Examining the perceptions of the social studies teacher candidates towards good citizenship

The aim of this study is to determine social studies teacher candidates' perceptions of good citizenship. For this purpose, it was decided to develop a unique scale that would reveal the good citizenship perceptions of university students and to apply them on a specific sample. The aim of the study was to examine the examples in the literature and to develop a 5-point Likert scale with 65 items. The prepared scale was applied on 670 teacher candidates who were educated at Akdeniz University Faculty of Education during the Spring Term of 2017-2018 academic year, and a 33-item, 5-dimensional structure was obtained by applying exploratory Factor Analysis and confirmatory Factor Analysis. The scale obtained was applied to 337 prospective teachers studying Social Studies Education at Akdeniz University, Faculty of Education during the fall term, and it was examined in terms of sub-dimensions and various variables. This is a survey model research. The data of the study were collected with the scale of "good citizenship perception" developed by the researcher. The data obtained from the scale were analyzed using the statistical package program. When the results obtained from the study were examined, it was concluded that the social studies teacher candidates who constitute the sample of the study have high levels of good citizenship perception, and that the levels of good citizenship perception do not differ according to the variables. In general, as regards good citizenship expectations, it is possible to say that prospective teachers have benefitted from their pre-university and university education, from their families and the environment which they come from.