English Teachers' Views on Important Factors and Pro lems of Educational Change

With recent developments, there have been so many changes in many fields. It is inevitable that educational system has also changed a lot in Turkey. In this respect, this study aims to examinethe English teachers’viewson the implementation stage of the educational changes. To achieve this aim, qualitative research methodologywas followed. Purposeful sampling was used and 84 English teachers participated in the study. To elicit English teachers’ responses about the most important factors for implementing educational change and the most common problems faced during the implementation process of educational change, two open-ended questions were directed to the participants using Google Forms document.Qualitative data collected from 84 English teacherswere analysed using content analysis, and the themes and codes were categorizedfor each question.The findings indicated that according the teachers,the most important factors fora successfulchange areleaders, teachers, students, parents, and other factors such as educational system, and facilities, etc. Most of the participants believed thatbeing open to improvement, and interacting with one anotherare key to successful educational change. As for themost frequently faced problems;the inadequacy of capacity building, the lack of cooperation between teachers, principals, parents and the society; negative attitudes, and resistance to change; lack of job satisfaction and motivation; inconvenience of schools’ physical conditionswere noted by the participant teachers. As the most striking suggestion, change planners and policy makers should take classroom teachers’ needs and expectations into consideration before determining educational changes. Further implications and suggestionswere presented at the end of the study.