Relationship between philosophical preferences of classroom teachers and their teaching styles

The purpose of this study is to examine the philosophical preferences of classroom teachers, their teaching styles and the relationship between the two variables. Participants are 301 volunteered classroom teachers who teach at the 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th classes in primary schools. To collect the data, philosophical preferences assessment form which was developed by Wiles and Bondi (2007) and adapted to Turkish by Doğanay and Sari (2003), and Teaching Styles Questionnaire which was developed by Grasha and Reichmann (1994) and adapted to Turkish by Saritaş and Süral (2010) were used. Analyses figure out that classroom teachers mostly prefer experimentalist philosophy and have facilitator teaching style. Examining the relationship of educational philosophies and teaching styles of teachers, there is a positive and significant relationship between the adopted educational philosophy and teaching style.


INTRODUCTION
The basic element of learning and teaching environments is the teacher.The teacher plans the learning and teaching process by considering the variables such as instructional purposes, students' characteristics and physical conditions, moreover his/her own skills, teaching styles and educational philosophy or philosophies.In this context, it is important to know about teachers' teaching styles and educational philosophies.
In general, philosophy is a field of knowledge constructed as a result of systematic, deeply and speculative thinking on the relation of human and the universe (Gutek, 2006: 2).While Kant identifies philosophy as "a form of intellectual activity which has a claim of justifying itself based on mind"; Jasper proposes it as "being on road forever" (Arslan, 2014).Philosophy is an effort of looking at life and its problems from an overall perspective (Ornstein, 1988: 25).Ertürk (1988) defines it as process and product.He stated that philosophy as a process is an effort to comprehend the reality and its phenomenon in its integrity by gathering and reorganizing all information.Furthermore, it is an effort to investigate the sources of information methods and values, what are they and their importance.Besides, philosophy as a product is a total of "general beliefs, principles and attitudes", and values which philosophy as a process can form and which human uses as a decision base.
Philosophy helps us to be interested in personal beliefs and values, understand who we are and the reason of our existence and to some extent where we go.Philosophy is a total of connection process based on grounding the reality and products obtained at the end of this process (Demirel, 2005: 20).Just like philosophy is connected to all fields of science, they are connected to philosophy as well.Education is the science which has a close connection to philosophy in constructing a theoretical base and as well as in its practices.According to Patel (1958), philosophy needs the clear and precise expressions of education and education needs the guidance of philosophy (Doğanay and Sari, 2003).Educational philosophy can be defined as a form of applied philosophy which handles education in a philosophical manner or methods (Cevizci, 2011: 11).Educational philosophy studies the theoretical bases on which the available educational practices are based, and criticize them.Educators can only reveal and solve the strength of theoretical foundations which they strictly hold and consider the best via a philosophical approach (Fidan, 1987).
Educational philosophies can be categorized differently in terms of criteria undertaken in literature.As for a common classification, they are undertaken under four titles named "perennialism, progressivism, essentialism and reconstructivism" (Demirel, 2005;Fidan, 1987;Saylan, 2009).In "Philosophical Preferences Assessment" form which was developed by Wiles and Bondi (2007) and adapted to Turkish by Doğanay and Sari (2003), there are five educational philosophies; perennialism, idealism, realism, experimentalism and existentialism.In order to be consonant to the questionnaire, this study also examines the philosophical approaches under these five categories.

