880 Teacher as a Researcher: Evaluation of Teachers’ Perceptions on Scientific Research Mediha SARI* Abstract Reforms in education can only be done if teachers who apply these reforms directly par- ticipate in the reform process. Moreover, this participation can only be possible if teac- hers are trained through pre-service and in-service to have a researcher identity inclined to change and development. The main purpose of this study is to investigate elementary school teachers’ perceptions about research conducted in their schools. The sample of the study consists of 42 female and 36 male teachers who worked at different elemen- tary schools. Fifty four of the teachers were classroom teachers and 24 of them were branch teachers. The Teachers’ Perceptions about Scientific Research Questionnaire developed by the researcher was used to gather the data. This instrument was develo- ped on the basis of questionnaire prepared by Everton, Galton and Pell (2002) and con- sists of 4 questions about teachers’ personal characteristics, 5 close-ended and 14 open- ended questions about teachers’ perceptions on scientific research. Percentage and fre- quency distributions of the data were computed for the close-ended questions and con- tent analysis was used for the open-ended questions. Results show that 27 % of the te- achers benefited from educational research. The major means of reaching the research findings were media sources such as newspapers, television, radio etc. The least used so- urces were in-service education courses and communication with academicians. Thirty three percent of the teachers indicated that they really benefited from educational rese- arch findings. The major problems that teachers encountered about research were: the research topics being not interesting or related to teachers’ real problems; research ques- tions being unclear and too long; a researcher with weak human relation skills; and not believing the benefits of the research topic. It is concluded that the Ministry of Educa- tion and school administrators give little importance to research findings and do not ca- re much about practical applications of research findings. Finally, it is concluded that schools have limited opportunities for research. Key Words Scientific Research, Teacher as Researcher, Teachers Perceptions on Scientific Research. © 2006 E¤itim Dan›flmanl›¤› ve Araflt›rmalar› ‹letiflim Hizmetleri Tic. Ltd. fiti. * Correspondence: Research Assistant Mediha SARI, Cukurova Univeristy, Faculty of Education, De- partment of Educational Sciences, 01330 Yüre¤ir-Adana, Turkey. E-mail: msari@cu.edu.tr Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice 6 (3) • September 2006 • 880-887