Reasons of Teachers for Applying for Graduate Programs and Their Expectations from Programs

Abstract

This study aims to find out teachers’ motivation for applying for graduate programs and to explore their expectations from the programs and their ideas regarding the necessity of such programs for teachers. The paper is based on a qualitative research method and draws its data from focus group interviews. The study used the criterion sampling method which is categorized under purposive sampling for the selection of participants. The participants are 20 teachers who wish to apply for graduate programs in the Institute of Education Sciences. Descriptive analysis has been used for the interviews whereas for the quantitative expression of the data, content analysis has been employed. The findings show that teachers want to pursue graduate education for reasons of professional and personal development as well as for personal/social reasons. Teachers also believe that they could compensate the insufficient in-service training with graduate programs and state that they could access higher quality training and education through graduate programs. The study also reveals that teachers are not only interested in courses of their own specialized field but they also want to take broader courses such as management, research methods, and history or philosophy

Keywords

• Graduate Programs for Teacher, Teacher Expectations, Professional Development