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Investigating demographiccharacteristics and teachingperceptions of Turkish preschoolteachersAbdülkadir Kabadayi aa Faculty of Education, Elementary Department , SelcukUniversity , Konya, TurkeyPublished online: 14 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Abdülkadir Kabadayi (2010) Investigating demographic characteristics andteaching perceptions of Turkish preschool teachers, Early Child Development and Care, 180:6,809-822, DOI: 10.1080/03004430802445501

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Early Child Development and CareVol. 180, No. 6, July 2010, 809–822

ISSN 0300-4430 print/ISSN 1476-8275 online© 2010 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/03004430802445501http://www.informaworld.com

Investigating demographic characteristics and teaching perceptions of Turkish preschool teachers

Abdülkadir Kabadayi*

Faculty of Education, Elementary Department, Selcuk University, Konya, TurkeyTaylor and Francis LtdGECD_A_344718.sgm(Received 9 December 2007; final version received 25 August 2008)10.1080/03004430802445501Early Childhood Development and Care0300-4430 (print)/1476-8275 (online)Original Article2008Taylor & Francis0000000002008Dr [email protected]

It is clear that teacher qualifications significantly affect the quality of teachingbeliefs and education provided to young children and that higher qualifications inpreschool teachers have both short- and long-term positive effects on theirstudents. This study was built on pre-existing literature and new data to analysethe current socio-demographic characteristics and perceptions of teachingcandidates entering the field of Preschool Education in Turkey. A questionnaireconsisting of fixed-response and Likert-style questions was administered to allentry-level pre-bachelor and bachelor preschool student teachers enrolled in theVocational School of Social Sciences (n = 120) and Faculty of Education ofSelcuk University (n = 107) during the 2004–2005 academic year as well ascooperating teachers (n = 90) currently working in Konya. The aim was to obtaininformation regarding their background characteristics and perceptions ofpreschool teaching as a profession. Results indicate that significant differencesexist between pre-service (pre-bachelor and bachelor) and cooperating preschoolteachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession. Implications for pre-service andcooperating teacher education and further research are discussed.

Keywords: pre-bachelor; bachelor; cooperating teachers; teachers’ perceptions;Turkish context; demographic characteristics

Introduction1

Researchers have investigated the teachers’ effectiveness at every level in schoolsettings from many aspects. Therefore, it is important to assess perceptions of earlychildhood cooperating and pre-service teachers because they may serve as a ‘contex-tual filter’ through which they screen their classroom experiences, interpret themand adapt their subsequent classroom practices (Clark & Peterson, 1986). In thisprocess, cooperating and pre-service teachers’ perceptions play a significant role andact as the mirror through which behaviour is reflected in preschool education.Researchers, who are interested in teaching perceptions of teachers, have found atleast minimal support for the supposition in that early childhood educators withmore education typically hold different beliefs and perceptions, and may behavedifferently from teachers with less education (Elicker, Huang, & Wen, 2003;McMullen & Alat, 2002).

*Email: [email protected]

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Background for the study

Current research confirms findings from the past two decades that teacher qualifica-tions significantly affect the quality of teaching, beliefs, perceptions and educationprovided to young children (Lazar, Darlington, Murray, Royce, & Snipper, 1982;Oden, Schweinhart, & Weikart, 2000; Phillips, Mekos, Scarr, McCartney, & Abbott-Shim, 2000; Whitebook, Sakai, Gerber, & Howes, 2001) and that higher qualificationsin preschool children’s teachers contribute to more positive short- and long-termoutcomes for these children (Kontos & Wilcox-Herzog, 2001).

