INTERACTIONS AMONG PERSONALITY CONSTRUCTS AND ATTITUDES TOWARD TEACHING IN TURKISH EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER CANDIDATES
Open Access
- Author:
- Bedel, Emine F
- Graduate Program:
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- December 09, 2005
- Committee Members:
- John Daniel Marshall, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Edgar Paul Yoder, Committee Member
Ladislaus M Semali, Committee Member
Abdullah Yavas, Committee Member - Keywords:
- personality
preservice teacher
attitudes - Abstract:
- The primary objective of this study is to examine Turkish prospective early childhood education teachers’ attitudes toward the teaching profession and how those attitudes relate to their personality characteristics. The theoretical background for this research derives from both teacher education and psychology literature. Both better understanding of prospective teachers’ attitudes toward their future job and their personality characteristics are expected to contribute to current understanding of teacher education and to improve current practical applications. One hundred and eighty prospective early childhood teachers participated in the study. Collected research data originated from the education departments of three Turkish universities located in Ankara. The measurement of attitudes toward teaching used The Attitude Toward Teaching Scale, and for the measurement of personality characteristics, Locus of Control and Sociotropy-autonomy Scale. The specific questions examined in this study were: 1. What relationship, if any, exists between attitude toward teaching and locus of control orientations? 2. What relationship, if any, exists between attitude toward teaching and sociotropy-autonomy orientations? 3. What relationships, if any, exist between locus of control orientations and sociotropy-autonomy orientations? 4. What relationship, if any, exists between attitude toward teaching and demographic factors that include GPA, origin, number of siblings, highest educational level of parents, time of decision regarding early childhood education as a profession, the choice ranking of early childhood education in the application list for colleges, and immediate plans upon graduation? 5. To what extent, if any, is the attitude toward teaching influenced by the locus of control orientations, the sociotropy-autonomy orientations and the demographic scale items, when they are examined simultaneously? The results showed that the participants had fairly high positive attitudes toward teaching. In general, the demographic characteristics were not related to these attitudes. Attitude toward teaching was negatively related to overall external locus of control. However, having greater internal locus of control orientation had no significant influence on attitude toward teaching. Except for one sub-factor, the sociotropy-autonomy scale was not related to the attitude toward teaching scale.