Pre-Service Special Education Teachers’ Experiences in the Practice They Perform in a Guidance and Research Center

The aim of this research is to investigate the experiences of pre-service teachers who are students at Teaching Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities Program of a state university in Turkey about the teaching practice they perform in a guidance and research center (GRC). The study employs the phenomenological design, and its study group consists of 13 pre-service teachers who are final-year students in Education of Mentally Disabled Program. The primary data of the study were obtained through semi-structured interviews, whereas the pre-service teachers’ daily reports and the artifacts they obtained from the GRCs were used as supporting data. The data obtained from the semi-structured interviews were analyzed through content analysis. The presentation of the findings in this paper is as follows: the pre-service teachers’ views about the GRC, their practical experiences, and their views about working in a GRC. It was observed that negative views turned into positive ones after they started the practice. Pre-service teachers have examined the positive and negative aspects of the practice in GRC. It is determined that some pre-service teachers want to work in GRC. It is recommended that this study could be replicated within the scope of observation courses in institutions and applied in different universities.