Evaluation of the in-service teacher training program "The Certificate for Teachers of English" at the Middle East Technical University School of Foreign Languages

• Main Author: Şahin, Vildan
• Other Authors: Ok, Ahmet, Department of Educational Sciences
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2006
• Subjects: Teachers; Orta; DML
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/16465; http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12607752/index.pdf

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of the in-service teacher training program, The Certificate for Teachers of English (CTE), run jointly by two departments: The Department of Basic English (DBE) and the Department of Modern Languages (DML) of the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) at Middle East Technical University (METU) in terms of whether it achieved its objectives and to provide suggestions regarding the redesigning of the program for the following years. The model used for evaluating the program was one proposed by Kirkpatrick (1998; first devised in 1959). This model entails 4 levels of evaluation to carry out while evaluating training programs. Reaction, Learning, Behavior and Results. The research questions focused in this study are all in line with these four levels. The participants of the study were four folded. The main participants were the trainees attending the program. (N=6, 2 from DML; 4 from DBE). Another group of participants were the trainers of the program. (N=2). The third group of participants was the chairpersons at the two departments. Finally, data were collected from the students of the trainees and non trainees. Data was collected via questionnaires from the trainees and their students, interviews with trainees, trainers and chairpersons, observations of sessions of the program and trainees’ lessons, and related documents of the program. The data collected was analyzed qualitatively using the Miles and Huberman (1994) procedure for analyzing qualitative data: data reduction, data display and conclusion drawing/verification. Results revealed that the CTE program was effective in terms of achieving its objectives. However, there could be improvements in certain components of the program. Another result of the study was that the application of Kirkpatrick’s training program evaluation model was not very effective in the evaluation of the CTE program. The main drawback was that the model is a nonlinear one which made it difficult to concentrate on a particular level of evaluation at a particular time. Therefore the suggestion for a more linear and definite model for the evaluation of the CTE program was proposed. Ph.D. - Doctoral Program