مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Consistency between the Teaching Competencies Attained during the Teacher Education Program and the Teaching Profession: A mixed methods research study based upon teacher perceptions

Abstract :

To what extent knowledge and skills pre service teachers gain at the faculties of education are consistent with teaching experiences of inservice teachers has been extensively discussed. Thus, this study is mainly concerned with the teaching competencies developed in teacher education programs . In this light, it aims to explore whether the importance teachers place on teaching competencies attained during the preservice teacher training program complies with the job specifications of the teaching profession in practice. This study utilizes a mixed-methods research design. 836 teachers completed the Teaching Competency Attainment in Faculties of Education Scale and the Evaluation of the Importance Attributed to Teaching Competencies in In – Service Teaching Scale, both of which have been developed by the authors of this study. Teaching experience of the study sample ranged from 2 years to 10 years. In addition, a semi-structured interview form was prepared to collect the qualitative data. 20 teachers participated in the qualitative phase of the study. While ANOVA, correlation analysis and regression analysis were performed to analyze the quantitative data, a qualitative context analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The findings of the study include the results of the analyses of quantitative and qualitative data. Whether the importance teachers attributed to the teacher education program and the teaching competencies attained during the teacher education program differed according to the universities they graduated from was reported while indicating the relationships between the sub-dimensions of the aforementioned two scales. In the discussion section, the teachers’ views on the consistency between their teaching experience along with the job specifications of the teaching practice and their assessment of the teacher education program they went through were described in detail. Comparisons were made between different teacher education programs according to the data elicited from teachers who graduated from different universities.