Perennialism
Perennialists emphasize on forming education according to certain universal realities.They think that the human nature, moral values, reality and the truth are universal phenomena (Demirel, 2005;Ercan, 2009;Fidan, 1987).They claim that human nature is perennial.Human beings have the ability of questioning and understanding the universal realities of nature.The purpose of education is to educate reasonable people by carefully training the mind, to uncover the universal truth and to provide the accordance with eternal truth not the reality of today (Ercan, 2009;Gutek, 2006;Ornstein, 1988;Sönmez, 2007;Wiles and Bondi, 2007).As the truth is the same everywhere, the education should be the same everywhere as well.Education is the preparation to life not a copy of the life.It is defended that the ideal one should be presented in educational settings, not the real life itself (Arslan, 2012;Demirel, 2005;Ercan, 2009;Sönmez, 2007).Perennialism indicates human sciences are important as it clarifies the concepts of good, truth and beauty (Özdemir et al., 2008, 223).
The perennialist curriculum is subject-centered.The knowledge and the expertise of teachers cannot be questioned and they are accepted as the authorities.Moreover, the teacher should be the master of his/her subject and the instruction, and direct the discussion.Instruction is mainly based on Socratic Method.The teacher should be a role model by means of oral speech, explanation and interpretation.The student will learn by imitating the teacher (Ornstein, 1988;Sönmez, 2007;Scoot, 1994).

Idealism
It claims that reality is closely related to idea, thought and mind rather than the earthly power.According to the idealists, reality is idea, thought and soul.It does not accept the scientific method as the only way for reality; but assumes intuitional thought as important as the scientific method.
In idealist educational philosophy, which expresses a teacher centered approach, the teacher is required to reveal the embedded knowledge in students' subconscious and be a good role model both as morally and culturally.The subjects are in a hierarchical order and Socratic Method is adopted.The teacher is qualified and well-donated; order, discipline and authority is a matter of fact (Cevizci, 2011;Gutek, 2006;Ornstein, 1988;Terzi et al., 2003).

Realism
The realists perceive the world in terms of subjects/ objects and substances.People can understand the world via senses and logic.The source of everything is nature and formed by the rules of nature.According to realism, the purpose of education is to make people happy by furnishing them the best and the most perfect abilities.While it enlightens the students in fields of knowledge, it also aims to develop the mind which is the most important ability and power of human, and to encourage what they want in their choices, expressing themselves with a perfect potential and identify their own identities (Gutek, 2006).
In realism, which a teacher centered approach is adopted, a teacher is an instructor or educator rather than a scientist or researcher who is an expert in his/her field, and knows the maximum required truth about the field.The teacher is a professional instructor in terms of both expertise knowledge and instructional ability (Cevizci, 2011).He/she provides students to gain certain knowledge and proficiency.Students are supposed to be ready to learn the required things and be eager to make an effort (Özdemir et al., 2008: 216).

Experimentalism
One of the pioneers of experimentalism is John Locke.According to Locke, mind is like a white paper or blank slate that nothing is in and on before the experiment and all sources of knowledge come from observation and the data in mind as a result of the usage of senses.In short, there is no innate knowledge in human mind and the source and tool of all kind of knowledge is the experiment (Arslan, 2012: 72).Another pioneer who comes to mind first for experimentalism is John Dewey.For Dewey, thinking and action cannot be separated and thought is incomplete without realization.Basic thinking involves the problems which a person encounters and solves by scientific method.Problem solving is as well a social process as an individual phenomenon.As sharing is more, the opportunities of development are greater as well (Gutek, 2006).
Experimentalism which is based on pragmatism helps human to improve his/her environment and adaptation to environment.It accepts change as the base of reality and assumes that education is continuously improving.The child should be active in educational settings which are organized according to his/her interests.Knowledge, which is an important tool for gaining, improving and regulation of the experiences, should be obtained with interaction and is dependent on the interests of the child.The responsibility of the teacher is to guide students.School should encourage students to collaborate rather than race in democratic school environments; what is more school is the most appropriate environment for learning (Demirel, 2005;Ergün, 2003;Gutek, 2006).

