The quality improvement efforts in faculties of education and a model proposal

The main purpose of the present research is to reveal efforts to improve the quality of Faculties of Education and to determine the perceptions of the stakeholders (faculty members, students, and alumni/graduate teachers) within the framework of the system approach and to develop a model proposal accordingly. This study has an exploratory sequential mixed methods design. The population of the research comprises last-year students, faculty members, and alumni teachers. Various sampling methods were used together to determine the sample of the study. Within the scope of preliminary and main applications, a total of 1203 Education Faculty stakeholders, including 861 last-year students, 317 teachers, and 25 faculty members from different universities, participated in the research. The research data were obtained by literature review and through the Perceived Quality in the Faculties of Education Scale and a semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher. Descriptive analysis, parametric, and nonparametric statistical data analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. SPSS 25 and NVivo 12 have been utilized as data analysis programs. First, the research has revealed the quality improvement efforts for pre-service teacher education in Turkey and abroad. Second, the views of faculty members in the context of input, process, output, feedback and environment for quality in pre-service teacher education of Education Faculties have been figured out. At the end of this part of the research, where concept maps have been created, it is clear that there are important factors affecting quality in Education Faculties. Regarding the input quality, subjects such as eligibility for teaching, faculty quotas and entrance scores, test technique, formation, national tests for appointment/assignment are within the scope of teacher candidates; the subjects such as selection, training and appointment of academic staff, academic assurance, criteria of promotion, course load, publication, teaching methods and techniques are within the scope of faculty members; subjects such as subcontracting, in-service training are within the scope of non-educational personnel; topics such as the structure of the classes and the number of students, adaptation to technology and education, budget, building, location, the collaboration between Ministry of National Education (MoNE) and Faculties of Education have come to the fore within the scope of the physical structure. Regarding the process quality, subjects such as programs, course contents and curriculum, implementation and learner centeredness, number of instructors and students, technology, equipment, teaching tools, non-course times and absenteeism are remarked within the scope of the learning and teaching process; issues such as participatory and democratic administration, training and election of the educational administrators, employees working under the administration level and quality culture have come to the fore within the scope of administration. Regarding the output, feedback and environmental quality, issues such as community service practices, MoNE demands, theory and practice, professional development and in-service training are within the scope of the expectations of the society and the institutions; topics such as practice-based research, academic incentives and associate professorship criteria, supervision, incentives and awards, foreign languages, international publications, and citations are within the scope of research and publication quality; topics such as lack of information and feedback for graduates, alumni association-day, alumni website/social media, the incentive for postgraduate education, sense of belonging are within the scope of follow-up/feedback; topics such as stakeholder cooperation, addressing community problems, conferences/seminars and projects have come to the fore within the scope of contribution to the environment. Third, the research findings demonstrate that the quality perceptions of the last-year students and alumni/graduate teachers towards their faculties have generally been at a moderate level. The levels of the participants' quality perceptions towards their faculties are high in the faculty member and class dimensions; moderate in the dimensions of non-educational staff, learning-teaching process, school and faculty collaboration, output, and environment; however, the levels of the encouragement of teaching profession and feedback dimensions are low compared to the other dimensions. Finally, in the light of the data gathered through the research, a model to improve the quality of Education Faculties has been proposed and the factors that affect the quality and that need to be improved have been gathered in a frame. It is recommended to carry out studies to improve the quality of Faculties of Education by taking the system approach into consideration.