Science and technology teachers' and candidate teachers' perceptions concerning their competecies in their subject speacialist area

The main aim of this research is to evaluate science and technology teachers' and candidate teachers' perceptions concerning their competecies in their subject speacialist area. 118 science and technology teachers and 89 science candidate teachers participated to this research. The scale concerning the competences was developed based on the subject speacialist area competecy list prepared by Turkish Ministry of Education (MEB) and the related literature. The data were analyzed by using descriptive and inferestial analysis techniques.The research findings showed that teachers seem to be more confident than the candidate teacher in terms of their subject matter knowledge. For teachers, the variables including; ?gender, seniority, the faculty graduated, the place worked, their views concerning the adequacy of the laboratory and technological equipment and the efficiency of the Faculties of Education in the development of their subject matter knowledge, and the number of in-service training courses they attended? and for candidate teachers the variables including; ?Gender, the number of their preference of the department, their satisfaction of their department, their views concerning the efficiency of the Faculties of Education in the development of their subject matter knowledge?, did not seem to effect their perceptions concerning their competecies in their subject area. Teachers and candidate teachers seemed to be in effort for the development of their subject matter knowledge, and both groups pointed out a need for the realistic assessment in the selection of teachers for the profession. In addition, candidate teachers described Public Personnel Selection Examination (KPSS) as inadequate to measure the their subject matter knowledge.Key words: Science and technology teacher, competency, subject matter knowledge.