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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 18, Issue 8, Article 5 (Jun., 2017) |
The sample consisted of 80 subject-specific science teachers (45 Males and 35 Females) drawn from the cities of Trabzon, Rize and Erzurum in Turkey. Because the author had worked as a chemistry teacher prior to continuing his career in the university, he invited his colleagues to participate in the current study through convenient sampling. All subject-specific teachers have been teaching independent-subject specific courses (physics- chemistry-biology teachers) in upper secondary schools (from grade 9 to grade 12) financed by Ministry of National Education. In point of Çalık (2016)’s view, newly released science curricula have changed measurement and assessment systems and asked teachers for taking part in in-service education concerning the alternative assessment. That is, in-service education and newly released science curricula foster these teachers to learn the alternative assessment techniques.
A survey developed by Okur (2008) was preferred in that it included ‘knowledge, frequency of usage, and preference’ sub-factors as a holistically alternative assessment. This survey was adapted and then administered to subject-specific science teachers on face-to-face meetings. The survey with three sub-headings measured their views of alternative assessment (knowledge, frequency of usage, and preference). The first sub-heading included a total of 21 items measuring teachers’ views of traditional and alternative assessments. The second one, which elicited how often teachers use alternative assessment (ranging from Frequently--3 points-- to Never--1 point) and how good they are at implementing alternative assessment (ranging from Competent--3 points to Incompetent--1 point). A 32-item third one drew out teachers’ attitudes towards the alternative assessment ranging from Strongly Agree (5 points) to Strongly Disagree (1 point). Its reliability coefficient was found to be 0.76 which is higher than the acceptable value suggested by Hair et al. (1998).
In analyzing data, descriptive analysis (Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2006) was employed for identifying how often the subject-specific science teachers use the alternative assessment and which of the alternative assessment techniques are frequently preferred. Also, how gender variable affects their preference and/or self-competency was analyzed via independent samples t-test through SPSS 15.0TM.
