Pre - s erv i ce Mathemat i cs Teachers’ Att i tudes towards the Profession of Teachıng

Abstract

Teachers’ ability to give students mathematical instruction in an effective way depends mainly on teachers’ attitudes towards the profession of teaching. In this context, this research study was planned with the idea that it is important to determine the teaching attitudes of pre-service teachers who graduated from the faculty of Science and Letters and the faculty of Education. The research problem was to investigate pre-service elementary mathematics teachers’ attitudes towards the profession of teaching and the teaching attitudes of the Mathematics graduates from the faculty of Science and Letters who have taken teaching formation courses in terms of different variables. The research was conducted with the pre-service mathematics teachers enrolled in the senior grade of the program of Mathematics Education in Hasan Ali Yucel Faculty of Education and those taking teaching formation courses in the academic year of 2012-2013. The data were collected using the “Teaching Approach Scale” developed by Cetin (2006) and a demographical information form prepared by the researchers. This quantitative research study was conducted in survey method. An SPSS 16 statistical program was used to analyse the data. According to the findings, it was observed that pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards teaching did not differ in terms of gender, parents’ educational level, type of high school of graduation. On the other hand, a significant statistical difference was detected between the pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards teaching in terms of parents’ monthly income. The research findings were discussed in the light of the relevant literature and some suggestions were provided for further research and researchers.