Investigating the Goal Orientations for Teaching of Teachers in Turkey According to Different Variables

The research aimed to examine the teachers' goal orientations for teaching in terms of different variables. The relational survey method was used in the research. The participants of this research consists of 496 teachers. The “Goal Orientations for Teaching Scale” developed by Butler and Shibaz (2014) and adapted into Turkish by Yıldız Saban and Baştuğ (2016) was used as a data collecting tool. The scale consists of four sub-dimensions which are the ability approach, mastery, student relations, and work avoidance. The teachers who volunteered to participate in the research filled out the prepared data collection tool over the internet. While analyzing the data; mean, standard deviation, mode, median, skewness, and kurtosis values of each sub-dimension were calculated. Pearson correlation was used to determine the relationship between sub-dimensions. Independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to determine the effect of gender, educational level, years of work experience, branch, and weekly course load on the goal orientations for the teaching of teachers. According to the findings; there was a low linear correlation between student relations, mastery and ability approach goal orientations. A low level of a linear relationship between the ability approach and work avoidance goal orientations has been found. As a result of the difference tests, it was determined that the dimensions of mastery and work avoidance differed according to gender, while the mastery and ability approach differed according to the education level, and ability approach and work avoidance differed according to weekly course load.


INTRODUCTION
The attention and care of students in the learning process are linked to the atmosphere of the class and the standard of educational learning settings greatly impacts the motives of students (Yıldızlı, Saban & Baştuğ, 2016). Although a stimulating environment for the person to learn is the learning setting, it is also an area for the instructor to be encouraged to educate. As per Jesus and Lens (2005), for three main reasons, eagerness and motivation of teachers are essential issues in the educational plan: the motivation of the teacher has an essential influence on student morale, and it is essential for the implementation of educational changes, and it is critical for themselves to be content and happy. Considering the literature of motivation, the information allows us to gain fresh perspectives regarding incentives of teachers to choose to pursue the teaching as a profession, their goals for future professional practice and advancement opportunities, future vocational plans, and effects on pupil's learning and achievement (Richardson & Watt, 2010). The principle of expectancy- Butler (2007) gathers teachers' goal orientation in the teaching process under four factors such as mastery, ability approach (i.e., performance approach), ability avoidance (i.e., performance avoidance), and work avoidance. According to Elliot (2005), the goal orientations are expressed as teachers' efforts which are cognitively represented for the specific goals during the teaching process. Teachers seeking mastery goal orientation, looking to enhance their professional skills, assess their professional skills based on task demands and prior outcomes (Mansfield & Beltman, 2014). Teachers with the ability-approach goal aim to show their superior teaching skills to their colleagues, while those with the ability-avoidance goal tend to avoid showing low teaching skills (George & Richardson, 2019). Finally, teachers with a work-avoidance goal are motivated to reduce their workload and effort made for a specific work (Mascret, Elliot & Cury, 2017). Butler (2012) expanded the teachers' goal-orientation model, which was a four-factor framework, by introducing the dimension of student relations. Teachers who adopt student relations goal orientation care about establishing personal relationships with students and strive to make them feel that they are sincere and value them (Butler, 2012).
Goal orientations guide thoughts, behaviors, and emotions (Schutz, Crowder & White, 2001). Teachers with different goal orientations for teaching play a role as social agents who affect the determination of the students' individual goal orientation by creating a particular motivational environment in the classroom (Dresel, Fasching, Steuer, Nitsche & Dickhäuser, 2013;Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011). Teachers' goal orientation for teaching directly affects teaching activities, students' perceptions about these activities, as well as students' learning and motivation (Butler & Shibaz, 2014;Dresel et al., 2013;Kucsera, Roberts, Walls, Walker & Svinicki, 2011;Retelsdorf & Günther 2011;Schiefele & Schaffner, 2015;Wolters & Daugherty, 2007). It can be seen from the relevant literature that teachers' goal orientation for teaching influences not just their teaching motivation but also the motivation of their students to learn and their perception of learning activities. This condition is considered as having a significant role on all educational levels in terms of the quality of teaching service.
The researches in the literature reveal the relationship between teachers' goal orientation and various variables. Teachers' mastery goal orientation is a significant predictor of teacher commitment (Han, Yin & Wang, 2016), student-centered teaching understanding (Han, Yin & Wang, 2015), helpseeking behaviors, cognitively stimulating instructions (Butler, 2007;Butler & Shibaz, 2014). There is a positive relationship between mastery goal orientation and "perceived teacher support for students asking questions and help-seeking" (Butler & Shibaz, 2008), "high self-efficacy perception for teaching" (Nitsche, Dickhauser, Fasching, & Dresel, 2011). Besides, negative relationships were observed between mastery goal orientation and student perceptions regarding teachers' prevention of seeking help and asking questions (Butler & Shibaz, 2008) and stress and professional burnout (Fasching, Dresel, Dickhäuser & Nitsche, 2010). It has been observed that there is a positive relationship between ability approach goal orientation and loyalty to students and teaching (Han, Yin & Wang, 2016). Teachers with goal orientation of the ability approach perceive help-seeking positively (Butler, 2007). Teachers who have work avoidance goal orientation are determined with characteristics of having higher social norms, supporting more shallow learning strategies (Retelsdorf & Gunther, 2011), having less commitment to their students (Han, Yin, & Wang, 2016), making less investment in their students and wishing to finish working days with the least workload (Butler, 2012). Significant relationships between student relations goal orientation and different teaching practices/approaches of teachers were also revealed (Butler, 2012). Furthermore, student relations goal orientation is the only goal orientation that predicts the outcome of social support, a framework that determines the relationship between teacher and student (Butler & Shibaz, 2014). Related researches show that teachers' goal orientation for teaching is related to classroom behaviors and various psychological variables. Nevertheless, very little yet understood regarding how contextual and personal factors form the teachers' goal orientation for teaching. To understand the factors that affect teachers' motivation in educational environments, it is important to consider teachers' goal orientation for teaching. At the same time, it is assumed that further empirical research should be conducted to document the variables that play a significant role in the goal orientation of teachers for teaching in different cultures. By taking into account the fact that the researches about goal orientation for the teaching of teachers in Turkey are limited in number (Saban & Yıldızlı, 2017;Yıldızlı, Saban & Baştuğ, 2016), the current research was planned to be carried out in the different provinces of Turkey with teachers working in different branches and was intended to examine the teachers' goal orientations for teaching.
To this end, answers were sought to the following questions: 1) What are the levels of teachers' goal orientation for teaching? 2) Is there a relationship between goal orientations? 3) Do goal orientations differ according to gender, educational background, years of work experience, branch, and weekly course load?

