An investigation of educational philosophy orientations of preschool teachers and teacher nomi̇nees (Sample of Malatya)

This research is a descriptive study using a mixed research method based on determining and evaluating the educational philosophy orientations of pre-school teachers and prospective teachers and examining the effects of various variables on educational philosophy orientations. The study carried out with the participation of 298 preschool teachers working in the metropolitan districts of Malatya Province, Battalgazi and Yeşilyurt, and 381 prospective preschool teachers who studied at the İnönü University Faculty of Education, Department of Basic Education, Preschool Program in the Fall Semester of the 2019-2020 Academic Year. In the quantitative part of the research, the "Education Beliefs Scale" developed by Yılmaz, Altınkurt and Çokluk (2011) was used as a data collection tool to determine the educational philosophy orientations of teachers and prospective teachers. By analyzing the collected data, it was determined which educational philosophy orientations teachers and prospective teachers were close to. The compliance of the identified trends with the educational philosophy on which the MEB Preschool Program is based has been examined, then comparisons were made according to various variables. Qualitative interviews were conducted on the findings and the results of the research were deepened. According to the results of the research, made suggestions to the educators, educational programmers and researchers. Keywords: Preschool, teacher, prospective teacher, educational philosophy, philosophical orientation, education beliefs.