It was discovered that some progress was made in identifying many factorswhich were found to influence the philosophical beliefs and perceptions adoptedby preschool teachers (Buchanan, Burts, Bidner, White, & Charlesworth, 1998;Hao, 2000; McMullen, 1999). Educational background is one such mediator ofbeliefs and perceptions in early childhood that has been identified in the researchand should be studied more closely because it can influence policy, teacher educa-tion reform and advocacy initiatives. Educational background, in this context,refers to both the level of overall education and the type of coursework or contentcovered during that education. Some studies in the literature conclude that theoverall level of education attained is the most significant educational backgroundfactor in the adoption of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) philosophy(Kontos & Wilcox-Herzog, 2001; Morgan et al., 1994). In other studies, it is notthe level but the type of education that matters most (Cassidy, Buell, Pugh-Hoese,& Russell, 1995); teachers who have taken coursework or engaged in trainingspecific to the acquisition of the knowledge and skills believed to be connected toworking effectively with young children have been found to engage in morebehaviours associated with a DAP philosophy (Howes, 1983; Scarr, Eisenberg, &Deater-Deckard, 1994; Snider & Fu, 1990). Studies have also been directed at theemotional dimension of pre-service teacher education (Beach & Pearson, 1998;Hedrick, Mcgee, & Mittag, 2000) and training in other professions that requirefield experience (Oermann & Sperling, 1999; Pelech, Stalker, Regehr, & Jacobs,1999).

This study is conducted to build up the knowledge base about characteristicsand perceptions of prospective preschool pre-service and cooperating teachers. Thefocus of the vast majority of research on pre-service teacher education has been thestudent teacher (Coultas & Lewin, 2002; Sumsion, 1998; Walkington, 2005), withvery limited attention to the cooperating teacher in practicum. Therefore, furtherinvestigation is needed to explore the matter both from the cooperating and thepre-service teachers’ (pre-bachelor and bachelor) perspectives and to display thesimilarities and differences in teaching perceptions of them since the kinds ofperceptions that pre-service and cooperating teachers have provide a context todiscuss ways to enhance the learning in preschool settings in different socio-cultural contexts.

The present study explores the background characteristics of those still teachingand currently entering preschool teacher training, and their personal perceptions aboutpreschool teaching as a career by using Turkish context. To guide this study, thefollowing research questions are investigated: (1) Who comes for preschool teachingin Turkey? (2) Is there a difference among cooperating and pre-service teachers’ (pre-bachelor and bachelor) perceptions of the teaching profession? (3) What are theimplications for improving preschool education?

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Early Child Development and Care 811

Method

Participants

The population for this descriptive study was pre-service teachers majoring inpreschool teaching and pre-bachelor students involving child development and educa-tion at Selcuk University. Established in 1975, its name comes from the SelcukEmpire whose capital was the city of Konya where the main campus of the universityis presently located with 85,000 students in Turkey and of which towns cooperatingpreschool teachers are currently teaching in. The sample was pre-service teachersenrolled in a method of teaching preschool education from the department of facultyof education with 9158 student enrolments in both undergraduate and graduate levelprogrammes related to preschool, elementary and secondary education, pre-bachelorstudents enrolled in Child Development and Education department of VocationalSchool of Social Sciences, which is one of the most crowded schools with 6300students including 14 departments and the preschool teachers who currently teach indifferent preschools and nursery schools and kindergartens in Konya. The sample (n= 317) included 107 preschool student teachers, 120 pre-bachelor students of theChild Development and Education department and 90 cooperating preschool teachers.From the outset, they were informed about the purpose of the study; they were toldthat the researcher was interested in finding out about their perceptions of teachingand that there was no right or wrong answer to the items.

Procedure

Research instrument

In this study, a new adapted form of the questionnaire developed by Saban (2003a,2003b) was used to collect the data. The questionnaire consisted of fixed-response andLikert-style questions and included two main parts. The first part of it comprised onlyfixed-response questions to obtain information about the socio-demographic charac-teristics (i.e. age, schooling and socio-economic status) of the participants (see Table1). The second part of the questionnaire included only Likert-style statements toexpose participants’ perceptions of preschool teaching as a profession. It started withthe following heading: ‘Here is a list of statements designed to explore how teachercandidates, like you, might perceive themselves in relationship to the teaching profes-sion or what they might consider as important in teaching. There is no right or wronganswer because each teacher candidate has his or her own concerns, opinions or valuesabout education. Please read each statement carefully and ask yourself: When I thinkof myself as a future teacher, what do I believe in most?’ (Saban, 2003a, 2003b). Alist of 12 statements about some aspects of the teaching profession was presented inthe order shown in Table 2 and the participants were required to indicate their level ofagreement for each statement based on a four-point Likert scale (1 = ‘stronglydisagree’, 2 = ‘disagree’, 3 = ‘agree’ and 4 = ‘strongly agree’). Cronbach alphareliability coefficient of the second part (Table 2) of the questionnaire including ‘state-ments’ is .67 (Saban, 2003b), which is just acceptable (Rizvi & Eliot, 2005).

