Like in other countries, in Turkey the Ministry of Education, the highest authority of public education, has been trying to change different aspects of education. In the last decade, MONE has launched several change initiatives targeting overall educational policy of the country (Akyuz, 2001), adaptation to EU’s educational practices, responding to increasing demands for public education (Ozmen and Sonmez, 2007), and quality concern of public education (Aksit, 2007; Gokçe, 2009; Grossman, Onkol and Sands, 2007). Adaptation of constructivist approach in public schools is one of the most comprehensive change interventions, which has affected every constituency in educational system. With the adoption of constructivist approach, curricular, functional and structural changes occurred in Turkish education system. These changes cover implementations of MONE’s policies like alterations in schools’ physical infrastructures, ICT use in instruction and administrative procedures (e-school system), curriculum diversification and total quality management applications. Within this context it becomes very critical to effectively manage these interventions for reaching significant accomplishments.
Several scholars suggested that effective change interventions require focusing on human side of change as well as technical side (Clegg and Walsh, 2004). In organizational and educational change interventions, antecedents of successful and sustainable reforms affiliated with personality, personal development and attitudes of individuals’ towards change (Aslan, Beycioglu & Konan, 2008). Consequently, it is important to focus on culture of organization, attitudes, beliefs and perceptions towards change to acknowledge how successful change initiatives may be performed in schools. At this point, role of teachers in schools increases because it is difficult to implement changes in school setting if teachers do not approve and embrace change initiatives. Specifically, attitudes towards change are found to be associated with personality characteristics (Lau and Woodman, 1995; Wanberg and Banas, 2000). Indeed, internal locus of control dealing with individuals’ ability to control over the environment is one of the most important predictors for openness to change (Lau & Woodman, 1995).
Since personal factors and external environment are in reciprocal determinism in social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1997), teacher efficacy is revealed to be related to organizational health of the school (Tschannen-Moran, Woolfolk Hoy & Hoy, 1998). Furthermore, school context variables like organizational structure, participation of teachers in decision making processes, school climate, principals’ leadership style with supporting innovation and collective efficacy are found to be associated with teachers’ sense of efficacy (Tschannen-Moran et al., 1998). Hence, it can be argued that teachers’ perceived openness to change in schools is related to teachers’ sense of efficacy. That is, openness to change, attitudes towards change, and teachers’ sense of efficacy may be seen as important factors for successful change interventions. Consequently, this study aims to examine the relationship between teachers’ sense of efficacy as personal factor and perceived openness to change as school context factor.
Therefore, this study is conducted to address the research question whether there is any significant relationship between teachers' sense of efficacy (in student engagement, instructional strategies, and classroom management) and perceived openness to change (at faculty and principal levels, and community pressure for change).
