The attitudes and competencies of primary school teacher candidates towards teaching profession (Eastern Anatolia Region)

The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes and competencies of primary school teacher candidates towards teaching profession in terms of various variables and to determine whether there is a relationship between the attitudes and competencies towards teaching profession or not. The students of primary school teaching departments studying in the faculties of education at universities in Eastern Anatolia Region in the spring semester 2013 constitute the population of the study. The sample of the study includes 451 students who are voluntary to participate in the study, and first, second, third and fourth grade students of primary school teaching departments at Fırat University and Muş Alparslan University in the spring semester of 2012-2013 academic year. The data to be used for the aim of the research were obtained through "Attitude Scale towards Teaching Profession" developed by Özgür (1994), "Teacher Efficacy Scale" which was formed by Gibson and Dembo (1984), later on reviewed by Guskey and Passaro (1994) and adapted to Turkish by Diken (2004), and "Personal Information Form" developed by the researcher. The statistical analysis of the research data was carried out using a statistical package program on the computer. Since the normality assumption was not provided, nonparametric tests were applied for the data analysis. Meaningful differences were identified in the attitudes of primary school teacher candidates having participated in the research according to the variables like "gender, class level, department selection sequence, grade point of average, mother's education level, being satisfied from the department, dream of becoming a teacher being satisfied from the primary school teacher and parents' monthly average income". It was also found that the competencies of primary school teacher candidates indicated meaningful differences with respect to "being satisfied from the department and from the primary school teacher" variables. It has been concluded that there is a positive and meaningful relationship between the attitudes and competencies of primary school teacher candidates in the result of the analysis of the total scores gathered via the attitude and competency scales towards teaching profession. Keywords: Attitude, Competency, Teaching Profession.