Analytic techniques

In the process of analysing data, descriptive statistics including frequency distribution,percentile statistical analysis and standard deviation are used to report the data

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Table 1. Demographic information about the participants (n = 317).

Characteristics n %

Academic statusPre-bachelor 120 37.9Bachelor 107 33.8Cooperating teacher 90 28.4

GenderMale 5 1.6Female 312 98.4

Age17–18 60 19.019 54 17.020 44 13.921 24 7.622 and above 135 42.4

Mother’s educationPreschool — —Primary school 217 68.5Middle school 41 12.9High school 18 5.7Post-secondary 24 7.6None (e.g. illiterate) 17 5.3

Father’s educationPreschool — —Primary school 133 42.0Middle school 56 17.7High school 67 21.1Post-secondary 60 18.9None (e.g. illiterate) 1 0.3

Mother’s occupationHousewife 279 88.0Teacher 20 6.3Civil servant 3 0.9Retired 7 2.2Other (e.g. dead) 8 2.5

Father’s occupationSelf-employed 38 12.0Teacher 52 16.4Civil servant 54 17.0Trader 51 16.1Retired 62 19.6Farmer 20 6.3Other (e.g. unemployed, dead) 40 12.6

Note: n = number of participants; % = percentage of participants.

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Early Child Development and Care 813

Tabl

e 2.

Perc

epti

ons

of p

resc

hool

tea

chin

g as

a p

rofe

ssio

n.

Gro

ups

Pre

-bac

helo

r(a

)(n

= 1

20)

Pre

-ser

vice

(b)

(n =

107

)

Coo

pera

ting

(c)

(n =

90)

Sta

tem

ents

SD

SD

SD

F-t

est

p-va

lues

TU

KE

Y H

SD

Car

eer

choi

ce c

omm

itm

ent

1. I

f I

had

to s

tart

all

ove

r, I

wou

ld c

hoos

e pr

esch

ool

teac

hing

wit

hout

an

y he

sita

tion

3.67

500.

5821

3.19

630.

8842

2.97

780.

9359

21.3

030.

000*

a-b,

a-c

2. F

or m

e pr

esch

ool

teac

hing

is

a li

felo

ng c

aree

r ch

oice

3.68

330.

5183

3.16

820.

8631

3.23

330.

750

17.3

290.

000*

a-b,

a-c

3. I

loo

k fo

rwar

d to

mee

ting

my

firs

t st

uden

ts a

s a

pres

choo

l te

ache

r3.

7417

0.43

963.

1308

0.82

513.

433

0.67

1224

.528

0.00

0*a-

b, b

-c, a

-cP

erce

ptio

ns o

f pr

ofes

sion

al i

dent

ity

4. I

bel

ieve

tha

t m

y m

ost

impo

rtan

t ro

le a

s a

pres

choo

l te

ache

r is

to

disp

ense

kno

wle

dge

3.65

00.

6032

3.26

170.

9648

3.31

10.

7591

8.20

10.

000*

a-b,

a-c

5. I

bel

ieve

tha

t m

y m

ost

impo

rtan

t ro

le a

s a

pres

choo

l te

ache

r is

to

faci

lita

te s

tude

nt l

earn

ing

3.68

330.

5343

3.42

990.

6459

3.52

20.

6039

5.31

30.

