Attitudes of Teacher Candidates Towards ProfessionalDevelopment Courses

Abstract

Oskamp, S. (1991) explains that the cause of a person’s behavior toward another person or an object could be regarded as attitude. Attitudes have usually been considered as either mental readiness or implicit predispositions applying some general and constant effect on a quite large class of evaluative answers (Rossner,1988). Morgan, King, Weisz & Schopler (1986) suggest that one of the main human behaviors is attitudes and the importance of attitudes is because of the thought of guiding behaviors. They add that individuals’ attitudes have vital effects in their likes, dislikes and behaviors, for behavior, attitudes may have significant results. Zimbardo, Ebbesen & Maslach (1977) mention that satisfactions and dissatisfactions, likes and dislikes comprise of attitudes. Teachers’ attitudes towards a profession is a vital factor influencing his/her success and effectiveness towards a profession (Güneyli & Aslan, 2009). One of the most important factors relates to students’ knowledge, skills and attitudes towards teaching profession is professional development courses (Yüksel, 2009). The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of the students studying at the Faculty of Education towards professional development courses through Attitude Inventory and Needs Scale. The population consist 491 students studying at the Faculty of Education in Eastern Mediterranean University. In order to fulfill this aim, the following questions will be discussed: 1. How are the attitudes of students at Faculty of Education towards professional development courses? 2. Do the attitudes of the students towards professional development courses significantly vary according to their grades (i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th year)? 3. Do the attitudes of the students towards professional development courses significantly vary according to their departments? 4. Is there a significant relation between the attitudes of the students towards professional development courses and the way of choosing their departments? 5. Is there a significant relation between the students’ overall CGPA and their attitudes towards professional development courses? 6. Is there a significant relation between the students’ attitudes towards professional development courses and their viewpoints about the need of the professional development courses for their teaching careers? The results revealed that almost half of the teachers candidates have negative attitudes, and almost half of them have positive attitudes. According to the results, while the percentages of negative attitudes decreases year by year, the percentages of positive attitudes increases year by year. Also, students of Turkish Language Teaching, English Language Teaching, Primary Mathematics Teaching, and Social Science Teaching have positive attitudes towards professional development courses. Computer and Instructional Technology Teaching Education students and Music Teaching students have negative attitudes towards professional development courses. The students who chose their programs willingly have more positive attitudes than the others. there is no significant relation in students’ attitudes towards professional development courses and their CGPA. Students gave high points for professional development courses in Needs Scale.