The aim of this study was to scrutinize perceptions, expectations and concerns of pre-service early childhood education (ECE) teachers before they start their careers and their challenges in their first year as they became beginning teachers. This study also focused on documenting public school contexts where beginning teachers have been either supported and given the opportunity to develop as successful teachers or discouraged and left alone with the challenges in their first year of teaching.
In order to investigate this phenomenon, 16 pre-service early childhood education teachers studying at the same teacher education program were interviewed about their perceptions, expectations and concerns on their future profession immediately before their graduation. Participating teachers started to teach in public schools at different cities after their graduation. They were interviewed at the end of the first and the second semester they taught about their experiences and difficulties, and positive aspects of working in public schools.
Moustakas&rsquo / s phenomenological analysis was utilized to analyze data from interviews in which beginning teachers reflected on their experiences in teacher education program and of being new teachers in public school context in Turkey. Findings have revealed that pre-service teachers were aware of many difficulties in public schools and ready to contend with those difficulties, yet some of the challenges they faced were beyond their initial anticipation. All those challenges were originated from teacher education program, Ministry of National Education&rsquo / s system itself, and local condition where beginning teachers were appointed. Suggestions for teacher education programs, Ministry of National Education, and administrators were proposed.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615312/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 January 2013 |
| Creators | Akdag, Zeynep |
| Contributors | Haser, Cigdem |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | Access forbidden for 1 year |
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