The Investigation of Mathematics Teachers' Perceptions of Lifelong Learning Competencies

The purpose of this study is to examine the mathematics teachers' perceptions of lifelong learning competencies. The study group of the research consisted of secondary school mathematics teachers working in the Ministry of National Education. This study was carried out to examine the perceptions of secondary school mathematics teachers on lifelong learning competencies depending on some variables and a correlational survey model within the scope of the descriptive method was used. In the research, "Key Competencies Scale in Lifelong Learning" developed by Şahin, Akbaşlı and Yanpar Yelken (2010) was used. Independent samples t-test, one-way analysis of variance and Tukey test were used to compare the mean scores obtained from the scale by variables. The results obtained from the research indicated that the secondary school mathematics teachers participated in the research have high level of life-long learning competencies. There was found to be no significant difference between the scores of life-long learning competencies as regards their genders, the high schools they graduated from, the faculty they graduated from, the geographical region where they have been working and professional seniority. However, significant differences were found in participants’ scores of lifelong learning competencies related to their professional satisfaction status and the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development.


Introduction
In today's information age, it is challenging for individuals to continue their professions and daily lives with only the information they learn at school. That's because, with the rapid development and spread of knowledge, if individuals cannot update their knowledge about their profession, they will not always be able to solve the problems they encounter in daily life with their current knowledge.
Therefore, as a result of this need in today's society, the general view of the society and individuals, in particular, has changed. So, in today's society, individuals have to constantly improve themselves in order to meet the requirements of the profession, regardless of their profession. Ensuring continuity of education to be given to individuals for this development is important for social progress. Therefore, lifelong education has gained importance in order for education to reach everyone regardless of the individual's age and to raise more qualified individuals.
Lifelong education has become a concept of solution point to meet the new needs of developing technology in human life. That's because education provided in schools is far from meeting the needs of individuals in solving their real life problems (Bağcı, 2011). MEB (2014) defines lifelong learning as all kinds of learning activities that an individual participates throughout their life in order to develop their knowledge, skills, interests and competencies. While Demirel (2009) defines lifelong learning as a continuous process that improves the individual's potential and competencies throughout their life, Jarvis (2004) defines it as a whole of individual and institutional learning. European Commission (2018) defines lifelong learning as an educational process that covers all learning activities of the individual by making a definition similar to that of Demirel (2009). Güleç, Çelik, Demirhan (2012) define lifelong education as a broad concept that covers all formal and non-formal education activities aiming at restructuring the education system and developing all educational potential outside the education system provided in schools. In the "World Bank Report" published in 2003, lifelong learning is defined as a new education-teaching model to meet the demands of individuals in a changing world order and it is stated that it covers learning within the life cycle from childhood to retirement (The World Bank, 2003).
Considering these definitions as a whole, lifelong learning can be defined as a learning process within the life cycle starting from childhood to retirement to be able to produce solutions to the problems faced by individuals in their real life, to increase their willingness and desire to learn and to improve their entire life skills. When considered in light of these definitions, lifelong learning should continue at every moment and in all areas of life. This is due to the fact that individuals must be trained to learn on their own and apply their knowledge and skills to their lives in order to fulfill the requirements of the age. In recent years, the rate of access, acquisition and change in the content and information to new generations only at the level of knowledge (Akbaş & Özdemir, 2002). Studies carried out in the field of lifelong learning (Doğan & Çalışkan Toyoğlu, 2019) revealed that the learning culture in Turkey is not strong. In order to increase the awareness and participation of individuals regarding lifelong learning, the teachers responsible for the education of individuals should realize some important tasks.
In order to reach lifelong learning goals, teachers should take on a role that teaches ways to reach information instead of just transferring the information required by the age (Yıldırım, Genc & Eryaman, 2016;Yaman, 2014;Özden, 2013). In order for teachers to fulfill this role, they must first be willing and inclined to learn and continue this throughout their professional life (Yaman & Yazar, 2015). Lifelong learning is not possible for a teacher whose skills have not developed to adapt to the age we are in, to prepare effective learning/teaching activities and to practice these. Therefore, teachers have an important role in making lifelong learning possible. It is important that teachers have the need and desire to develop themselves in order to fulfill these roles. In other words, teachers should constantly rejuvenate themselves at every stage of their professional lives, cope with problems, be encouraging, energetic, lively, active and productive, think critically, communicate, have aesthetic consciousness, and have the ability to develop these characteristics (MEB, 2008).
In today's educational system, teachers are expected to guide their students to gain lifelong learning competencies during the education and training process. From this point of view, it is possible for teachers to fulfill these roles only if they view lifelong learning from a certain perspective and have the necessary competencies. That's because, in addition to the training they receive during their undergraduate periods, teachers need to make up for their deficiencies in order to maintain their profession in a dynamic and responsive way to meet the needs of the society and to train their students in a more qualified way in this direction. Only in this way can they take the leading role in shaping society. From this point of view, it is important to reveal what teachers' views on lifelong learning are.
When the studies on lifelong learning with teachers are examined in the literature the following research are found with the corresponding authors: Doğan and Zeren (2019), the classroom teachers' tendencies of lifelong learning with learned strength; Kabataş and Yılmaz (2018), teachers' lifelong learning tendencies; Erdamar et al. (2017), lifelong learning tendencies of teachers working in high schools and the level of self-efficacy beliefs of educational internet use; Doğan and Çalışkan Toyoğlu (2019), the lifelong learning competences of teachers working in public schools ;Yıldırım (2015), the level of classroom teachers' perception of competence related to lifelong learning; Ayaz and Ünal (2016), teachers' lifelong learning tendencies; Kılıç (2014), lifelong learning tendencies of primary education teachers; Ayra and Kösterelioğlu (2015) teachers' lifelong learning tendencies.
Apart from these, it is seen that there are many studies on lifelong learning with prospective teachers studying in different departments of the faculty of education (Coşkun & Demirel, 2012). However, no Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020© 2020 125 studies on the perceptions and tendencies of secondary school mathematics teachers in the field of literature studies have been found. Although studies on other teaching areas and professions have been carried out, considering that mathematics teaching is neglected and mathematics is an important tool used in solving many problems encountered in daily life, the lack of research on the perceptions of mathematics teachers towards lifelong learning competencies may be considered as a major deficiency. Therefore, investigating the perceptions of secondary school mathematics teachers towards lifelong learning with a large sample group, will provide an important perspective on the junior high school mathematics teacher in estimating the overall perception towards lifelong learning in Turkey. In this context, this study aims to investigate the perceptions of secondary school mathematics teachers on lifelong learning competencies. For this purpose, answers to the following problems were sought.

