Abstract:

How teachers fulfill their job as a technician or professional teacher is very much up to the educational approach they adopt. Therefore, it is significant to reveal teachers’ educational philosophy shaping their understanding and practicing of teaching. Accordingly, the main purpose of this study is to investigate pre-service teachers’ educational philosophy approaches and views on teaching profession. Educational philosophies in this study are based on the framework of perennialism, essentialism, progressivism, reconstructionism, and existentialism approaches which received substantial attention in literature; the teaching approaches were based on the professional-technician teacher classification. This study utilised a descriptive survey model. The sample of the study consisted of 793 preservice teachers. The data were gathered via the Views on Teaching Profession Scale (VTS) and Educational Beliefs Scale (EBS) in 2016-2017 Education Year Fall Semester. Findings showed that pre-service teachers accepted the teacher type required by the modern education understanding; they adopted professional teacher approach more; and they saw modern educational approaches more important than traditional educational approaches. Moreover, in line with the findings, professional teaching approach was found to be in a positive relationship with progressivism and existentialism whereas technician teaching had positive relationship (even a bit low) with perennialism, essentialism as expected.

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