TURKISH EFL TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE, PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICES REGARDING SOCIAL AND EMOTIONAL LEARNING IN ELEMENTARY, SECONDARY AND HIGH SCHOOL CONTEXTS

Abstract

The current study seeks to provide a comprehensive picture of Turkish EFL teachers’ perceptions regarding their understanding, experiences and practices in relation to social and emotional learning in three separate contexts including elementary, secondary and high school. This research study mainly adopted a mixed methods research design making use of a quantitative approach integrated with a qualitative research. In total, the research sample constituted 238 Turkish EFL teachers. The study was based on two different data collection sources including a teacher survey and a semi-structured interview guide. Our data analysis process was conducted in three distinct phases. The preliminary stage focused on the analysis of quantitative data which was conducted through descriptive statistical analyses using SPSS. The second stage involved the inferential statistical analysis in which a one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed. The third stage was centered around the analysis of qualitative data. Upon a comprehensive examination of descriptive findings, teachers’ perceptions of their comfort level with teaching SEL were found to be at a moderate level. teachers’ perceptions of their commitment to teaching and learning about SEL at a high level and teachers’ perceptions of administrative support for SEL at a moderate level. According to MANOVA findings, with the exception of the age groups, statistically significant differences were observed in teachers’ perception of SEL among all the other independent variables. Lastly, the key qualitative findings were reported under three different categories which were determined within the responses of the ix sample group, namely teachers’ perceptions on the importance of SEL, factors hindering the implementation of SEL and teachers’ recommendations on how to best serve students’ social and emotional needs.