Existentialism
The existentialist sees the world in terms of personal subjectivity.Goodness, truth and reality are individually defined.Reality is a world of existing, truth is subjectively chosen and goodness is a matter of freedom (Wiles and Bondi, 2007: s. 45).The basic foundation of existentialist philosophy is that a person has a freedom of choice by defining him/herself (Gutek, 2006: 133).Existentialists give importance to human.In existentialism, education is an activity which provides an individual to experience success, failure, ugliness, beauty, struggle and pain without exaggerating but honestly (Sönmez, 2007, 81).Education should enable a person to identify his/herself with his/her real characteristics.In teacher-students interaction, the responsibility of the teacher is to help students to learn and know themselves (Fidan, 1987;Wiles and Bondi, 2007).
According to Alkan (1983), a good existentialist teacher does not aim to train copy personalities.He/she tries to balance the content and student, and be sensible to students.An existentialist teacher makes an effort for three purposes: processing the content, mind's functioning independently and creating a belief about reality for students ( Arslanoğlu, 2012).Change in school environments would be embraced as both a natural and necessary phenomenon.
Nonschooling and an individually determined curriculum would be a possibility (Wiles and Bondi, 2007: s. 45).
The subject matter of education and philosophy is human.The viewpoint for human can affect all the components of education.In other words, human is handled and education is organized according to this viewpoint (Sönmez, 2009).Teacher employs an educational philosophy when he/she starts to think on concepts and knowledge of human nature and society (Gutek, 2006).Educational philosophy is a discipline of philosophy which discusses education, and questions and solves the concepts and practices of education ( Cevizci, 2011: 11).Educational philosophy helps the educator and the teachers to comprehend education with its all aspects.The meaning and the importance of educational practices can only be possible by a clear thinking system that the philosophy provides (Fidan, 1987).Additionally, philosophy provides a structure and a base for organizing school and classroom settings for educators.It helps to understand what the schools are for, which subjects are valuable, how the students learn and which methods and strategies are used (Demirel, 2005).Teaching styles have a key role to organize the learning and teaching process as a reflection of educational philosophy adopted by the teacher (Gencel, 2013: 644).Grasha (1994Grasha ( , 2002))I who explains learning and teaching process as an interaction between students and teachers, which defines teaching styles as the continuity and consistency of teachers' behaviors and approaches in this process; and moreover a personal model that the requirements, beliefs and behaviors of the teachers construct.According to Dunn (1979), teaching styles are attitudes and behaviors of teachers towards instructional programs, methods, settings and equipment.Fisher and Fisher (1979) define teaching styles as instructional behaviors which a teacher consistently displays in teaching process.How the teacher presents knowledge in learning and teaching process, how they interact with students and their behaviors about students' socialization are all the reflections of their teaching styles (Üredi, 2007).In addition, a teaching style refers to how the teacher behaves with students while teaching, not who the teacher is.For instance, how a teacher asks questions, how he/she uses his/her voice, how he/she addresses the students, how he/she makes exams, how he/she moves inside the classroom and presents his/her ideas.These are all observable behaviors of teachers, not the personal qualifications such as IQ (Hyman and Rosoff, 1984).
As the "teaching style" instrument which was developed by Grasha (1996) was used in this research, the teaching styles are examined in five categories: Expert: He/she has the required experience and knowledge for the students.He/she pays attention to preserve his/her status as an experienced person who develops his/her students' abilities and present his/her extended knowledge.He/she is interested in knowledge transfer and training better students.

Formal authority:
In terms of his/her knowledge and role, he/she is like a college teacher for his/her students.He/she has a characteristic that has his/her own rules, expectations and purposes, reinforces students depending on the situation and does not hesitate to give negative feedback under any unwilling circumstances.
Personal: He/she believes in instruction of personal examples, constructing a basic model about how they should be thought and behave.He/she encourages students to follow their way, supervise them on what they should do, guides and manages them.

