Investigating preschool teacher candidates' inclusion of self-care skills in daily plans

This study, conducted to explore preschool teacher candidates inclusion of self-care skills in their daily plans, made use of enriched design which is a mixed model where qualitative and quantitative models are used in combination. The study group was organized for the three phases of the research in accordance with the purpose of the study. The study group of the first phase was composed of eight teachers who were employed as permanent staff in the Ministry of National Education schools and were selected through purposeful sampling to participate in focus group interview. The study group of the second phase was composed of 52 4th year students attending Abant İzzet Baysal University, Department of Preschool Teacher Education in 2016-2017 academic year and they were selected via convenient sampling in order to administer the questionnaires. In the third phase of the study, the daily plans prepared for practicum course by the teacher candidates who participated in the survey were used in document review. Data analysis included frequency, percentage values, graphs, arithmetic mean and standard deviation values as well as content analysis and one-way variance analysis (ANOVA). Research results demonstrated that teacher candidates who participated in focus group interview believed that providing children with self-care skills was important, that they needed support in this area and in their daily plans they did not sufficiently include the acquisitions in the realm of self-care skills. It was also found that the knowledge and experience in the field of self-care skills and planning and practice in regards to teaching self-care skills differed according to teacher candidates' age and the size of the classroom in which teacher candidates completed their practicum. There was no consistency between the views and practices of the teacher candidates in regards to teaching self-care skills. Key Words: Preschool period, self-care skills, teacher candidantes.