Öğretmen Adaylarının Öğrenme Stillerinin Çeşitli Değişkenler Açısından İncelenmesi ve Öz Düzenleme Becerileri İle Olan İlişkisi

This study aimed to determine the awarness regarding learning styles and self regulatory skills of prospective teachers studying in the teacher education programmes of Education Faculty at Eastern Mediterranean University. The study further aimed at determining the relationship (correlation) between the learning styles and self - regulatory skills of the prospective teachers. The mixed method research design was used in this study where data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively. The research population was consisted of 627 prospective teachers out of which the research sample was formed with 372 prospective teachers enrolled in the Faculty of Education. To collect data regarding prospective teachers’ learning styles, Turkish version of Grasha and Reichmann’s student learning Styles Scale (GRSLSS) were used. To gather data about prospective teachers’ self regulatory skills, the self - regulatory skills scale developed by Ali Arslan was administered. For the analysis of quantitative data, descriptive statistics, t test, and correlational analysis were used. To determine prospective teachers’ consideration of learning styles and self - regulatory skills; semi structured interviews were also conducted with 20 prospective teachers on voluntary basis. Qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis method by coding, categorizing and labelling the primary occuring themes in the data. Quantitative data revealed “dependant learning style” as the most preferred learning style of the prospective teachers. Besides, it was found in the study that learning styles of prospective teachers were differed with respect to the gender variable. In this regard; female prospective teachers were found to have more dependent and participant learning styles compared to male prospective teachers, whereas male prospective teachers were found to possess more colloborative learning style, compared to female prospective teachers. The quantitative data revealed that the freshman year 1 prospective teachers were determined to have more dependant, colloborative and participant learning styles than the senior year 4 prospective teachers. When self-regulatory skills of the prospective teachers were concerned, it was found that the level of their self - regulatory skills was above avarage. The self - regulatory skills of the prospective teachers were found to be different with respect to the gender variable. In this regard, self - regulatory skills of female prospective teachers were determined to be higher than the male prospective teachers. İn terms of the grade level variable; the analyses revealed that self - regulatory skills of the freshman year 1 prospective teachers were higher than those of the senior year 1 prospective teachers. Furthermore, a significant difference was found between the learning styles of prospective teachers and their self - regulatory skills. A significant correlation in the positive direction was found between the self - regulatory skill of prospective teachers and the colloborative, dependent and participant learning styles. On the other hand, a significant correlation was determined in the negative direction between the self - regulatory skills of prospective teachers and avoidant learning style. The qualitative data showed that “dependant learning style”was the most preferred learning style of the prospective teachers. They stated that they became motivated in silent settings, learnt better when they had aims and plans to achieve their aims, when learning materials were ready and organized, when they had sufficient amount v of sleep and were in a good morale. In terms of their expectations from the learning setting; they expected more group working to be conducted, interesting topics to be covered, feedback to be given to them by the instructors, the role of a guide to be adopted by the instructors; individual activities to be held and active roles to be adopted by the instructors during instuction. Gathering information by doing research, learning by spending effort; reaching information by doing plans, programmes and studying regularly were among the self - regulatory strategies that prospective teachers employed to learn effectively. To sum up; it was found that prospective teachers were not fully aware of their learning styles and self - regulatory skills. It was also determined that prospective teachers were not implementing all aspects of their learning styles and self - regulatory skills but only a few of them. Key Words: Learning Styles, Self - Regulation Skills