Abstract:

This research aimed at revealing perceptions of teacher candidates attending preschool teacher training programs of different universities in Turkey related to programs that they attend through metaphors. Phenomenology approach, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research which bears a descriptive quality. The study group chosen with convenience sampling method consists of 264 teacher candidates attending Preschool Education Department of Hacettepe, Yüzüncü Yıl and Karadeniz Technical Universities in the academic year of 2013-2014. An interview form was used to reveal perceptions of teacher candidates attended the research related to preschool teacher education programme. Preschool teacher candidates' perceptions of preschool teacher training programs were analyzed by the method of metaphor analysis. According to the findings obtained in this study, 264 preschool teachers candidates accessed have produced a total of 183 valid metaphors related to preschool teacher training program: Within the categories established under the light of data obtained, those including most metaphors are accumulated in categories such as "essential/necessary", "guide/director" and "richness/depth", while the least metaphor including ones as "aesthetics/valuable", "difficult" and "a source of information/teacher".

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