005*

a-b

6. I

bel

ieve

tha

t m

y m

ost

impo

rtan

t ro

le a

s a

pres

choo

l te

ache

r is

to

fost

er s

ocia

l, em

otio

nal

and

mor

al g

row

th o

f ch

ildr

en3.

8083

0.41

603.

8131

0.43

723.

7444

0.53

130.

674

0.51

1—

Ori

enta

tion

s to

war

ds i

nstr

ucti

on7.

I b

elie

ve t

hat

pres

choo

l st

uden

ts l

earn

bes

t th

roug

h di

rect

ins

truc

tion

2.90

000.

9019

2.68

220.

9674

2.58

890.

8332

3.33

90.

037*

a-c

8. I

bel

ieve

tha

t pr

esch

ool

stud

ents

lea

rn m

ore

from

ask

ing

ques

tion

s th

an f

rom

lis

teni

ng t

o te

ache

r3.

5333

0.59

313.

3832

0.74

793.

4667

0.56

491.

547

0.21

5—

9. I

bel

ieve

tha

t pr

esch

ool

stud

ents

lea

rn m

ore

thro

ugh

acti

ve

part

icip

atio

n in

coo

pera

tive

lea

rnin

g ac

t3.

4833

0.56

483.

7477

0.49

703.

4444

0.67

238.

536

0.00

0*a-

b, b

-c

Ori

enta

tion

s to

war

ds p

hysi

cal

puni

shm

ent

of c

hild

ren

10. I

bel

ieve

tha

t ph

ysic

al p

unis

hmen

t of

chi

ldre

n is

nec

essa

ry t

o m

aint

ain

orde

r in

pre

scho

ols

1.70

830.

8033

2.01

870.

9314

1.77

780.

7901

4.08

00.

018*

a-b

Att

itud

e to

pre

-ser

vice

tea

cher

tra

inin

g11

. I b

elie

ve t

hat

pres

choo

l te

ache

rs a

re b

orn,

not

mad

e2.

4000

0.98

222.

2056

0.95

901.

7778

0.83

1611

.628

0.00

0*a-

c, b

-c

Con

cept

ion

of p

resc

hool

tea

chin

g as

a p

rofe

ssio

n12

. I b

elie

ve t

hat

pres

choo

l te

achi

ng i

s a

very

dif

ficu

lt j

ob t

o do

3.26

670.

8671

3.52

343.

0042

3.22

220.

945

0.76

60.

466

*p <

0.0

5.

Not

e: n

= n

umbe

r of

par

tici

pant

s;

= m

ean

scor

e; S

D =

sta

ndar

d de

viat

ion;

TU

KE

Y =

mul

tipl

e co

mpa

riso

n.

XX

X

X

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obtained via fixed-response and Likert-style items. In addition to this, one-way anal-ysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure was used to determine the difference among thepre-bachelor, bachelor and cooperating teachers. Tukey HSD was used to explain thesource of difference for or against each group mentioned above.

Results

This part of the study displays demographic structure and characteristics of studentand cooperating preschool teachers such as gender, age, schooling in Turkey.

The study shows that the vast majority of the participants (98.4%) are female (seeTable 1), which generally reflects current trends within the field of preschool educa-tion (Saluja, Early, & Clifford, 2002; Walsh & Elmslie, 2005).

With regard to age, starting the educational life at age 4 in preschool education andcompleting primary, secondary and high schools at age 17, participants of this studywill be eligible to enter the preschool teacher training programmes of the universitiesat the age of 17 or 18 and they will complete their pre-bachelor programme aged 19–20 and complete their bachelor degree at aged 21–22 unless their schooling is inter-rupted up to that point. Pre-bachelor student teachers attend to practicum aged 19 or20 while bachelor ones carry it out at 21 or 22 in the last semester of their academiclife. Up on completion of their university education, preschool student teachers starttheir teaching profession either in state or private preschools.

