings in this study, these results were found out; based on the findings, a moderate and significant relationship was found between the points of collective efficacy sub-dimension of academic optimism scale and academic optimism scale [R = 0.619; R2=0.384; p ? .05]. A high level and significant relationship was found between the points of trust sub-dimension of academic scale and academic optimism scale [R = 0. 863; R2= 0. 744; p?.05]. A high level and significant relationship was found between the points of academic emphasis sub-dimension of academic optimism scale and academic optimism scale [R=0. 869; R2= 0. 755; p?.05]. When the correlation between the academic optimism scale and its sub-dimensions was analyzed, a relationship of .62 with collective efficacy, .86 with trust and .87 with academic emphasis was found. The moderate relationship of .38 between academic optimism and application level of constructivist learning-teaching activities was found. According to the results obtained from the structural equation modeling conducted to analyze the relationship between academic optimism and application level of constructivist learning-teaching activities, ? ²/ sd ratio was found as 3.168. RMSEA was 0.059. CFI was 0.97. RMR value was 0.031. SRMR value was found as 0.055. NFI value was found 0.95 and NNFI was found 0.97. When the findings were analyzed according to demographic variables, the relationship between the trust and academic emphasis sub-dimensions of academic optimism scale was found significant in terms of gender variable. The average points of males were higher than those of the females. Moreover, the averages of collective efficacy dimension of teachers who stated that they have a high command of the new education curriculum were high. A statistically significant difference in terms of gender variable was found between the sub-dimension components of academic optimism scale (Wilks' Lambda = 0.983; F = 3.513; p ?.05). The effect of partial eta squared value was found very low in the sub-dimensions of gender variable of academic optimism scale: collective efficacy (.002), trust (.015) and academic emphasis (.012). A statistically significant difference was found between the academic optimism scale and components of application scale of constructivist learning-teaching activities in terms of gender variable (Wilks' Lambda = 0.985; F = 4.777; p < 0.05). The joint effect of regions where classroom teachers are working and teachers? status of in-service training about the new program on the points of collective efficacy sub-dimension of academic optimism scale was found significant [F(1. 626) = 6.848; p (.009) < 0.05]. Key Words: Academic optimism, Constructivist learning, Optimism, Classroomteachers, Instruction-learning activities