METHOD
This section includes details on the design of the research, the participants, the tool for data collection, data collecting procedure, and data analysis.

Research Model
In the research, a relational survey model, which is a subtype of the general survey model, was applied in order to examine teachers' goal orientations for teaching in terms of different variables (gender, educational background, years of work experience, branch, and weekly course load) and to demonstrate to relationship between goal orientations. Using this model, attempts have been made to evaluate the direction and extent to which the relationships between two or more variables change (Karasar, 2014).

Participants
The participants of this research were all teachers working in various provinces of Turkey in the 2017-2018 academic year, which consists of 496 people. 59.7% (n=296) of the participants are female and 40.3% (n=200) are male. 24.2% (n=120) of teachers work in basic sciences and 75.8% (n=376) of them work in social sciences. Considering their educational status, 9.9% of them received postgraduate education and 90.1% of them received undergraduate education. The years of work experience of 14.1% (n=70) is between 1-5 years, 23.6% (n=117) of them worked for 6-10 years, 19.8% (n=98) of them worked for 11-15 years and 42.5% (n=211) of them worked for 15 years and more. Considering the course hours they have in a week, 13.9% (n=69) of them have 6-15 hours, 21% (n=104) of them have 15-25 hours, 40.3% (n=200) of them have 25-30 hours, and 24.8% (n=123) of them have 30 and more hours.

Data Collecting Tool
In the research, "Goal Orientations for Teaching Scale", which was developed by Butler and Shibaz (2014) and adapted to Turkish by Yıldızlı, Saban, and Baştuğ (2016), was utilized. The scale consists of four sub-dimensions. These sub-dimensions are "student relations", "mastery", "ability approach" and "work avoidance". Butler (2012) explained the goal orientation of teachers in the teaching process as follows: • The teaches who have student relations goal orientation, aim to establish good relations with the students, to show that they value them and to behave sincerely; • Teachers, who have mastery goal orientation, aim to learn and develop professional skills; • Teachers who have the ability approach goal orientation aim to show their superior teaching skills; • The teachers, who have work avoidance goal orientation, aim to finish the day with little effort.
The scale is a Likert type scale and the participants were asked to select the most appropriate one among the options between 1-never agree and 5-fully agree for the statements of the scale items. In the adaptation study, the reliability of the student relations factor has found as α =.673, the reliability of the mastery factor as α =.638, reliability of ability approach factor as α =.787, reliability of work avoidance factor as α =.605 and the reliability of whole-scale as α =.761. In this study, the reliability of the student relations factor is α =.792, the reliability of the mastery factor is α =.770, reliability of ability approach factor is α =.816, reliability of work avoidance factor is α =.792 and the reliability of the whole-scale is α =.751. Since the coefficients of scale validity are over 70, it was concluded that the questionnaires were reliable (Büyüköztürk, 2006;Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).

