The Necessity of Designing a Curriculum for Empowering Multi-Grade Classroom Teachers in Golestan Province

Abstract

The present study aimed to examine the necessity of designing a curriculum for empowering multi-grade classroom teachers in Golestan Province. To achieve this objective, qualitative data were first collected and analyzed to identify the elements of the empowerment curriculum for multi-grade classroom teachers. In the quantitative phase, based on the qualitative data, a questionnaire was developed, and the quantitative data were analyzed. The results indicated that the necessity of designing an empowerment model for multi-grade classroom teachers comprises 21 concepts, 9 subcategories, and 2 main categories. The structural model fit for the necessity of the teacher empowerment program in multi-grade classrooms demonstrated a standardized coefficient of 0.770 and a t-statistic greater than the standard value of 1.96, which was statistically significant and confirmed. This finding suggests that the impact of the empowerment program is statistically meaningful. Furthermore, with a standardized impact coefficient of 0.770, it can be stated that the necessity of an empowerment program for multi-grade classroom teachers in this study is highly emphasized and significantly influential from the perspectives of experts and teachers working in this field. It appears that while multi-grade classrooms offer advantages such as enhanced social development, environmental adaptability, emotional expression, cooperation, and behavioral maturity among students, they also lead to challenges such as time constraints, lack of educational equipment, weak academic foundations, heavy workload for teachers, and inadequate educational spaces.