The relationship between life-long learning tendencyof primary school teacher candidates and their attidutes towards postgraduate education

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the Life-Long Learning Tendency of Primary School Teacher Candidates and Their Attitudes Towards Postgraduate Education. The study group includes 353 teacher candidates who are studying at the Department of Primary School Teaching Programme at the University of BoluAbantİzzetBaysal in 2018-2019 education year. "Personal Information Form", "Life-Long Learning Tendencies Scale" developed by DikerCoşkun (2009) and "Post graduation Education Manner Scale" developed by İzgi (2016) were used as instruments of collecting data in this study. As a significance criterion, the value of (p) 0.05 was taken as a basis in all of the analyses. The analysis of all the data obtained from the study was done by using SPSS 20.0 packaged software. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was applied in order for the construct validity of the scales used in this study to be retested on this study group. Cronbach Alpha index was calculated for each assessment instrument. For the analysis of the sub problems of the study, the measures of tendency (arithmetic average, median and mode) and the measures of dispersion (standard deviation and range) of the point averages that the teacher candidates had received from the scales were calculated. Kruskal-Wallis H Test and Mann-Whitney U Test were used in comparison analyses,Spearman'sRankCorrelationCoefficient was examined for the relation analyses. According to the research findings, the life-long learning tendency of primary school teacher candidates resulted in "Partially Suitable" level, while their attitudes towards post graduation education resulted in positively. The life-long learning tendencies of the primary school teacher candidates were at a similar level according to the class variable, while significant difference was detected in countenance of women in terms of gender variable. In the "Lack of Curiosity" subdimension of life-long learning, it was found that the mean rank of the teacher candidates who are socio-economically at under and medium level is much higher in the light of the teacher candidates' families' socio-economic level. No significant difference was found in the primary school teacher candidates' attitudes towards post graduation education according to the gender and socioeconomic level variables, while a significant difference was found in the countenance of the〖 4〗^thgraders according to the class variable. According to the findings, it was concluded that there is a medium-level and significant relation between the life-long learning tendencies of the primary school teachers and their attitudes towards post graduation education. Key Words: Life-long learning, attitude towards post graduation education, post graduation education, primary school candidates, attitude