Research Model
In this study, which was carried out to examine the perceptions of secondary school mathematics teachers on lifelong learning competencies according to some variables, a correlational survey model was used within the scope of the descriptive method. Correlational survey model is a research approach that aims to describe a situation in the past or present as it exists (Karasar, 2016).

Study Group
In the study, purposeful sampling method aiming to reflect the different characteristics and diversity of individuals in order to illuminate the subject of the study was used (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018). The participants of the research consist of secondary school mathematics teachers working in the Ministry of National Education. The variables of gender, high school and faculty, vocational seniority, geographic region where he / she worked, satisfaction status about the teaching profession, personal and professional development of the teachers participating in the study were taken as criteria and maximum diversity was tried to be provided regarding the variables. Information on the distribution of participants taking part in in the research is given in the Table 1 below.

Data Collection and Analysis
The analysis of the present study was carried out with the statistical program IBM SPSS Statistics 22. In order to determine whether the dataset was modelled for normal distribution, Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality values were used (.681, .357, etc). As the skewness and kurtosis values were between +1 and -1, the dataset was accepted as normally distributed. Three parametric statistical procedures, which ran on the data collected by means of the scale, were used in data analysis: 1. Descriptive analysis was undergone in order to identify the lifelong learning competency levels of mathematics teachers, 2. Independent-samples t-test was used to find out if there is a difference between the scores of mathematics teachers depending on their genders, 3. One-way analysis of variance (one-way ANOVA) was used to identify the difference of participants depending on the geographical region, the high school and the faculty they graduate from, Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020 © 2020 INASED professional seniority, professional satisfaction status and the activities the participants take part in for personal and professional development.
4. Tukey test was undergone to compare the results related to the difference among participants depending on professional satisfaction status and the activities the participants take part in for personal and professional development.

