Investigation of the effect of acculturation levels of teacher candidates on life satisfaction

This study was designed according to the mixed method model in order to investigate the prospective teachers' acculturation levels, life satisfaction and the effect of acculturation levels on life satisfaction. Descriptive research model for the quantitative part of the research; For the qualitative part, case study model was used. The study population of this study, which was designed according to mixed method model, consists of prospective teachers studying at Gaziantep University Nizip Education Faculty. Two samples were selected from the population for quantitative and qualitative research sections. In the quantitative part of the study, a total of 620 prospective teachers were sampled using simple probability sampling method. In the qualitative research part of the study, 32 prospective teachers were sampled by using easily accessible case sampling. In the quantitative part of the study, "Cultural Interaction Scale developed by the researcher to collect data and" Satisfaction with Life Scale uyar adapted to Turkish by Daglı and Baysal (2016; p.1262); In the qualitative part, "Prospective Teacher Interview Form developed by the researcher was used to collect data. SPSS 23.0 package program was used in the analysis of quantitative data obtained from the study and percentage, frequency, arithmetic mean, t test, one-way anova and simple linear regression analysis were performed. In the analysis of the data obtained through teacher interview form, descriptive analysis method, content analysis technique was used. According to the quantitative findings of the study, prospective teachers were generally positive in the separation dimension of culturing; negative in assimilation; they were unstable in the integration imension. It was concluded that teacher candidates were generally undecided about their life satisfaction. In addition, it has been concluded that the acculturation levels of teacher candidates have a positive effect on life satisfaction. According to the qualitative findings of the research, it is seen that the opinions of prospective teachers are concentrated in integration dimension in general.