The investigation of prospective teachers' academic procrastination tendencies and learning approaches

The purpose of this study is to determine the prospective teachers' academic procrastination tendencies and learning approaches in terms of various variables. For this purpose, from the descriptive models that reveal the current state, the screening model was used as the research design. The population of the research consists of N = 2976 prospective teachers who were studying at Amasya University Faculty of Education during the spring semester of 2013-2014 academic year. The study was conducted on the selected sample from the population. In the selection of the sample of the study, rate stratified sampling method was used and data were collected from n = 348 prospective teachers from the sample. "Personal Information Form" to determine the information about the demographic characteristics of the prospective teachers, "Procrastination Tendency Scale" to determine the academic procrastination tendencies, and "Learning Approaches Scale" to determine the learning approaches were used as a means of collecting data in the research. In the data collection process, the guidelines and the purpose of the research are explained to the prospective teachers. The practices were carried out in a classroom setting, at the class time and on a voluntary basis. While the data were being analyzed, for the presentation of the demographic information, the arithmetic mean and standard deviation calculations of the percentage and frequency values, the academic procrastination tendency scale and the learning approaches scales were made. T test, ANOVA test and Kruskal-Wallis H tests were applied in the analysis of prospective teachers' academic procrastination tendencies and their learning approaches in terms of variables. The relationship between academic procrastination tendency and learning approaches has been analyzed by the Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Coefficient. According to the results of the research, prospective teachers' academic procrastination tendencies are moderate. Academic procrastination tendencies were found to be significantly meaningful in terms of gender, grade level, graduated high school type, success status perceptions, and attendance preference variables. However, there was no significant difference according to the field variable they were studying. When the learning approaches of prospective teachers were investigated, it was found that they preferred deep learning approach the most, the strategic approach less, and surface learning approach the least. While there is a significant difference between the deep learning approaches and high school type and success status perception variables, a significant difference with regard to the variables of gender, grade level, the areas they are studying and the attendance preferences according to the courses couldn't be found. While there was a significant difference according to the strategic learning approaches and the variables of the field they were studying graduated, high school type and success status perceptions, no significant difference was found according to the variables of gender, class level and attendance preference for lectures. While there were significant differences according to the gender variables with the surface learning approaches, no significant difference was found compared to the variables of grade level, the field they were studying in, graduated high school type, success status perceptions and attendance preferences according to classes. It has been found out that there is a moderate level relation in a negative direction between the prospective teachers' tendency of academic procrastination and the deep learning approach. There is a moderate level relation in a negative direction between the tendency of academic procrastination and the strategic learning approach. There is a very low level relation in a positive direction between tendency of academic procrastination and the surface learning approach.