Teacher candidates? self-directed learning readinesses (Anadolu University sample)

Self-directed learning, not only allows individuals to plan, undertake and evaluate their own education, but also it also expresses the learnings that allows them to learn independent of an educational institute or an instructor. Considering the facts that the education provided by the faculty has its own limitations as time and subject, and learning should be a life-long process, and teaching, as a profession, requires life-long learning, faculties of education have to train the teachers on reaching the information that they may need in all stages of their live. This research has been carried out based on the reality that self-learning is neglected in teacher education across the increasing knowledge accumulation and learning needs of individuals in 21st century.The purpose of this study is to determine the readiness of teacher candidates? towards self-directed learning. During the study, ?Self-Directed Learning Readiness Scale?, which is developed by Fisher, King and Tague (2001), has been applied to 555 first and forth year teacher candidates selected from ten different license programs of Faculty of Education in Anatolian University. Original form of the scale, used as the data-gathering tool on the screening model, is in English. During the project, linguistic equivalence has been studied and items of the scale have been translated into Turkish. Also, validity and reliability analyses of the scale have been performed. Based on the results of the analyses, seven attributes have been removed from the scale due to their low correlation (less than 0.30). Data gathered using the scale was analyzed using SPSS statistics program, and readiness of the students towards self-directed learning was determined. As the results of first and forth year students have been compared, it has been found that license education doesn?t positively affect readiness towards self-learning. According to the results of the study, suggestions about teacher education and usage of the scale are listed.Key Words: Teacher education, teacher candidates, self-directed learning, self-directed learning readiness.