The purpose of this study was to explore the professional development practices in Turkish elementary schools. .

The findings revealed that in Turkey, teachers are usually overwhelmed by the heavy demands of the profession. Besides such problems as overcrowded classrooms, and poor physical conditions of schools; teachers do not have enough teaching materials nor access to professional publications and libraries. Educational publications especially prepared for teachers to inform them of such new professional practices as student evaluation, teaching methods, use of audio-visual materials, and laboratory techniques are not widely available. Therefore, the only resource teachers can utilize is their own knowledge and experience which usually has been gained from teacher training institutions some years earlier. In addition, the financial difficulties that teachers face is yet another burden which taken with the above factors has served to make teachers lonely and helpless public workers trying to perform their task successfully.

The findings also show that teachers do not invite each other to each other's classrooms for observations. Even though many teachers reported that they receive informal evaluations of their teaching performance from other teachers, they also said that sometimes it was hard for them to know how they were doing in their teaching.