The study indicates that the distribution of the participants by age in preschooleducation is 19% (17–18), 17% (19), 13.9% (20), 7.6% (21), 42.4% (22 and above)(see Table 1). The reason why about a half of the participants (135 out of 317) are 22and above is that they are cooperating preschool teachers and currently teach in oneof the state or private schools. Furthermore, some of the pre-bachelor or bachelorstudent teachers tend to increase the graduation age as they may fail to pass some ofthe school subjects or they may manage to enter the preschool teaching programmesof the universities in their second or third trial after spending a few years for prepar-ing University Entrance Examination (OSS).

Regarding socio-economic background of the participants, two-third of the partic-ipants (68.5%) indicated that their mothers had primary school education while 5.7%of them were either illiterate or dropped-out of primary school education. 12.9% ofthe participants’ mothers had middle and only 5.7% of them had high schooldiplomas while 7.6% of their mothers had post-secondary school qualification. It wasindicated that about half of the participants’ fathers (42%) had primary school educa-tion followed by 17.7% middle, 21.1% high school and 18.9% post-secondary schooleducation while 0.3% of them were illiterate or dropped-out of primary school. Inthis study participants’ fathers had longer educational experience (with mean of 8.3)than their mothers (6.0) in terms of schooling (see Table 1). It is interesting that noneof the participants’ fathers and mothers had experienced preschool educationthemselves.

Eighty-eight per cent of the participants’ mothers were found to be housewives,which is supported by Arslan (2007) while 6.3% of their mothers were themselvesteachers. As for their fathers, they were found to have a wide range of professions suchas self-employed, trader and farmer (34%), followed by teacher and civil servant(35%) in one of the state sectors. It can be inferred from the data that vast majority ofthe participants come from one-parent working family where only the father has a paidjob.

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Early Child Development and Care 815

As for the second part of the study, analysis of the preschool pre-service and coop-erating teachers’ perception of preschool teaching as a profession was investigated toexplore if there was a significant difference among the pre-service (pre-bachelor andbachelor) and cooperating teachers in career choice commitment, perceptions ofprofessional identity, orientations towards instruction, orientations towards physicalpunishment of children, attitude to pre-service teacher training, and conception ofpreschool teaching as a profession aspects (see Table 2).

Under the title of career choice commitment, the participants’ thoughts, attitudes,desires, tendencies, future plan in entering preschool teaching were explored. Thereexisted a significant difference both between pre-bachelor (3.6750) and bachelor(3.1963) and pre-bachelor (3.6750) and cooperating (2.9778) preschool teachers (F =21.303) in Item (1) If I had to start all over, I would choose preschool teaching with-out any hesitation, followed by both between pre-bachelor (3.6833) and bachelor(3.1682) and pre-bachelor (3.6833) and cooperating (3.2333) preschool teachers (F =17.329). In Item (2) For me preschool teaching is a lifelong career choice, there wasa difference between pre-bachelor (3.7417) and bachelor (3.1308), bachelor (3.1308)and cooperating (3.433), and pre-bachelor (3.7417) and cooperating (3.433) preschoolteachers (F = 24.528). In Item (3) I look forward to meeting my first students as apreschool teacher.

Regarding perceptions of professional identity, it appeared that there was a signif-icant difference both between pre-bachelor (3.650) and bachelor (3.2617) and pre-bachelor (3.650) and cooperating (3.311) preschool teachers (F = 8.201) in Item (4) Ibelieve that my most important role as a preschool teacher is to dispense knowledge,and a significant difference between pre-bachelor (3.6833) and bachelor (3.4299)preschool teachers (F = 5.313) was also found out in Item (5) I believe that my mostimportant role as a preschool teacher is to facilitate student learning, while therewas an insignificant difference between and/or among the participants in Item (6) Ibelieve that my most important role as a preschool teacher is to foster social,emotional and moral growth of children (F = 0.674).