Facilitator:
He/she emphasizes teacher-student relationship as a very natural personal characteristic.His/her guidance and course management is to ask questions, to develop choices, to present alternatives, to encourage students about developing the scientific criteria that they have constructed.His/her main purpose is to develop students' performance which is for initiative and responsibility in their personal activities.
Delegator: He/she is interested in improving the students' capacity by independently doing his/her responsibility.In the courses of teachers who have this style, students study independently in projects or as a part of independent teams.The teacher interferes when the students ask them as a source person.Teaching style refers to distinctive properties which is consistent in time and transferred from situation to situation (Fischer 1979).According to Heimlich and Norland (1994) teaching style includes philosophical practices in which there are attitudes, values, beliefs, teaching and all elements in students' change (Fries, 2012).Fritz (2008) quoted from Kauchak and Eggen (2011) and Elias and Merrium (1995) that educational philosophy provides a framework for teachers to think on a variety of ideas, beliefs, actions and educational matters which guide them.Heimlich and Norland (1994) expressed that teachers' beliefs about how learning and teaching should contribute to their skills.Teachers who knows their beliefs, regulate their behaviors and balance the two skills gain the experience of freedom; furthermore, explore experiences that they have never lived before, reflect these experiences, practice and improve them (Fritz, 2008).The philosophy which is constructed by these views and beliefs guides the teacher in determining purposes, regulating learning-teaching settings and choosing an evaluation method (Ediger, 2000).Educational philosophy would affect the roles of teachers and students in the classroom, how curriculum is developed and evaluated, which methods and techniques will be used and the factor of educational beliefs of teachers in society (Fritz, 2008).The philosophy undertaken determines the view for human and educational system is organized according to this view (Sönmez, 2007).Livingston (2001) narrated from Kagan (1995), Gutek (1995) and Burbles (1989) that every classroom teacher has different views on the framework of educational facilities provided for school and students.Therefore, every teacher has an educational philosophy because "aims, behaviors, content, learning and evaluation process should be arranged according to the criteria of the adopted philosophy" (Sönmez, 2009).
In this research, it is aimed to reveal which educational philosophy the classroom teachers adopt, which teaching style they have and is there any relationship between them.In this context, the following research questions were asked: 1. What are the educational philosophies adopted by classroom teachers?2. Which teaching style do the classroom teachers have?3. Is there any relationship between the educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers?

METHODOLOGY
As quantitatively designed, this research is a model of survey in terms of determining the educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers, in other words, searching and explaining the existing situation.It is a general survey model because it foretells and generalize about the universe in the light of data gathered, and a relational survey model because it examine the relationship between the educational philosophies and teaching styles of teachers.

Participants
The study group has volunteered 301 classroom teachers who teach the 1 st , 2 nd , 3 rd and 4 th classes in primary schools.Of the participants, 112 are male and 189 are female.45 teachers have the seniority of 1-10 years, 77 of them 11-20 years, 130 of them 21-30 years and 49 of them 30 years and above.
In the process of data analysis and determination of teaching styles, a program on the web site was used (http://www.iats.com/publications/GLSI.html).The data was entered to the program and all scores belonging to five teaching styles were calculated in the levels of "low", "medium" and "high".In this research, high levels were considered to determine the teaching styles of teachers.

Data analysis
In order to determine the educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers, frequency and percentage were used, and correlation analysis was used for the relationship between educational philosophies and teaching styles.Saritaş et al. 1537

FINDINGS
This research is aimed at revealing the educational philosophies adopted by classroom teachers, teaching styles that they have and the relationship between the two variables.The following findings were reached in terms of these purposes.

Educational philosophies adopted by classroom teachers
Educational philosophies that the classroom teachers adopt were displayed in Table 1.Of the teachers, 51.1% adopt experimentalism, 16.2% adopt idealism, 12.9% adopt existentialism, 12.6% adopt realism and 6.9% adopt perennialism.In other words, more than half of the teachers believe that education is a continuous change and because of that students should be active in educational settings which are organized according to their interests.The teacher's responsibility is to guide the students.