Data Collecting Procedure
The research is limited to 496 teachers working in Turkey in the 2017-2018 academic year in various cities, and it is limited to quantitative data collected from these teachers using the "Goal Orientations for Teaching Scale". After taking the permission of the school principals, the data collection tool created in google form was delivered to teachers from instant messaging applications. Teachers were reminded that participating in the research was voluntary and that the results of this research could also only be used for scientific purposes, and their personal information will be protected and secured. The teachers who volunteered to participate in the research filled out the prepared data collection tool over the internet. The online data collection tool includes a Personal Information Form and Goal Orientations for Teaching Scale. The instruction was given to teachers to complete the surveys and explained in the google form to avoid any confusion. The justification helped to a great extent to reduce biased feedback. Researchers checked the completed surveys via google drive website.

Data Analysis
While analyzing the data of the research, firstly, the mean, standard deviation, mode, median, skewness, and kurtosis values of each sub-dimension were calculated and after analyzing the distribution, it was decided to apply parametric tests. Pearson correlation was applied to determine the relation of sub-dimensions with each other. Independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were conducted to determine the effect of gender, educational status, years of work experience, branch, and weekly course load on teachers' goal orientation for teaching. While multiple comparison techniques were used to determine the difference between groups during the oneway analysis of variance, the Games-Howell test was preferred because the variances of the mean values of the variables and the sample numbers were not equal (Kayri, 2009). To determine the effect of independent variables on dependent variables Cohen's d value was calculated (Cohen, 1988;Sawilowsky, 2009).