In the section of orientations towards instruction, it was aimed to explore whetherthere was a significant difference between and/or among the preschool participants inrespect of methods of instruction (Direct, Communicative and Interactionist). Thestudy indicated that there was a significant difference between pre-bachelor (2.9000)and cooperating (2.6822) preschool teachers (F = 3.339) in Item (7) I believe thatpreschool students learn best through direct instruction, followed by both betweenpre-bachelor (3.4833) and bachelor (3.7477) and cooperating (3.4444) preschoolteachers (F = 8.536) in Item (9) I believe that preschool students learn more throughactive participation in cooperative learning act, while it was proved to havinginsignificant difference between and/or among the participants in Item (8) I believethat preschool students learn more from asking questions than from listening toteacher (F = 1.547).

As for the orientations towards physical punishment of children section, the partic-ipants were required to put forward their thoughts about whether the physical punish-ment of children was necessary in disciplining the preschool students in preschoolsettings. It was posed that there was a significant difference between pre-bachelor(1.7083) and bachelor (2.0187) preschool teachers (F = 4.080) in Item (10) I believethat physical punishment of children is necessary to maintain order in preschools.

In the section of attitude to pre-service teacher training, the participants werealso asked to express their commitments about whether teaching was an inborn

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characteristic or a learned one. It was discovered that there was a significant differ-ence both between pre-bachelor (2.4000) and cooperating (1.7778) and bachelor(2.2056) and cooperating (1.7778) preschool teachers (F = 11.628) in Item (11) Ibelieve that preschool teachers are born, not made.

Concerning conception of preschool teaching as a profession as the last section,the participants were required to display how they concerned teaching preschoolstudents in preschool settings. The study exposed that there was a non-significantdifference between and/or among the pre-service and cooperating preschool teachersin Item (12) I believe that preschool teaching is a very difficult job to do (F = 0.766).

The study exposed that the majority of the participants come from relatively lowsocio-economical level families. The findings of the study related to the socio-economical status of the participants are supported by Arslan (2007), who conductedresearch to investigate demographic characteristics of prospective classroom teachersin Turkey. Erkan et al. (2002) also found that 77% of pre-service preschool teacherscome from a low socio-economical level. One of the most important indicators of thisresearch is that none of the prosperous preschool pre-service and cooperating teach-ers’ fathers and mothers had preschool education in their lives. Furthermore, theeducational qualifications of the participants’ fathers and mothers posed that less thanhalf of the fathers and three-fourths of the mothers have no more than primary educa-tion and that more fathers than mothers are qualified above elementary and secondaryeducation. It is also indicated that a vast majority of the participants come from one-parent working families where only the father has a paid job. The findings related tosocio-economical levels of the participants are almost in line with the conclusionbased on an investigation of 821 pre-service preschool teachers in various universitiesin Turkey (Erkan et al., 2002).

Discussion

In this part, participants’ perception of preschool teaching as a profession was analy-sed and summarised under the title of six main categories as follows.

Career choice commitment

It seems that pre-bachelor preschool teacher candidates are motivated to teach inpreschool settings more than bachelor and cooperating preschool teachers, respec-tively. It was supported by Stevens and Wenner (1996) in their study suggesting thatpre-service teachers with low knowledge bases were relatively optimistic about theirabilities to teach. Both bachelor and cooperating preschool teachers are not satisfiedand willing enough to carry out teaching as much as pre-bachelors are since bachelorshave had different choices before preferring the current department while the cooper-ating teachers seem to have stress, frustration and become burntout when they aresubjected to teaching over extended periods of time (Smith & Renzulli, 1984).

Pre-bachelor preschool teacher candidates tend to show higher level of profes-sional enthusiasm than the bachelors and the cooperating ones and seem to take it asa life-long career and abstain from changing it since they have not been squeezedunder the heavy burden of an exam marathon as much as the bachelors have.

The pre-bachelors may tend to feel full of desire and fresher to teach preschoolstudents than the cooperating and the bachelors, respectively, since their commitmentsare also mentioned and supported by the Items (1) and (2).

