Abstract:

One of the important reform made in 2005 that radical reforms are made about primary school curriculum is the practice of cursive italic handwriting. Today, there is an ongoing debate on the practice of cursive italic handwriting. The aim of this research is to determine classroom teachers’ attitudes towards cursive italic handwriting. The test form of attitude scale of cursive italic handwriting which is developed by researchers consists of totally 16 attitude items of which 8 is positive and 8 is negative. The test form is applied to 202 classroom teachers in fall term of 2014-2015 academic year. As a result of exploratory factor analysis, it is seen that the scale has one dimensional homogeneous structure and it clarify 69 percent of total variance. The scale consists of totally 9 items of which 5 is positive and 4 is negative. Cronbach’s alpha internal consistency coefficient is found 0,94. The scale is applied to 264 classroom teachers who carry out a duty in one of the district of Western Black Sea Region, in fall term of 2015-2016 academic year. As a result of the research, it is found that classroom teachers’ attitudes towards cursive italic handwriting is substantially negative. Also, it is found that primary school teachers’ attitudes towards cursive italic handwriting is not differentiate according to their gender, the case of taking course in cursive italic handwriting or not, and their seniority. Besides, it is found that private school classroom teachers’ attitudes towards cursive italic handwriting is higher than public school classroom teachers and attitudes of classroom teachers who graduate from training institute is higher than teachers who graduate from faculty of education

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