FINDINGS
Analyzes were performed and summarized in the tables in this section to show the the levels of teachers' goal orientation for teaching, the relationship between goal orientations, and the teachers' goal orientations for teaching in terms of different variables.
In the first question of the research, the levels of teachers' goal orientation for teaching were tried to be determined. The data regarding the levels of teachers' goal orientation for teaching are provided in Table 1. In Table 1 which shows the values regarding the sub-dimensions of teachers' goal orientation for teaching, the mean score of the answers provided by the teachers to the items belonging to the subdimensions is mastery ( ̅ = 4.50), student relations ( ̅ = 4.30), ability approach ( ̅ = 3.63) and work avoidance ( ̅ = 2.28) respectively. This situation reveals that the teachers agreed with the items included in the mastery and ability dimension in their goal orientation. Even they were close to the status of agreeing with items of ability approach dimension, at the same time, they were indecisive about this status and they were not agreed with the work avoidance dimension. The mean values indicate that the teachers involved in the research plan their educational activities based on their professional knowledge to enhance their teaching and establish relationships with their students. Given the professional challenges they encountered, however, it was found that they did not tend to avoid work they did not agree with the related statements in the scale.
To determine which tests can be applied for analyzing the data; the values of mean, mode, median, skewness, and kurtosis of the variables that are the basis of the study were calculated. When we look at the distribution of the scores of the sub-dimensions, mean, mode, and median values are close to each other, and the skewness and kurtosis values indicate whether the series is normally distributed or not. The skewness and kurtosis coefficients are between +1 and -1, so this indicates that the data showed a normal distribution (Büyüköztürk, 2006;Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013).
In the second question of the research, the direction and level of the relationship between the sub-dimensions of teachers' goal orientation for teaching were tried to be determined. The data regarding these relationships are provided in Table 2. When the relations between the sub-dimensions of the teachers ' goal orientation for teaching are evaluated according to the data in Table 2, it is found that there is a low linear correlation between the sub-dimensions of the student relations, mastery and ability approach and these three subdimensions operate together. A low level of a linear relationship between the ability approach subdimension and the work avoidance sub-dimension (r =.277) has been found.
To observe whether teachers' goal orientation for teaching change according to the gender, education level and branch, years of work experience and weekly course load; independent samples ttest was conducted to determine whether teachers' goal orientation for teaching varies according to gender, educational status, and branch, while one-way analysis of variance performed to observe if these goal orientations change according to the years of work experience and course load. According to Table 3, teachers' goal orientation for teaching has a statistically significant difference in favor of women in mastery sub-dimension (p =.022). In other words, female teachers could be said to show higher mastery skills in educational and training activities than male teachers. In the work avoidance sub-dimension, the mean of male teachers is higher than female teachers in a statistically significant way (p =.003), in other words, it was concluded that male teachers tend to avoid professional problems more than their female peers. Cohen's d values calculated for the gender variable's effect on differentiation in both dimensions (d =.22 and d =.29) and it has shown that the effect observed is low (Cohen, 1988;Sawilowsky, 2009). Independent group t-test findings which were conducted to assess whether teachers' goal orientations differentiate according to their educational status are provided in Table 4. In the Mastery (p= .016) and ability approach (p = .013) sub-dimensions, the mean scores of teachers who completed their postgraduate education are higher than the teachers who completed their undergraduate degree in a statistically significant way. Cohen d values which are calculated to determine educational status' effect on differentiation (d =.28 and d =.32) show that the effect observed is low (Cohen, 1988;Sawilowsky, 2009). Independent group t-test findings which were conducted to assess whether teachers' goal orientations differentiate according to their branches are provided in Table 5. The branches of teachers are grouped as social sciences (Turkish, Turkish Language, and Literature, Social Studies, History, Philosophy, Class Education, Religious Studies, English, German, Physical Education) and basic sciences (Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Primary School Mathematics, Science, Informatics Tech., Geography) and the significance of the difference between these two groups was examined. According to the test's findings, the goal orientations of the teachers participating in the research do not differentiate according to the branch.  Table 6 demonstrates the findings of one-way variance analysis to evaluate whether the goal orientations of the teachers for teaching vary due to their years of work experience. According to the results of the analysis, the professional seniority of teachers does not make a statistical difference in their goal orientation for teaching. Nevertheless, when the mean scores of the teachers' answers to the questions in the sub-dimensions are roughly measured, the student relations, mastery, and ability approach increase as the professional experience increases, whereas the mean score in the subdimension of work avoidance declines as the professional experience increases. The results of one-way analysis of variance to assess whether the teachers' goal orientation for teaching varies according to their weekly course loads are provided in Table 7. For student relations and mastery sub-dimensions, there was no statistically significant difference in the teachers' goal orientation. In the ability approach sub-dimension, teachers' goal orientations differ in a statistically significant way based on their weekly course load (p =.001). It was observed that this significant difference was observed between the teachers who attended the lessons for 6-15 hours a week and those who attended the lessons for 15-25 and 25-30 hours, and it was in favor of the teachers who had lessons for 6-15 hours. In other words, teachers who had lessons for 6-15 hours tend to exhibit their ability approach more compared to those who had lessons for 15-25 and 25-30 hours. However, the weekly course load has a low effect on teachers' goal orientation for teaching (d =.18). There was also a significant difference in the goal orientation of teachers in the sub-dimension of work avoidance (p =.000). Although these numbers are considered as low rates as stated at the beginning, the observed difference has been observed. The observed difference is between the teachers who had lessons for 6-15 hours and teachers who had lessons for 25-30 hours and over 30 hours. According to this result, it can be said that teachers who had 6-15 hours of lessons tend to avoid work more than teachers who attend more hours of classes when faced with professional difficulties. From another point of view, since they tend to avoid work, they have fewer course hours.

DISCUSSION, CONCLUSION, and RECOMMENDATIONS
In this study, where teachers' goal orientation for teaching was examined, the sub-dimensions of mastery and student relations have the highest mean score while the work avoidance has the lowest mean score. Such findings indicate that the participant teachers feel mastered when they enhance their field expertise and abilities, sustain their professional development, and their students provide them with fresh ideas regarding the topic they are teaching. Along with this, participant teachers feel more successful when they have good relationships with their students and take care of them. When teachers are appreciated in the eyes of the school principal or their colleagues regarding sample lesson plans, the high success of students, professional awards, etc., this makes them feel successful professionally. This also points out that participant teachers do not ignore the problems they face in their professional lives and when they try to solve them, they feel successful. The results observed in other studies in the literature support current results (Han, Yin & Wang, 2015Retelsdorf & Gunther, 2011;Saban & Yıldızlı, 2017;Yıldızlı et al., 2016).
When the relationships between the sub-dimensions of the teachers' goal orientation for teaching were examined, there was a significant positive relationship between student relations, mastery, and ability approach. It can be said that these orientations support each other. Teachers with mastery goal orientation, for example, tend to build good relationships with students, support their students more in their learning experiences, and thereby contribute to their social-emotional growth (Butler, 2012). In other researchs on the goal orientation of teachers, a weak and positively significant correlation between ability approach and work avoidance was observed (Butler, 2007(Butler, , 2012Yıldızlı et al. 2016, Saban & Yıldızlı, 2017. Butler (2007) claimed that current condition is peculiar to teachers, unlike other studies conducted with students, and it is related to the ability approach, although there is no relation between the work avoidance and teachers' positive teacher orientations such as mastery and student relations. Yıldızlı et al. (2016) reported that the work avoidance sub-dimension does not vary with other variables and is independent of these factors.
When examining the effect of gender on the teachers' goal orientation for teaching, it was noticed that female teachers in mastery sub-dimension aimed to learn and developed professional skills more than their male peers. It would appear that female teachers tend to desire respect for their teaching efforts and more than their male colleagues. Saban and Yıldızlı (2017) did not find a significant difference according to gender in the study conducted with classroom teachers. In the study conducted with classroom teachers, Tivikeli, Gonida, and Kiosseoglou (2015) stated that female teachers showed a statistically higher mastery orientation than male teachers. Similarly, Han, Yin, and Wang (2015) claimed that female teachers have higher mastery goals and ability approach goal orientations than male teachers.
While comparing the goal orientation of the teachers taking part in the study according to their educational background, it is found that the teachers completed a postgraduate education have higher mastery and ability approach orientations than those who have an only undergraduate degree. It can be said that the increase in education level positively contributes to teachers' goal orientation for teaching.
No difference was reported in teachers' goal orientation according to their branches and years of work experience. When the mean scores were analyzed, it was observed that the mean scores of the branches are very close to each other, and while for the mean score of the professional seniority, as the years of work experience increases, the mean scores in student relations, mastery and ability approach increases, and however, mean score decreases in work avoidance. Based on the results obtained, it can be said that the professional experience contributed positively to the goal orientation. The reason for the lack of difference is thought to be due to teachers' efforts to demonstrate their pedagogical competencies and to develop these competencies rather than the branch education they receive. Saban and Yıldızlı (2017) reported that there is a difference in ability approach favoring the beginner teachers who have (1-5) years of experience compared to the experienced (6-10, 11-15 years) teachers, and in students relations dimension, it is in favor of beginner teachers who have 1-5 years of experience compared to the experienced (6-10, 11-15 years) teachers and when we look at teachers who worked for 6-10, 11-15 years and highly experienced teachers (working 16 years and more), the difference is in favor of the highly experienced (16 years and more) teachers. In their research, Han, Yin, and Wang (2015) stated that there was a difference in favor of less experienced teachers in terms of ability approach and work avoidance when teachers with less than 5 years of experience and teachers working over 15 years compared.
When the effect of teachers' weekly course load on their goal orientation for teaching was examined, it was observed that the teachers who have 6-15 hours of lessons showed higher ability approach goal orientation than those who have lessons between 15-25 and 25-30 hours. Similarly, it was noted that those who have 6 -15 hours of lessons had higher goal orientation of work avoidance than the groups who have 25 hours or more. This situation can be interpreted as teachers who have work avoidance goal orientation prefer having fewer lessons. The reason why there is no difference in mastery and student relations goal orientation in terms of course load can be explained by the fact that teachers' pedagogical perspective is not related to the course load.
As a conclusion drawn from a holistic point of view, it can be proposed that the pedagogical views of teachers are the key factor influencing the goal orientation of teachers. The willingness of instructors to build strong relations with students, to improve and show teaching skills reinforce each other particularly. The inclination to work avoidance adversely influences the drive of teachers to teach. The postgraduate school is generally preferred by teachers who would like to develop their academic and professional qualifications. Teachers pursue their postgraduate degree are educated to improve their competence and would like to demonstrate the knowledge and skills learned. This tendency is a result of the pedagogic perception of teachers. Having an intense or too free course load affects their teaching enthusiasm. Relying upon it, to improve their professional competence, teachers should be encouraged. There should be support for postgraduate education for teachers. The course hours of teachers must not be too less or too intense, and the permissible limit (15-21 lesson hours) decided may be recommended to be applied. For the improvement of effective communication skills, in-service training should be offered to improve the communication of teachers with their students.
For future studies, a more thorough understanding can be gathered on the goal orientation of teachers by utilizing qualitative methods. Especially, the examination of the relationship between the ability approach and work avoidance orientations is thought to be meaningful to contribute to the literature. In the school context, teachers can emerge as decisive social agents in managing their students' orientations by creating a certain motivational climate (Senko, Hulleman & Harackiewicz, 2011). Thus, the effects of teachers' goal orientations on students' motivation can be especially investigated. The correlations between the teaching goal orientations and learning-teaching understanding, epistemological belief, and orientations in educational philosophy can also be explored by creating several models.