Findings
In this section, the results obtained by the analysis of the gathered data were given respectively. Table 2 presenting the minimum and maximum scores, means and standard deviations of mathematics teachers is given below. As it can be seen in Table 2, the minimum score is 31 and the maximum score is 115. The mean of mathematics teachers' scores is 93.24, which means that mathematics teachers have high levels of the scale "Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning" as their mean is higher than the scale's mid-point. Table 3 shows the independent samples t-test results showing the difference of mathematics teachers' scores regarding their genders.  Table 4 presents the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on the geographical region they have been working. As shown in Table 4. ANOVA results showed that no significant difference was found in participants' lifelong learning key competence levels respected to the geographical region they have been working. Table 5 shows the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on the high school they graduate from. In the analysis of the related data, there was found no significant difference between the total score of mathematics teachers depending on the high school they graduate from (p<0.05). Table 6 shows the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on the faculty they graduate from. In the analysis of the related data, there was found a significant difference between the total score of mathematics teachers depending on the faculty they graduate from (p<0.05). Table 7 shows the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on mathematics teachers' professional seniority.
Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020 © 2020 INASED As it can be seen on Table 7, there was found no significant difference between the total score of mathematics teachers depending on the faculty they graduate from (p<0.05). Table 8 shows the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on mathematics teachers' professional satisfaction status. In the analysis of the related data, there was found a significant difference between the total score of mathematics teachers depending on their professional satisfaction status (p<0.05). Table 9 indicates the total score variance analysis of sub-dimension scores of participants depending on their professional satisfaction status. As a consequence of the analysis of the related data, there were found significant differences between the scores of mathematics teachers depending on professional satisfaction status in the third and the seventh sub-dimensions (p<0.05). Tukey test was applied to reveal in favour of which group the significant difference occurred depending on key competencies. Table 10 indicates Tukey comparison results related to the difference of groups depending on professional satisfaction status. As it has been given in Table 10, significant differences were found among mathematics teachers' scores depending on their professional satisfaction status. Tukey test indicated that these differences were available for the third and the seventh sub-dimensions of the "Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning" (p<0.05). For the third sub-dimension "Mathematical Basis Competence at Science and Technology", significant differences were found among the participants who are satisfied Educational Policy Analysis andStrategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020 © 2020 INASED 132 and highly satisfied of their professions. As it comes to the seventh sub-dimension "The Competence of Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship", significant differences were found among the participants who are satisfied and highly satisfied of their professions. Table 11 shows the total score variance analysis of total score of participants depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development. As it can be seen on Table 11, there was found a significant difference between the total score of mathematics teachers depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development (p<0.05). Table 12 indicates the total score variance analysis of subdimension scores of participants depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development.  As a consequence of the analysis of the related data, there were found significant differences between the scores of mathematics teachers depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development in the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh and the eighth sub-dimensions (p<0.05). Tukey test was applied to reveal in favour of which group the significant difference occurred depending on key competencies. Table 13 indicates Tukey comparison results related to the difference of groups depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development. As it has been given in Table 13, significant differences were found among mathematics teachers' scores depending on the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and Educational Policy Analysis and Strategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020 © 2020 INASED professional development in the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh and the eighth sub-dimensions.

Sum of Squares
In the fourth sub-dimension "Digital Competence", significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities for personal and professional development and those who always do so. The results related to the fifth sub-dimension "The Competence of Learning to Learn" indicated that significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities for personal and professional development and those who always do so. In the way of the sixth sub-dimension "The Competence of Social Citizenship Awareness", significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities for personal and professional development and those who always do so. For the seventh sub-dimension "The Competence of Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship", significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities e for personal and professional development and those who always do so. The results regarding the eighth sub-dimension "The Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression" showed that significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities for personal and professional development and those who always do so.

