Instructional Accountability in the Turkish Context: A Qualitative Descriptive Analysis

Senyurt YENIPINAR
Aksaray University, Education Faculty, TURKEY
DOI: 10.14689/ejer.2021.91.12

ABSTRACT
Purpose: This study aimed at describing what occurs at the implementation of accountability in instruction by analysing the perceptions of the teachers who directly encounter and experience this phenomenon in instructional processes.
Research Methods: The data were collected using a phenomenology design, which is a type of qualitative research method through the semi-structured interview questions. The participants were teachers, who had different teaching experience periods in the varying school sizes in the villages, districts, and city centers at pre-school, primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary education levels between October and December in 2017. The data were analysed with content analysis and described with the direct quotations.
Findings: At the end of the study, it was revealed that the school stakeholders are not fully aware of instructional accountability and accounting processes do not run in the teachers’ working groups, an accountability mechanism is not formed in the Turkish Educational System and focusing on instructional accountability processes make teachers feel anxious for declining their creativity.
Implication for Research and Practice: Several suggestions including the enhancement of the stakeholders’ accountability awareness in education, the development of the accountability awareness in the teachers’ working groups, and forming an accountability mechanism in the Turkish Educational System, were made.
Keywords: Accountability, instruction, qualitative research, teachers