A scale of lifelong learning attitudes of teachers: The development of LLLAS

Abstract

Knowledge, which is the most significant characteristic of today’s knowledge society, has been changing and improving very rapidly. Particularly, the developments in science and technology have been influencing social, economical and cultural life; thus professions and descriptions of professions have been continuously renewed. In addition, the needed profile of man power relevant to the changing professions has been changing continuously and the learnt knowledge has not been prevalent. For this reason, there is a need for the individuals to update their knowledge and skills continuously in order to adopt themselves to the technological changes and new work conditions. Lifelong learning approach can provide societies and individuals with opportunities to catch up with these changes and developments. In raising individuals as lifelong learners, teachers play a big role. In order to establish lifelong learning societies, first of all teachers should have all the characteristics of lifelong learning. This is why it is extremely important to determine what the attitudes of the teachers are towards lifelong learning approach. However, there has not been developed any scale measuring teachers’ attitudes towards lifelong learning approach so far. Therefore, in this current study, it is aimed to develop a scale to determine what the attitudes of the teachers are towards lifelong learning approach. The subject group is consisted of 300 teachers, working in the schools of the Northern Cyprus. The findings on the validity of the structure of the scale are measured by the factor analysis. As a result of the analysis, a lifelong learning attitude scale is developed with 19 items in three sub-dimensions (LLLAS). The sub-dimensions of the scale are formed in the following expressions: “reluctance to learnâ€, “belief in the benefits of learning activities for professional developmentâ€, “awareness of personal learning skillsâ€. As the result of the validity and reliability analysis, it was decided that the scale (LLLAS) would be appropriate in terms of its characteristics to be used in future studies.

 

Keywords: Teachers, lifelong learning, attitude, scale, validity, reliability