Teacher candidates' opinions on educational practies in museums

The aim of the research is to determine the opinions of teacher candidates on educational practices in museums. The research is a descriptive study in the general survey model. The research was conducted with 806 teacher candidates in total studying in different teaching departments of a state university in the Black Sea Region in the academic year of 2021-2022. In the research, the opinions of teacher candidates on educational practices in museums were collected with a measurement instrument consisting of five parts as Personal Information, Museum Visit Information, Importance of Museums, Learning-Teaching Process and "The Scale of Evaluation of Educational Practices in Museum". Data were analyzed using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t-test. Research results have shown that the opinions of teacher candidates, who studied Museum Education course whether compulsorily or electively, towards museums and educational practices in museums, were more positive than those of teacher candidates who didn‟t study Museum Education course whether compulsorily or electively. In this regard, it has been concluded that teacher candidates in the 4th grade consider museums more important than teacher candidates in the 3rd grade and that they think the learning-teaching process will become more effective through educational practices to be held in museums, and that they argue that teachers should take a more active role in educational practices in museums. In addition, it has been determined that teacher candidates think individuals can gain different skills and values through educational practices in museums, and learning process will become more effective by using methods and techniques in museums in different lessons in the teaching process. In this respect, it is recommended that the course of Museum Education should be dealt with an approach focused on the question of "How Can We Teach a Lesson In a Museum?" or that it should be taught as a compulsory subject through comprehensive teaching of educational practices and activities for different disciplines. Keywords: Education at Museum, Teacher Candidates, Museum Education Lesson