Results and Discussion
The results obtained from the research can be summarized as following:  The mathematics teachers participated in the research had high level of lifelong learning competencies.
 No significant difference was found in mathematics teachers' scores of lifelong learning competencies as regards their genders, the high schools they graduated from, the faculty they graduated from, the geographical region where they have been working and professional seniority.
 A significant difference was found in mathematics teachers' scores of lifelong learning competencies as regarding their professional satisfaction status. Significant differences were found among the participants who were satisfied and highly satisfied of their professions in the subdimensions titled "Mathematical Basis Competence at Science and Technology" and "The Competence of Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship".
 A significant difference was found in mathematics teachers' scores of lifelong learning competencies related to the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development. Significant differences were found among the participants who sometimes take part in the activities for personal and professional development and those who always do so in the subdimensions titled "Digital Competence", "The Competence of Learning to Learn", "The Competence of Social Citizenship Awareness", "The Competence of Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship" and "The Competence of Cultural Awareness and Expression".
Educational Policy Analysis andStrategic Research, V 15, N 3, 2020 © 2020 INASED 135 In order to fulfil present and future needs of the ever-changing changing world, societies require globally competent teachers capable of applying knowledge and deploying skills. As such, Similar to the results of the present study, Yıldırım (2015) found out that teachers' perceptions of competence are at a high level in the study aiming at determining the level of perceptions of classroom teachers' competence pertaining to lifelong learning and getting their views on lifelong learning. In his study with primary school teachers, Kılıç (2014) stated that teachers had high levels of lifelong learning tendencies. Moreover, Ayra and Kösterelioğlu (2015) found that teachers had high levels of lifelong learning tendencies. When the related literature has been reviewed, it can be reliazed that there are a lot of studies supporting this result of the study (Demiralay, 2008, Gencel, 2013, Oral and Yazar, 2013, Konakman and Yelken, 2014, Doğan and Kavtelek, 2015 (Oral ve Yazar, 2015;Savuran, 2014;Tunca, Alkın-Şahin ve Aydın, 2015;Yaman ve Yazar, 2015). This may also be inconsistent with the results of study done by Özçiftçi ve Çakır (2015) finding out that female teachers have a higher level of lifelong learning tendencies than male teachers. Moreover, Gencel (2013) stated that the pre-service teachers' perceptions of lifelong learning competencies are higher than the male teacher candidates. On the other hand, Coşkun and Demirel (2012) found that male pre-service teacher higher levels of lifelong learning tendencies than female pre-service teachers.
In the study, there was found to be no significant difference among the lifelong learning competency levels of mathematics teachers regarding the high schools they graduated from, the faculty they graduated from, the geographical region where they have been working and professional seniority. In her study with undergraduates, Scheuch (2007) stated that the effects of classification (seniors versus juniors) are evident in the increased likelihood of overall participation of seniors and the types of activities in which they participated. She also claimed that students studying in the upper classes participated in research activities more than the students in lower grades. Coşkun (2009) found out no significant difference among the lifelong learning tendencies of pre-service teachers depending on their grades. It is perhaps not surprising that there is no significant difference among the participants in line with their lifelong learning competencies, since the concept of lifelong learning consists various competencies in its all sub-dimensions.
An important finding of the study was that mathematics teachers' lifelong learning competencies differed depending their professional satisfaction status and the frequency of the activities they participate for personal and professional development. With this in mind, it can be said that lifelong learners find the best resources they need, therefore they can learn. A setting that provides, stimulates, brings into their insights may be realized easily and used by them, since they find every experience worthwhile. Accordingly, lifelong learning competencies have been indispensable principles for teachers as well as all learners.

Recommendations
All these findings signal the need for further empirical research that seeks to investigate the casual relationships among the multiple dimensions of lifelong learning, since learning is a dynamic and continuous process. Research that can be fulfilled with teachers from different branches can be suggested in order to get ahold of an overview on teachers' lifelong learning competencies. With respect to the results of the present study, it can be recommended that both formal, informal and nonformal applications at different levels of schools where teachers work are necessary for developing lifelong learning competencies in order to enhance sustainable development.