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Early Child Development and Care 817

Professional identity of preschool teachers

The pre-bachelors may tend to prefer using teacher-centred approaches in which theteacher is always active and the source of the knowledge. In this approach, the role ofteacher is to spoon-feed the learners by just transmitting knowledge. As a matter offact, the following Chinese proverb describes what the role of conventional andmodern teachers should be best: Give a person a fish they will feed themselves onlyonce but teach them how to fish they will feed themselves forever. The first part of theproverb explains the role of the teacher in Item (4). That pre-bachelors and bachelorsare in the favour of teacher-centred teaching respectively more than the cooperatingteachers stems from that they may have lack of teaching experience in the preschoolsettings.

The pre-bachelors may tend to prefer using student-centred approaches in whichteacher is a participant, needs analyser and adviser (Breen & Candlin, 1980). In thisitem, the role of teacher is not just to transmit the knowledge but to teach the studentshow to learn as the second part of the proverb above explains it best. The fact that thepre-bachelors seem to prefer using both teacher- and student-centred approaches canbe explained as they may prefer an eclectic method of teaching, the mixture of twoapproaches above (Demirel, 1999; Kabadayi, 2005b).

Participants’ orientations towards instruction

The pre-bachelors seem to be in favour of the direct method of teaching which ismostly based on Behaviourism (Richards & Rodgers, 1986). In this method ofteaching, teachers are likened to the steam engine part of a train while the studentsare likened to the wagons.

The bachelor teacher candidates seem to be in favour of a communicative andinteractionist method of teaching which is mostly based on Constructivism and SocialLearning Theories (Richards & Rodgers, 1986). In this approach, the bachelorsbelieve that the role of teacher in this process is like a football team captain who bothdirects his/her team and at the same time plays football by cooperating and collabo-rating with the team. Due to the fact that the bachelors have more pedagogical creditsthan the pre-bachelors and have chance of being more updated with the recent knowl-edge integrated with educational technology may cause the differences between pre-bachelors and cooperating preschool teachers, which was also supported by Aral,Ayhan, Unlu, Erdogan, and Unal (2007).

Participants’ orientations towards physical punishment of children

Children gain most of their responsibilities and behaviours which are necessary asacceptable citizens in the future in the society in preschool period. They can some-times endanger themselves as they can not predict results of their behaviours whileacting independently as a very active participant of life in the classroom. Therefore,preschool teachers should put some limitations on their behaviours, which do notdisturb the children (Oktay, 2005). The bachelors tend to be in favour of the corporalpunishment in preschool settings in order to discipline the preschool students despitethe fact it is banned by the Ministry of National Education. In the long run, physicalpunishment does not work; it carries with it many negative effects. The long-term useof corporal punishment tends to increase the probability of deviant and antisocial

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behaviours, such as aggression, adolescent delinquency and violent acts inside andoutside the school (Straus, 1991).

The bachelors may be affected by the preschool teachers who are in favour of prac-ticing the light form of corporal punishment such as depriving the guilty student fromhis/her close friend, making him/her collect the toys after classroom activities inpreschool settings by considering the age level of the learners.

Participants’ attitudes towards preschool teacher training

The study indicates that both pre-bachelor and bachelor preschool teacher candidatesseem to be in favour of the nature side of becoming a prosperous teacher while coop-erating preschool teachers seem to be in favour of the nurturing side of teacher train-ing which is put forward by behaviourists and social learning theorists, respectively(Kabadayi, 2005a). It is claimed that no single theory can explain the rich complexityof preschool teacher training (Santrock, 1999) and each theory has a complementaryfunction to work together to shape prosperous preschool teachers (Vygotsky, 1978).

Conclusion and implications

The study comprised two parts. In the first part, demographic structure and character-istics of pre-service and cooperating preschool teachers such as gender, age, andschooling were handled. In this study participants, whose vast majority (98.4%) isfemale, entered the preschool teacher training programmes of the universities at theage 17 or 18 and could complete their bachelor degree at the age of 21–22. It alsoshowed that most of the participants came from relatively low socio-economic stratawhere only the father had a paid job. Additionally, this study also displayed thatparticipants’ fathers had a longer educational period than their mothers in terms ofschooling. Furthermore, none of the parents had preschool education in their lives. Itis advised that male students should be encouraged to choose preschool teaching as aprofession as it is getting increasingly female dominaated year by year in thepreschool teaching field. It is also necessary that the socio-economic and educationallevels of the parents be increased by offering jobs for especially the mothers of theparticipants so that they could contribute to the budget of their houses. In addition tothis, the proportion of the preschooling institutions should be increased from 23% to50% in the next few years.

