Özet:

This research in general aims to determine the relationship between teacher candidates’ attitudes towards teaching who are trained in Science and Art Faculties taking pedagogical training and the level of importance that a contemporary teacher places on the necessary qualifications required for a teacher. In order to this goal, whether overall teacher candidates’ attitudes towards teaching and the level of importance that a contemporary teacher place on the necessary qualifications required for a teacher change according to teacher candidates’ gender, age, graduation, marital status, working for a wage, graduation grade point average, working sector, the predominant reason their taking pedagogical formation and the educational level of their parents have been investigated. This study adopted correlational research design which is survey and relational example of descriptive research. Data were collected from 269 prospective teachers by scales called "Attitudes towards Teaching (ATT)" and "Contemporary Teacher Qualifications" (CTQ). The ATT included 17 items with 5-point Likert-scale responses such as: (1) Strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) neutral, (4) agree, (5) strongly agree. Exploratory factor analysis managed for he ATT scale revealed that KMO was .945 and Bartlett test (,000) was significant. According to this result, it can be said that the data of ATT was factorable. Factor loadings of the ATT's items ranged from ,568 to ,87; and item-total correlation values ranged from ,514 to ,834. Due to the ATT explained 53. 9% of total variance it is suitable to use ATT as a unidimensional. The ATT has an internal consistency coefficient alpha of ,86. Accordingly, it is possible to say that the ATT is valid and reliable. The CTQ included 18 items with 5-point Likert-scale responses such as: (1) Never, (2) rarely, (3) average, (4) much, (5) very much. Exploratory factor analysis managed for he CTQ scale revealed that KMO was .930 and Bartlett test (,000) was significant. According to this result, it can be said that the data of CTQ was factorable. Factor loadings of the CTQ's items ranged from ,457 to ,739; and item-total correlation values ranged from ,402 to ,693. Due to the CTQ explained 42.1% of total variance it is suitable to use CTQ as a unidimensional. The CTQ has an internal consistency coefficient alpha of ,92. Accordingly, it is possible to say that the CTQ is valid and reliable. For demographic variables frequency and percentages and t-test were used in order to evaluate attitudes towards teaching profession according to gender, age, type of education, graduation, marital status, working for a wage. Finally, the relationship between attitudes towards teaching profession and contemporary teacher qualifications was tested by using Pearson correlation technique. The research found that attitudes towards teaching profession did not change significantly according to teacher candidates' gender, age, type of education, marital status, working for a regular wage but it changed according to the area of training. Accordingly, prospective teachers who have a bachelor's degree in social sciences have more positive attitudes towards teaching than science and mathematics. While, teacher candidates' attitudes towards teaching did not change significantly according to undergraduate grade point average and working area, the dominant point of rationale in choosing pedagogical training certificate program is different attitudes. Accordingly, prospective teachers who choose pedagogical training certificate program because of having positive attitudes towards teaching profession take higher scores than those who believe this certificate provides ease of finding a job and those who prefer taking pedagogical certificate because of the pressure of family or surroundings. Prospective teachers' emphasis on the qualifications of contemporary teachers are expected to correspond to the full level. With reference to this, prospective teachers attributing importance to the qualifications of contemporary teacher at full level. While teacher candidates attach the highest importance to the phrase of "Teachers should have adequate sense of responsibility to train students", attach the least importance to the expression "Teachers should be adequate in using computer technology. In order to determine the relationship between scores of teacher attitudes towards teaching and qualifications of the contemporary a positive and statistically significant relationship between these two variables was found by using Pearson correlation technique. By taking into consideration the demographic variables attitudes of teacher candidates differed in terms of the field that is graduated. Prospective teachers who have graduated from departments of social sciences have higher scores. The findings contrary to this research or supporting the results of this research can be explained by the help of studies searching the attitudes of teacher candidates towards teaching profession in different years and different areas. There are differences about the dominant reason to continue the pedagogical training program. Teacher candidates who have positive attitudes towards teaching profession have higher attitude scores. This result is consistent with several studies in the literature. The majority of candidate teachers attributed high level of importance to the qualifications of contemporary teachers. There is a positive and low-level significant relationship between the scores of candidate teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and the qualifications of contemporary teachers. Thus, if the scores of attitudes towards teaching profession increase, the importance given to the qualifications of contemporary teachers increase a small amount.

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