An analysis of education given to in-service music teachers by Ministry of National Education in Turkey and determining the needs for in-service training of music teachers

This dissertation was to investigate professional development programs provided by National Ministry of Education for music teachers between 1960 and 2006. In the study, the programs were evaluated to the extent they fulfill the teachers in-service training needs quantitatively and qualitatively. This study aimed to reveal the focus and fidelity of developmental needs of music teachers from elementary and secondary schools in relation with their demographic indications, and to make recommendations based on the analysis of current data.The study consisted of three parts. First part was about the nature and characteristics of the professional development programs offered by National Ministry of Education between 1960 and 2006. Qualitative data was collected and analyzed using document analysis techniques in this section. The second part was an analysis of the academic instructors? opinions about of the HIE programme efforts collected by interviews. This part was to describe the interviews. The third section aimed to find out the differences in professional development needs by teachers? demographics, subjects and fields as well as the foci and fidelity of these needs, in present conditions. This section consisted of the data obtained from the music teachers, by using questionnaire method and the quantitative description of the data.Data was collected by ?Checklist? from the documents to develop a framework, a ?Semi-structured interview protocol? was used to collect information about instructor opinions and a ?questionnaire? was also used to gather data on the perceived needs of music teachers for in-service training. The survey forms were administered to 391 active music teachers from elementary and secondary schools in 21 provinces in 7 different geographic regions selected via stratified and clustered random sampling techniques. Descriptive methods were used to report the results from the analysis of qualitative data. The quantitative data was analysed by one-way Anova and t-test techniques and results were shown as frequency (f), percentage (%) and mean ( ). A level of .05 was picked for statistical significance.The results of the study were concluded within and between findings from different data sources. The findings showed that the quality and quantity of in-service teacher training attempts were inadequate. The teachers generally expressed their needs in the areas of subject matter, pedagogical content knowledge and general abilities on a medium level, and differences in needs of professional development programs were found in the areas of experience, prior experience in-service training, and past education.In conclusion, renovation of the in-service teacher training program was recommended to expand them in planning, content, application and enrollment as well as to provide on going professional development for music teachers.