The cases of dependence of Turkish teachers on coursebooks

Teaching materials are one of the important elements of teaching and learning process. Especially, using coursebooks plays a distinct important role since they are the class materials that are used the most commonly and frequently. It is very crucial to examine the cases of the dependence of teachers on coursebooks in Turkish teaching. Thus, the present study aims to analyse the cases of the dependence of Turkish teachers on coursebooks. The analysis of the literature showed that there is no study that is based on scaling the cases of the dependence of Turkish teachers on coursebooks. Therefore, a scale development process was carried out in order to analyse the dependence of Turkish teachers on coursebooks. The item pool was created by scanning the literature, taking expert opinions and doing focus group interviews. The universe of the research consisted of Turkish teachers working in Gaziantep and the sample of the research consisted of 263 Turkish teachers working in the central districts of Gaziantep (Şahinbey, Şehitkâmil). After the item pool creation was completed, the pre – testing studies and the pilot studies were realised. After that, the exploratory factor analysis was done and four – sub dimensions were found out. The confirmatory factor analysis was done in order to confirm the structure emerged by the exploratory factor analysis. The result of the analysis indicated that the scale has consistence and the model was confirmed (RMSEA=,065, GFI=,88, AGFI=,845, CFI=,953, NFI=,913). Ultimately, a reliable and valid scale was acquired. The final form of the scale was applied to 263 Turkish teachers. The dependence of Turkish teachers on Turkish coursebooks was determined by the average score of dependence and it was examined whether there was any significant difference among their dependence in terms of gender, age, service year, graduation faculty and education level. The total average score of 263 Turkish teachers that took part in the research was 62.80. The results indicated that the Turkish teachers depended on Turkish coursebooks in the rate of %59.81. It was also found out that there was a significant difference among their dependence on Turkish coursebooks in terms of age, service year and education level and that there was no significant difference among them in terms of gender and graduation faculty. Key Words: Dependence on coursebook, scale development, coursebook, teacher guidebook, student workbook.