Evaluation of teacher candidates' reflective thinking disposition in terms of some variables

The purpose of this research is to evaluate graduate teacher candidates' reflective thinking disposition in terms of some variables. The study employed general screening model. In accordance with this purpose, whether teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispostions show a significant difference in terms of gender, graduation grade, graduation branch, faculty type, KPSS score (An exam for teachers), knowledge of foreign language variables was investigated. Reflective Thinking Disposition Scale which was developed by Semerci (2007) was applied to teacher candidates surveyed. The scale consists of seven factors bearing the names continuous and intentional thinking(1), open- mindness(2), interrogated and effective teaching(3), responsibility of teaching and being scientific(4), researcher(5), being foresighted and sincere(6), and outlook for profession(7). It was determined during the analysis of data that the scores of the scale and the sub-dimensions did not show the normal distribution according to Shapiro-Wilk normality analysis results. Therefore, for the intergroup comparison tests made to the scale and the sub-dimensions Mann-Whitey u test was used in the comparison of two-group variables; Kruskal Wallis h test was used in the comparison of three-or-more-group variables from the non-parametric test techniques. The scale was applied to 500 graduate teacher candidates from 2000 graduate teacher candidates in Ordu and Samsun provinces with simple random sampling method. The obtained data were analyzed with SPSS for Windows 21.0 program. According to the findings the following conclusions were reached: 1. In the teacher candidates' opinions regarding the reflective thinking disposition, teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispositions did not differ significantly in terms of graduation grade, graduation branch, faculty type, KPSS score (An exam for teachers), knowledge of foreign language variables. 2. Teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispositions differ significantly in terms of gender variable. Male teacher candidates tend to think more reflective compared to female teachers. Teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispositions differ in terms of gender variable in the open- mindness, interrogated and effective teaching, being foresighted and sincere, outlook for profession sub-dimensions of the scale. There are no significant differences according to gender variable in the other sub-dimensions of the scale- continuous and intentional thinking, responsibility of teaching and being scientific, researcher. 3. In the teacher candidates' opinions regarding the reflective thinking disposition, teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispositions and dispositions for the sub-dimensions of the scale did not differ significantly in terms of graduation grade variable. However, teacher candidates' reflective thinking dispositions differ significantly in terms of graduation grade variable for the open- mindness sub-dimension of the scale. It was found that teacher candidates whose graduation grade is between 0-2,50 tend to be more open-mindedness compared to the candidates in other groups.