Relationship between educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers
The third research question is "Is there any relationship between the educational philosophies adopted by classroom teachers and their teaching styles?"To answer this question, Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was conducted in order to determine whether the variables were normally distributed.
According to the findings, all variables have higher than .05p values, and this indicates that they have a normal distribution.
Correlation analysis was used to examine the relationship between the variables.Correlation coefficient's being 1.00 stands for an excellent positive relation; -1.00 stands for an excellent negative relation; 0.00 shows that there is no relation.In interpretation of correlation coefficient in terms of magnitude, there are not exactly common intervals; however, it should be noted that the following limits can frequently be used in interpretation of correlation.The correlation coefficient's being between 0.70-1.00as an absolute value can be described as high level relation; its being between 0.70-0.30can be described as medium level relation, its being lower than 0.30 and can be described as a low-level  Büyüköztürk, 2004).Table 3 displays the relationship between educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers.
Examining Table 4, there is a significant relationship between the educational philosophies and teaching styles of teachers.Considering the teaching styles of teachers who adopt perennialist philosophy, the highest level of relationship is with authoritarian teaching style (r=0.479).Accordingly, there is a medium level of positive relationship between perennialism and authoritarian teaching style.The significant relationship between perennialism and authoritative teaching style (p= 0.000) supports this relation, as well.
The highest level of association with teaching styles of teachers who adopt idealism is the style of formal authority (r= 0.512).In this respect, there is a medium and positive relationship between the educational philosophy of idealism and authoritarian teaching style.The significant relationship between idealism and authoritative teaching style (p= 0.000) supports this relation, as well.As for the teachers who adopt realism, the highest level of relation is also with authoritative teaching style (r= 0.578).So the educational philosophy of realism is moderately and positively connected to the teaching style of formal authority.The significant relationship between realism and authoritative teaching style (p= 0.000) supports this relation, as well.Considering the teaching styles of teachers who adopt experimentalist philosophy, the highest level of relationship is with personal teaching style (r=0.571).There is a medium and positive relationship between experimentalism and personal teaching style.The significant relationship between experimentalism and personal teaching style (p= 0.000) supports this relation, as well.The teachers adopting existentialism have the highest level of relation with facilitator teaching style (r= 0.579).Thereby, there is a medium and positive relationship between existentialism and facilitator teaching style.The significant relationship between existentialism and facilitator teaching style (p= 0.000) supports this relation, as well.

