Teachers’ Withdrawal Behaviors and their Relationship with Work Ethic

Problem Situation: People experience ups and downs in their job satisfaction and motivation levels at different points of their work lives for various reasons. One of the outputs of low job satisfaction and motivation is defined as “withdrawal behaviors” in the literature. Withdrawal behaviors are any employee behavior of withdrawal from duties and responsibilities as a result of a distance that grows between the employee and the organization. It is an important necessity to investigate such behaviors at educational institutions. Determining teachers’ withdrawal behaviors will be useful in enabling more effective and successful performance of their job. Also, considering that their withdrawal behaviors adversely affect the students’ success, investigation of such behaviors is an important necessity in respect to the quality of education. Purpose: This study aims to identify teachers’ withdrawal behaviors and the relationship between such behaviors and work ethics based on the views of teachers and school administrators serving in public elementary schools. Method: Designed in single and relational screening models, the study was conducted using a mixed research method. The study sample in quantitative dimension is comprised of 381 elementary school teachers and 198 elementary school administrators. Under the quantitative dimension of the study, 15 elementary school teachers and 15 school administrators were interviewed. Teachers’ withdrawal behaviors were studied using the “Withdrawal Behaviors Scale” and their views on work ethics were studied using the “Work Ethics Scale.” The quantitative data was collected using a semistructured form. This article has been produced from the graduate thesis supervised by Professor Dr. İnayet Aydın at the Department of Education Management and Policy, Faculty of Educational Sciences, Ankara University. Research Assistant, Ankara University, Faculty of Educational Sciences, [email protected]