PERSPECTIVES OF TEACHER CANDIDATES’ ON COMMUNITY SERVICE PRACTICES COURSE; [ÖĞRETMEN ADAYLARININ TOPLUMA HİZMET UYGULAMALARI DERSİNE BAKIŞ AÇILARI]
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Date
2022
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Abstract
The aim of the Community Service Practices (CSP) course is to provide candidate teachers with a sense of social responsibility. In order to create this awareness, various applications are utilised to help teacher candidates’ to gain abilities on such as solidarity, sharing, cooperation, effective communication and problem solving skills. In this study, it was tried to be determined the perspectives of the teacher candidates’ on the CSP course. Qualitative research method and content analysis as data analysis-type were used in the research. As data collection tool, questionnaire was used. The sample of the research consists of 430 teacher candidates who took CSP course at Uşak University’s Faculty of Education in the 2018-2019 academic spring semester. According to the results of the content analysis, three categories were determined, with the contributions of the CSP course being the main theme. These categories are grouped as contribution to the individual, contribution to society and contribution to nature. In line with the data obtained from teacher candidates’, researchers developed the codes of feeling well, personal development, contribution to professional development, sensitivity, empathy and awareness in the category of “contribution to the individual”; the codes of contribution to human relations, responsibility, socialisation, solidarity, cooperation and awareness in the category of “contribution to society”; and, the codes of benefit to animals, benefit to nature, sensitivity and awareness in the category of “contribution to nature”. In addition, the awareness code in all three categories refers to a different meaning for each category. It has been observed that the majority of teacher candidates’ found the CSP course helpful, while a small number of them had problems with the CSP course. These problems are grouped as related to the teaching process of the course, university-related, individual-sourced, institution-based and activity-related problems. The most frequently repeated words of teacher candidates’ about the CSP course has been determined as help, cooperation, difference, awareness, empathy, responsibility, sensitivity and solidarity. Teacher candidates’ stated that children, the elderly and the disabled are in need of help most in the society. The most common activities within the scope of CSP course are observed as collecting and distributing pens and books, supporting public institutions, planting trees and collecting caps. © 2022, Milli Egitim. All Rights Reserved.