Examination of physical education and sports teacher candidates' anxiety towards teaching profession in terms of different variables

Teaching as a profession is seen as safe in society, but the increase in the number of teacher training institutions in recent years has led to an increase in the number of qualified teachers. Therefore, it is seen that finishing school is not enough and causes anxiety. The aim of this study is a descriptive study to examine the anxiety of physical education teacher candidates towards their profession. The population of the study consists of 3rd and 4th grade physical education and sports teacher candidates studying in the faculties of sport sciences of universities in the 2022-2023 academic year, and the sample group consists of 437 (248 male, 189 female) teacher candidates selected on the basis of volunteerism. As a data collection tool in the study; "Professional Anxiety Scale for Prospective Teachers" developed by Cabi and Yalçınalp (2013) was used. SPSS 22.0 program was used to analyze the data. Normality tests were performed to determine whether the research data were normally distributed. Kurtosis-Skewness values were examined for data sets that did not show normal distribution and since the values were not between +2/-2, it was determined that the data did not show normal distribution and non-parametric tests were applied. Man-Whitney U and Kruskall Wallis analyzes were used to determine the differences between independent variables, and the numerical data were interpreted in tables. As a result, it was determined that the anxiety levels of the research group towards their professions differed in terms of gender variable and the occupational anxiety levels of male pre-service teachers were higher than female pre-service teachers. It was found that there was a significant difference between the variables of assignment-centered anxiety and adaptation-centered anxiety in terms of the grade level of the scale, and the occupational anxiety of the pre-service teachers studying in the 3rd grade was higher than the pre-service teachers studying in the 4th grade. In terms of the type of high school the participants graduated from, vocational high school graduates had lower professional anxiety than other high school types, while imam hatip high school graduates had higher professional anxiety. In terms of the academic grade point average variable, it was observed that pre-service teachers with a grade point average of 3.51 and above had higher assignment-centered anxiety than the other groups. In addition, in terms of the mother's education level variable, it was seen that those with primary school education had higher levels of occupational anxiety than those with high school graduates, while in the sub-dimension of assignment-centered anxiety; it was concluded that those with primary school, secondary school and university education levels were higher than those with high school graduates.