DISCUSSION
As for the educational philosophies of classroom teachers, they adopt experimentalism, idealism, existentialism, realism and perennialism respectively.This finding is consistent with the findings of other studies that are Doğanay and Sari (2010), Kanatli and Schreglman (2014), Duman (2008Duman ( ), Çoban (2002)), Aslan (2014), Livingston et al. (2001).Student-centered approach is at the focus of experimentalism and existentialism.Findings indicate that teachers adopt a student-centered approach, have the perspective which gives students the opportunity of constructing their own knowledge, encourages them to search and investigate.The ongoing primary school curriculum also refers to the teacher properties as guiding the learning and teaching process and training students as individuals that search, question, wonder and be interested in their environments (Yetkin and Daşcan, 2010).
As for the teaching styles of classroom teachers, they have facilitator, delegator, expert, personal and formal authority teaching styles respectively.Grasha (1996) classified the teaching styles as teacher-centered, student-centered and both teacher and student centered.Authoritarian and expert teachers are teacher-centered; facilitator and delegator teachers are student-centered; and personal teachers are both teacher and student centered.Findings point out majority of teachers has student-centered teaching styles.This is supported by the findings of many other research such as Maden (2012), Üredi (2011), Bilgin andBahar (2008), Efilti and Çoklar (2013), Şentürk and İkikardeş (2011), Saracalioğlu et al. (2010), Süral (2013), Lucas (2005), Labillois (2015), Lester Short (2001), Larenas et al. (2011).Findings suggested that most of the teachers have convenient teaching styles indicated in the primary school curriculum.On the other hand findings also reveal that they have expert and formal authority teaching styles meaning that 21% of the teachers have teacher-centered teaching styles.Mendoza (2004), Faruji (2012) and Saracaloğlu et al. (2010) also found that teachers prefer teacher-centered styles more.Constructivist approach was adopted in curricula during the reform process in 2004-2005 academic years, and the reflection of this approach is observed in the research results.According to the constructivist approach, teacher guides the learning and teaching process, organizes the learning environment and plans the evaluation activities (Postlethwaite, 1993).The constructivist teacher is not the authority but an observer in the classroom (Şaşan, 2002).Majority of teachers adopts students-centered approach.Being in the transition and improvement process, the 21% of the teachers still adopt a teachercentered perspective.Their teaching styles are thought to change in time.
For the third research question, the relationship between the educational philosophies and teaching styles of classroom teachers was analyzed.Findings indicate a significant relationship between the educational philosophies that the teachers adopt and teaching styles of them.Teachers who adopt "perennialism, idealism and realism" have a medium and positive relationship with the authoritarian teaching style.Moreover, these three educational philosophies are associated to "expert and personal" teaching styles.In perennialist, idealist and realist philosophies, a teacher is well-trained, expert in his/her field, an authority and a professional instructor.Therefore, he/she is at the centre of learning and teaching environments.Teachers are also masters of the subject in authoritarian and expert teaching styles, and they prefer a teacher-centered perspective in learning and teaching environments.
Findings also suggest that teachers adopting "experimentalism" are related to the teaching styles of "personal" and "facilitator and delegator" in a moderate level.In experimentalism, the responsibility of the teacher is to guide the students.Students are supposed to be active participants and interact in learning and teaching environments.In this respect, the teacher is required to conduct strategies, methods and techniques which focus on student.Similarly, teachers having personal, facilitator and delegator teaching styles guide students according to their interests, encourage them to take responsibilities and take part in projects individually or in group, and consult teacher when they need.Under these circumstances, students should be encouraged to be active and at the centre of the learning and teaching process.
Teachers who adopt the educational philosophy of "existentialism" have a medium level of relationship with "delegator, facilitator and personal" teaching styles.In experimentalism, human is valued and teacher cares about not training monotype students.Instructional activities should give the opportunity of finding the truth and choosing the realities by presenting various choices to the students (Fidan, 1987).Students are at the centre.Likewise, teachers having facilitator, delegator and personal teaching styles arrange learning and teaching environments and guide the students from a studentcentered perspective.There is a medium and low level of relationship between the educational philosophies and teaching styles according to the findings.Grasha (1996Grasha ( , 2002a) ) observed the classroom experiences of teachers and found that teachers may have more than one teaching styles.According to the research of Grasha (1994Grasha ( , 1996Grasha ( , 2002Grasha ( , and 2003)), he categorized the teaching style groups of teachers into four: expert/formal authority; personal/expert/formal authority; facilitator/ personal/expert; delegator/facilitator/expert.According to these categories, the expert teaching style appears in all groups.Although, the teachers locate the students at the centre and encourage them to be active, there may be some cases that they should transfer something.At least, they present their own knowledge and then guide the students.
Findings of the existing research are also supported by the research of Fritz (2008) and Fries (2012).Fritz (2008) found that teachers prefer behaviorist approach in their teaching styles.In the study conducted by Fries (2012), participants adopt progressivism most and have the collaborative and student-centered teaching styles.Snyder (2006) studied with two teachers and found that while one of the teachers adopt student-centered philosophy and teaching style, the other one adopt studentcentered philosophy but teacher-centered teaching style.Classroom teachers adopt experimentalist philosophy in general and have the facilitator teaching style.That means they have a student-centered perspective in learning and teaching environments.The positive reflections of constructivist approach which has been implemented in primary schools can be observed in this respect.Nevertheless, there are still teachers who have teacher-centered teaching styles and are authoritarian since the implementation of this program for 11 years.Inservice trainings can focus on the awareness of this issue.After primary schools, constructivist approach has been reflected to elementary and high school curricula as well.Future research might be conducted in these levels of education.

Table 1 .
Educational philosophies adopted by classroom teachers.

Table 2 .
Teaching style adopted by classroom teachers.

Table 3 .
K-S test of Teaching style and educational philosophy variables.

Table 4 .
The relationship between educational philosophies and teaching styles adopted by teachers.