Analysis of the impact of the quality of education on learning outcomes in music teacher candidates

This study aims to present the impact of level of satisfaction on learning outcomes using structural equation modelling (SEM) by determining the "Level of Satisfaction" of senior music teacher candidates studying at the Faculty of Education, Department of Fine Arts Teaching, Music Teaching Undergraduate Program regarding the quality of education and their "Learning Outcomes" they must have with the education they receive using certain scales. Explanatory research design was used in this study. The study group is comprised of senior students from Music Teaching Undergraduate Program of universities determined in the sample group of the study. The study group was divided into two main groups in line with implementation process regarding scales on data collection. The study group, being the first group, is comprised of 133 teacher candidates who are senior students in Music Teaching Undergraduate Program in 2017-2018 semester. Students in this group were put to validity-reliability tests and pilot schemes of "Level of Satisfaction Scale" and "Learning Outcomes Scale" and scales were finalized accordingly. The second group of this study is comprised of 309 teacher candidates who are senior students at 11 different universities in Music Teaching Undergraduate Program in 2018-2019 fall semester. Finalized scales were used in this group. Data analysis, in line with pre-implementation data collected from scales were presented with descriptive statistics, frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation values. The scale on determining level of satisfaction has four sub-dimensions. These are academic personnel and counselling, education, management and organization, and physical conditions. The scale on determining the level of learning outcomes has three sub-dimensions. These are dimensions on knowledge, skill, and competence. Statistics revealing opinions of participants on the level of satisfaction and learning outcomes and SEM, in order to present the impact of level of satisfaction on the level of learning outcomes, were used in data analysis. To this end, according to statistics results regarding opinions of music teacher candidates on the level of satisfaction using data collected on the first sub-problem of the study, their level of satisfaction on the "Academic Personnel and Counselling" dimension is medium-level (X=2,73); the level of satisfaction on the "Education" dimension" is below medium-level (X=2,56); the level of satisfaction on the "Management and Organization" dimension is below medium-level (X=2,33) whereas the level of satisfaction on "Physical Conditions" dimension is below-medium level (X=2,32). According to statistics results regarding opinions of music teacher candidates using data collected on the second sub-problem of the study, their learning outcomes on the "knowledge" dimension is medium-level (X=3,15), the learning outcomes on the "skill" dimension is medium-level, (X=3,18), and the learning outcomes on the "competence" dimension is medium-level (X=3,18). According to results obtained on structural models designed for the third sub-problem of the study, whether all the measurement models defined in these models were confirmed by data obtained in the study was first tested and it was found out that 7 out of 12 models in total were acceptable models. Five models were found to be unsuitable. Therefore, it was decided that some unsuitable models be revised. Suggestions from the relevant software program and literature review were taken into consideration during the revision process. Revised models were put into test by adding a new method to models in line with these suggestions. Owing to this new method, statistical values of some unsuitable models on goodness-of-fit became acceptable. According to SEM analyses results, it was observed that the first model regarding how much the level of satisfaction on academic personnel and education together impacted/explained the skill levels of students through the level of knowledge tool variable was a model impacting/explaining the total variance of learning outcomes on the acquisition of skill dimension in a statistical and significant way with a percentage of 72% as well as the 3.1. model regarding how much the management and organization, and physical conditions variables together impacted/explained the skill levels of students through the level of knowledge tool variable with a 73% rate, and the seventh model regarding how much the academic personnel and counselling variable directly impacted/explained skill levels and through education and level of knowledge tool variables with a 72% rate. It was also concluded that being suitable models impacting/explaining the competence variable from learning outcomes, the 2.1 model regarding how much the education variable directly impacted/explained students' competence and also through academic personnel and education variables was a model impacting/explaining the total variance of learning outcomes on the acquisition of competence dimension with a percentage of 63% as well as the 4.1 model regarding how much the management and organization variable directly impacted/explained the competence dimension and also through management and organization, physical conditions and level of knowledge tool variables with a 64% rate, and lastly the eighth model regarding how much the academic personnel and counselling variable impacted/explained students' competence directly and through both education and level of knowledge tool variable with a 63% rate. The most generic hypothesis in the study suggesting that "Level of Satisfaction on TQM criteria determining the quality of education in music teacher candidates (academic personnel and counselling, education, management and organization, physical conditions)" has a positive impact on "Learning Outcomes (knowledge, skill, competence)" of music teacher candidates was confirmed by the ninth model, being the last model. The analysis results showed that regression coefficient was 0,215. In conclusion, structural models suggested in this study were tested, and models with acceptable suitability value as well as structural models with unacceptable suitability values were included in the study. This approach aims to present the ways level of satisfaction variables had an impact on the acquisition of knowledge, skill, and competence, being learning outcomes that music teacher candidates should have during the training process and whether these variables on the level of satisfaction had a positive impact on them statistically as well as increasing the quality of education in Music Teaching Undergraduate Program. It is believed that an increase in the quality of education in music teacher candidates will provide an increase in their level of satisfaction, and in that way, will contribute positively to inputs and outputs of the training process in terms of learning outcomes. In this respect, it is recommended that the quality of education in Music Teaching Undergraduate Programs be determined using scales such as "The Level of Satisfaction Scale" developed for this study and necessary steps be taken. It is also recommended that the approach on TQM implementations be taken into consideration in order to provide a higher level of acquisition of learning outcomes that music teacher candidates have during the training process and outcomes that they should have for the future using scales such as "The Learning Outcomes Scale" developed fort his study. This study was conducted by collecting data on level of satisfaction and learning outcomes only from music teacher candidates who are senior university students. Analyzing the discrepancies of different Music Teaching Programs regarding "The Level of Satisfaction Scale" on the institutions where music teacher candidates study as well as how these discrepancies might affect the "Learning Outcomes" dimensions may contribute to comparative analyses by collecting different types of data and to the better understanding of inter-variable impact. Keywords: Music Teaching, Level of Satisfaction, Learning Outcomes, Structural Equation Modelling