Comparison of professional competencies of undergraduate and formation history teacher candidates

The research was carried out using the descriptive scanning model, one of the quantitative research methods, in order to compare the professional competencies of undergraduate and formation history teacher candidates. For this purpose, the study group consisted of 3rd and 4th year history teacher candidates from the undergraduate history teaching departments of Aksaray University, Necmettin Erbakan University, Hacı Bektaş Veli University, Marmara University, Kafkas University and Atatürk University in the 2024-2025 academic year, 3rd and 4th year history teacher candidates who are continuing the optional pedagogical formation certificate program, and a total of 359 history teacher candidates who are continuing the pedagogical formation certificate program for graduates. The "Professional Competence Scale for Teacher Candidates" developed by Yengin Sarpkaya and Altun (2021) was used. The scale prepared as a 5-point likert-type scale consisted of 28 items. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be. 965. SPSS package program was used in the analysis of the research data and the necessary statistical techniques were used to make the analyses and the results were interpreted. As a result of the research, it was observed that the "Professional Competence Scale for Prospective Teachers" score averages of history teacher candidates differed according to the variables of gender, age, school success status, method of receiving pedagogical formation and liking the teaching profession. In the analyses regarding the significance of this difference, a significant difference was found in terms of gender, school success status, method of receiving pedagogical formation and liking the teaching profession, but no significant difference was found in terms of the age variable. In addition, the difference between the optional pedagogical formation student and the history teaching student was significant and it was concluded that the history teaching student had a higher perception of professional competence.