The structural relationship between accountability felt and responsible teaching in Turkish teachers: The mediating effect of innovative thinking

•The study reached that teacher external accountability was correlated with teacher innovativeness and responsible teaching.•Teacher internal accountability was also correlated with external accountability, innovativeness, and responsible teaching.•Teacher accountability felt may increase the teacher innovativeness and responsible teaching.•The probable effect on responsible teaching is not of internal accountability.•Teacher innovative thinking doesn’t mediate the relationship between the external accountability felt and responsible teaching. The present study examined what relationships teachers’ external and internal accountabilities felt had on reflective thinking skills and whether teachers’ innovative thinking had any mediating effect between teachers’ external and internal accountabilities felt and their responsible teaching. This study used a correlational research design. Whether a literature-based hypothetic model explained the consequences of teacher felt accountability on the quality teaching practices mediated by innovative characteristics was tested. Research data were gathered from 472 teachers. Participants were asked to complete a survey that was composed of four scales for the measurement of external and internal felt accountability as well as their innovative thinking and level of teaching responsibility. The study revealed that teacher external accountability was significantly correlated with teachers’ innovative thinking, and responsible teaching, whereas teacher internal accountability was correlated with external accountability, innovative thinking, and responsible teaching, which indicated that teacher accountability felt may increase the teacher innovative thinking and responsible teaching.