Abstract
ADAPTATION OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL ETHICAL CLIMATE INDEX (ESECI) INTO TURKISH AND DETERMINING STUDENTS AND TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT SCHOOL ETHICAL CLIMATE
The main purpose of education is to prepare students to life and future. In this regard, school and teachers teach them the ways to understand themselves and the world in which they live in a better way. Students have strong emotions about school especially when their memories, emotions and moral structures are violated. This makes the existence of school ethical climate more important at schools. Therefore, teacher-student relationships and teacher-administrator relationships are crucial as well as student-student relationships. The current study purposes to adapt the Elementary School Ethical Climate Index into Turkish and determine teachers and students’ perceptions concerning school ethical climate. The study employed survey method and was conducted in 2012-2013 school year spring term at schools in Adıyaman province. While adapting the scale into Turkish, construct validation was tested with Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The construct that is composed of 3 factors with mean values over 1 explained 46,91% of the total variance. The sub-factors and the total score of correlation coefficient equals to 0,85 or less. In addition, the χ2/df of the scale is 1.65, root mean residual (RMR) is 0.06, the goodness of fit index (GFI) is 0.87, parsimonious goodness of fit index (PGFI) is 0.75, the adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI) is 0.85, the normed fit index (NFI) is 0.95, the non-normed fit index (NNFI) is 0.97, the comparative fit index (CFI) is .98, and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) is 0.05 as well as the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) is 0.04) which indicate good fit. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient of total scale was found as 0.91. It is 0.92 for teacher-student relationships sub-dimension, 0.85 for student-teacher relationships/learning environment sub-dimension and 0.72 for the student-student relationships sub-dimension. Results reveal that female students have more positive perceptions regarding ethical school climate compared to their male counterparts. The positive ethical school climate perceptions decrease as the students proceed to higher classes. Ethical school climate perceptions increase for those who read more books yearly basis. The ethical school climate perceptions of teachers who are between 36-50 are higher compared to other teachers in different age groups. There is a significant difference between the teacher-student perceptions in terms of ethical school climate. As a result, it is recommended that the development of school culture should be supported in order to protect ethical school climate at schools. Schools should be structured as learning organizations, accountability policies should be improved and social capital of the school should be developed.
Keywords
Elementary School, Ethical Climate, Student, Teacher, Scale Adaptation
