Examination of social studies teacher candidates awareness on natural disaster

The aim of the study is to emphasise the importance of natural disasters, which continue to exist as an important issue in Turkey, to determine whether social studies teacher candidates have sufficient awareness on this issue. The research consisted of 40 Social Studies teacher candidates who were 4th-grade students in Gazi Education Faculty Social Studies Education Department in the 2020-2021 academic year. Using the qualitative research design, a semi-structured interview form consisting of 24 open-ended interview questions was prepared. The opinions were received from 5 field experts and relevant corrections were done in line with these opinions. Finally, the clarity of the form was tested and finalised through preapplication with 3 social studies teacher candidates. A semi-structured interview form was applied to 40 volunteer social studies teacher candidates via telephone. Their permission and audio recordings were taken during the interviews with the teacher candidates. The interviews lasted between 20–30 minutes. The analysis of the data was presented in the form of tables and direct quotations from the participant's views with the descriptive analysis method. As a result of the analyses, it was concluded that the candidate teachers had a lack of knowledge about the types of disasters. Also, 92.5% of the candidate teachers realised that the precautions that have taken by them are insufficient, and the level of transforming their knowledge about the disaster into behavior was low. It has been determined that 77.5% of the teacher candidates do not find the topics sufficient which are related to natural disasters in the social studies textbooks and they think that practical activities should be emphasized. When 72.5% of the candidate teachers compared Turkey and other countries in the scope of precautions, it is concluded that they thought the precautions in our country were worse than those in developed countries. As a result of the study, it has been suggested that the quality of natural disaster education should be increased, instilled in the society with practical training. Moreover, attention should be paid to the formation of expert staff, and natural disasters should be included as a course in all teaching branches.