A comparison of academic achievement of education faculty students' in teaching profession courses and major courses in the term of the departments (A case study in University of Gaziantep)

This study was carried out to see whether a significant difference existed between the academic achievement in teaching profession courses and major courses of the students graduated from faculties of education of Gaziantep University between the years 2004-2006 on the basis of departments, gender, the field/branch taken into account in the process of university entrance and the type of the high school which the students graduated from. The data were collected from the students? transcripts, high school diplomas and university entrance examination result documents. The population of the study consisted of the students graduated from education faculties of Gaziantep University between the years of 2004-2006. Sampling consisted of randomly chosen 50 students from each department, which are primary school teaching, social sciences teaching, mathematics teaching and Turkish Language teaching, through cluster sampling. By analyzing the data through t-test, frequencies and variance analysis, the following results were obtained; (1)The achievement acquired in teaching profession courses was higher than the one in major courses and the difference seemed to be significant; (2)There was a statistically significant difference between the achievement in both subject groups in the term of departments; (3)Female students had a higher achievement than the males did in both subject groups; (4) Students from vocational high schools had the highest achievement in both groups of subjects whereas students from Anatolian Teacher High Schools unexpectedly did the lowest; (5) Students in mathematic field/branch acquired higher academic achievement in teaching profession courses. Key words: major courses, teaching profession courses, education faculty.