In the second part of the study, analysis of the preschool pre-service and cooper-ating teachers’ perception of preschool teaching as a profession was investigated fromdifferent aspects. It is implied from the findings that significant differences werefound between and/or among pre-bachelor and bachelor and cooperating preschoolteachers’ perception of preschool teaching as a profession including career choicecommitment, perceptions of professional identity, orientations towards instruction,orientations towards spanking of children, and attitude to pre-service teachertraining. The following is also implied from the study data.

Under the title of career choice commitment, there existed significant differ-ences between and/or among the participants’ thoughts, attitudes, desires, tenden-cies and future plans upon entering preschool teaching. It is essential that preschoolteachers be given economic and psychological encouragements to increase theirproductivity.

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Early Child Development and Care 819

Regarding perceptions of professional identity, it appeared that there were signif-icant differences between and/or among the participants in their roles, responsibilitiesas the teachers in preschool settings. During in-service training, it is necessary thatpreschool teachers be introduced to eclectic methods of teaching and they shouldpractice them until they have integrated both methods.

In the section of orientations towards instruction, significant differences werefound between and/or among the preschool participants in instruction includingstudent-centred and teacher-centred teaching approaches. It is necessary that all theparticipants be encouraged to use different techniques related to both traditional andmodern approaches and to exchange ideas and to have interaction during the in-service training course.

Regarding the orientations towards physical punishment of children section, theparticipants’ thoughts about necessity of spanking of children in preschool settingswere investigated. It was posed that there were significant differences between and/or among the preschool participants in disciplining the preschool students. At thispoint, if all the participants replaced physical punishment with other methods ofdiscipline there would be a major reduction in adult mental health problems andaddiction within a generation. Therefore, they should find alternative ways ofdisciplining the preschoolers in the class.

In the section of attitude to pre-service teacher training, there appeared significantdifferences between and/or among the preschool participants’ commitments aboutwhether teaching was an inborn characteristic or a learned one. It is advisable thatprosperous preschool teachers be motivated internally and externally by reasonableincentives to be successful in their jobs.

In analysing the Turkish context, findings in this study strongly point to the needfor developing the qualities and perceptions that entry-level teacher educationstudents and cooperating teachers bring with them to the teacher education system.The results of this study draw attention to the need for teacher education systems tolook more closely at who comes for teacher training, what characteristics and teach-ing/learning and schooling experiences they bring with them as well as how theyperceive themselves in relationship to the preschool teaching profession. However,there is much to learn about pre-service students and their cooperating teachers withregard to perception of preschool teaching as a profession, i.e. educational technol-ogy, textbooks, school, etc. More research should be conducted to possess a greaterknowledge about pre-service preschool teachers and preschool cooperating teachersin this complex area of teaching and learning in preschool settings. Is there a signifi-cant difference between male and female preschool pre-service and their cooperatingteachers’ perception as a profession? Is there a significant difference between and/oramong preschool pre-service and their cooperating teachers who come from differentsocio-economical strata in respect of their perception teaching? Is there a significantdifference between preschool pre-service and their cooperating teachers who gradu-ated from private and state schools in their perception of teaching in preschoolsettings?

AcknowledgementsThis study is supported by the foundation of scientific research projects of Selcuk University.I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their valuable contributions to themanuscript.

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Note1. This is the English version and the re-arranged form of the paper presented in Turkish at

the 2nd International Preschool Education Conference, 24–27 October 2007, in Istanbul,Turkey.

Notes on contributorAbdülkadir Kabadayi is an Assistant Professor at Selcuk University in Faculty of EducationElementary Department, Konya, Turkey.

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