Pedagogical formation program teacher candidates’ attitudes towards the teaching profession

Abstract

The teaching profession has important characteristics such as love and value which affect the success attained in the profession. This paper examines attitudes of teacher candidates toward teaching profession in terms of love, value and adaptation dimensions of the profession. Also it’s aimed to determine change in the attitudes according to “gender,” “graduation status” and “whether or not practiced teaching profession before.” This study is a descriptive research in survey model. The sample of the study consists of eighty teacher candidates attending Pedagogical Formation Certificate Program. The 5-point likert-type attitude scale from literature consisting of “love”, “value” and “adaptation” dimensions was used in this study. The findings show that the teacher candidates in pedagogical formation certification program have a positive attitude towards the teaching profession. The statistical evaluation of “value”, “love” and “adaptation” subcategories revealed no significant difference with respect to graduation status and teaching experience variables. However a significant difference is observed in favor of female teachers when compared according to gender in love sub-category.