Examination of attitudes of pre-school teacher candidates towards art education

The aim of this research is to examine the attitudes of pre-school teacher candidates towards art education in terms of various variables and to investigate their views on art education. Mixed research method was used. The study group consists of a total of 255 candidates, 178 women and 77 men, who continue their education at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Faculty of Education, Preschool Department between 2020-2021. The data of the research were collected with the "Attitude Scale Towards Art Education", "Personal Information Form" and "Semi-Structured Interview Form". The analysis of the quantitative data was made with the SPSS 22 program. The distribution of quantitative variables was evaluated with the Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test of Normality and they were found to be non-parametric. Mann-Whitney U Test was used for pairwise comparison of dependent variables, and Kruskal-Wallis H Test and Jonckheere-Terpstra Test were used for comparisons of groups with more than two categories. In the qualitative dimension, a total of 26 candidates, 19 women and 7 men, were interviewed randomly selected through a semi-structured interview form. Responses were analyzed by content analysis. As a result of the research, it is seen that the candidates' attitude scores towards art education are high. It has been determined that male candidates have more negative attitudes towards art education than female candidates. As the grade level and parental education level of the candidates increase, the state of liking and contributing to the arts; It has been observed that the enhancing role of communication has increased. It was determined that the candidates who received art education displayed more negative attitudes than the candidates who did not receive art education. Among the opinions obtained from the candidates about the concept of art education, it was stated that there is an important education in many ways. It has emerged that art education should be given a few hours a week or a few days a week. Candidates stated that art education in pre-school education gives children a different perspective on their contributions, provides personal development, develops creativity and enables multidimensional thinking.