Vocational Education and Training Teachers’ Perceptions Toward In-Service Trainings

In-service trainings are among the main resources used in many countries for teachers to improve their personal and pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. based on the technological advancements in production and service sectors, the quality of in-service trainings in vocational education and training (vet) has become critical. therefore, in the three years following turkey’s education vision 2023, in-service training activities in vet have been greatly increased through the support of the sectors. this study aims to evaluate teachers’ perceptions on in-service training activities in vet over the last three years. the study also examines how teachers’ opinions about in-service trainings have changed with respect to academic year, vocational field, and teacher seniority. the findings show vet teachers’ perceptions about in-service trainings over the last three years to be quite positive. the percentage of teachers who responded with “adequate” or “completely adequate” to the items on the educational environment, content, and educator subscales varies between 68.7% and 93.4%, and the mean scores from the subscales are close to the highest possible scores. although teachers’ perceptions are generally positive, significant differences have been found among the perceptions of teachers in different vocational fields. in addition, teacher seniority has been found to not have a significant effect on their perceptions toward in-service trainings. the findings show the teachers to consider the trainings, whose capacity in vet has been remarkably increased over the last three years so as to cover all teachers, to be sufficient, purposive, and able to meet teachers’ expectations.