THE METAPHORICAL PERCEPTIONS OF PROSPECTIVE ENGINEERING TEACHERS TOWARDS THE “EDUCATION”, “TEACHER” AND “TEACHING” CONCEPTS

The purpose of this study is to display prospective teachers’ perceptions towards the concepts “education”, “teacher” and “teaching” through metaphors. This study is a qualitative research and data were collected via metaphors. The sample of this study consisted of 101 first year students studying in different faculties of Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania and participating in initial teachers training in the spring semester of 2016-2017 academic year. Participants completed the sentences: “Education is like … because …”, “Teacher is like … because …” and “Teaching is like…because…” The collected data was analysed through content analysis technique and interpreted accordingly. As a result, 6 categories with 71 metaphors about education, 6 categories with 52 metaphors about teacher and 6 categories with 64 metaphors about teaching were produced. It was concluded that prospective teachers had positive perceptions towards education, teacher and teaching. As another result, it could also be observed that their metaphors differed according to the faculty profile at which prospective teachers are being taught. Based on these data, the study offers a set of curriculum development solutions, oriented towards a more efficient academic teacher training program. The results are discussed in relation to their potential relevance for creating more reflexive prospective teachers and for the optimization of the teaching practice.