A Narrative Study of Factors Influencing Students’ Academic Achievement: Views of Parents, Teachers and Union Leaders

Authors

Mehmet Karakas, Artvin Çoruh UniversityFollow

Abstract

This paper reports on private school teachers, parents, and teacher union leaders’ experiences with middle and high schools in a small city in northeastern Turkey to identify the problems in education and study them to develop some solutions for them. This narrative study was carried out in the Spring semester of 2012 by conducting face-to-face individual in-depth interviews with 47 participants. Personal narratives were analyzed by developing themes. Findings reveal that the success and lack of it in education arises from the upper level management style, from uninterested parents, and the geographical conditions and location of the city create big problems. Also, parents’ cultural background is more significant than their economic background.

Keywords

Student Achievement, Socio-Economic and Cultural Status, School Administration, Narrative Research

Author Bio(s)

Mehmet Karakas is a Professor at the Department of Mathematics and Science Teaching at Artvin Coruh University, School of Education, Artvin, Turkey, Artvin Çoruh Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakultesi, Şehir Yerleşkesi, Merkez, ARTVİN 08000; e-mail mkarakas73@yahoo.com. His research examines teacher effectiveness, nature of science, and analogies in science teaching. His most recent research examines effective teaching and especially science teacher effectiveness.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to tank research assistant Melike Ozer Taymur, S. Levent Zorluoglu, Mustafa Cetin, Yavuz Topkaya, and Osman Taskın for conducting the interviews and transcribing them. The author also would like to thank Ertugrul Ozdemir for his help in formulating the semi-structured interview questions. The author also thanks the reviewer Sally St. George for her substantial contribution in shaping this work.

Publication Date

9-16-2020

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3672

Recommended APA Citation

Karakas, M. (2020). A Narrative Study of Factors Influencing Students’ Academic Achievement: Views of Parents, Teachers and Union Leaders. The Qualitative Report, 25(9), 3313-3335. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.3672