Özet:

This study aims to examine the effects of community service-learning (CSL) on the emphatic skills, democratic attitudes, problem solving skills and critical thinking tendencies of teacher candidates. Designed as a static group pretest-posttest experimental study, it has a control and experimental group. Participants were a total of 90 early childhood teacher candidates, 45 in the control group and 45 in the experimental one. Data were collected by using Baron Cohen and Whelwright’s (2004) Empathy Scale adapted to Turkish by Bora and Baysan (2009), the Attitude Research Laboratory’s Democratic Attitudes Scale adapted to Turkish by Gözütok (1995), Heppner and Peterson’s (1982) Problem Solving Skills Inventory adapted to Turkish by Taylan (1990), and the American Philosophy Association’s (1990) Critical Thinking Scale adapted to Turkish by Kökdemir (2003). The data collected were analyzed by using the Independent Samples T-Test for differences between groups and the Paired Samples T-Test for differences within groups. The results showed that the CSL experience positively contributed to teacher candidates’ empathic skills, democratic attitudes, problem solving skills and critical thinking tendencies

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