Page 175 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Identifying the Target Needs of Non-Native Subject Teachers

in descriptive research design. They are administered to large groups efficiently in a short time with
minimum effort where financial resources are also used wisely (Dörnyei, 2010, p. 9-10). Lastly, the tri-
angulation of these methodological approaches and data sources provided a basis to enhance confidence
in the data and its interpretation.
The quantitative data obtained were analyzed using frequencies and percentages while the qualitative
data were analyzed through thematic analysis inductively without referring to a theoretically informed
coding frame.

Setting and Participants

The study took place in a special teacher-training program in Erbil, Northern Iraq in 2013-2014 teaching
year. The data were collected in May, when the program was about to finish. There were 40 subject teach-
ers from Turkey and Iraq enrolled in the program and 36 of them participated in the study voluntarily.
The demographic information about the participants is given in Table 3.
As it can be seen in the table, all participants were young teachers with very minimum teaching ex-
perience. Although teaching is generally considered as a feminized profession, the equal distribution of
teachers among the participants in terms of gender suggests that male teachers favored this program as
much as their female counterparts. A majority of the teachers were Turkish, while only 4 of them were
Kurdish, as there was a small number of Kurdish applicants. Lastly, the participants’ English language
backgrounds differed from one another. As the table reveals, 47.2% of the participants reported to have
studied English only for a year and within this particular program. It should be noted that although
44.5% of them had more than 4 years of English instruction before they attended the language course,
the proficiency level of the participants did not vary since all learners were elementary level learners.
The other stakeholders included in the needs analysis to have an in-depth understanding were the vice
general director of the educational institution (GD) and the course manager (CM) and 3 program staff
(PS) and five subject teachers who were the heads of departments (HD). They were coded for anonymity
and some details for this group of participants are presented in Table 4.

Table 3. Demographic information about the subject teachers attending the course

Label Categories f %
Age 20-25 26 72.2
26-30 10 27.8
Gender Male 18 50
Female 18 50
Country/ Ethnicity Kurdish 4 11.1
Turkish 32 88.9
Work experience 0-2 year 36 100
Years of English studied 0-1 year 17 47.2
Subject specialization 2-3 years 3 8.3
4-5 years 2 5.6
6 or more years 14 38.9
Science 15 41.7
Mathematics 12 33.3
Primary school 4 11.1
Biology 5 13.9

156