Abstract:

Abstract enThis paper presents an examination of Turkish early childhood education teachers’ self-reported beliefs and practices in relation to classroom assessment, to determine their relationship to the teachers’ educational and professional backgrounds. A survey method was applied to 194 teachers in private and public early childhood education centers serving children three to six years located in Ankara, Turkey. Results revealed that the early childhood education teachers’ beliefs were correlated with their classroom practices which means early childhood teachers practice what they believe in terms of developmentally appropriate practices. Having an undergraduate or post graduate degree and years of teaching experience, were found to affect the teachers’ self-reported beliefs as well as their self-reported classroom practices. Moreover, it means that a strong positive correlation between the early childhood education teachers practice scores and the level of education, meaning the higher the level the higher practices scores they received. Thus, it means the more early childhood education content knowledge is gained through obtaining a higher level of education, the more the greater the appropriate assessment practices the teachers implement. Also the amount of teaching experience was found to be significant in their self-reported beliefs and practices and this means that teachers’ years of teaching experience may influence their beliefs and practices.

Keywords: