Exploring Teacher Candidates  views on Education Reforms

Athens: ATINER'S Conference Paper Series, cilt.2015, sa.1775, ss.3-14, 2016 (Hakemli Dergi)

The continuation and success of educational reforms need teachers’ awareness

on those reforms. When the people do not understand educational reforms,

vital educational reforms will fail to get approved or be implemented. The

present study was an attempt to explore the teacher candidates’ views on

educational reform. 36 prospective teachers participated in this study. The

data were collected in the 2014-2015 academic year by using semi-structured

interviews. The findings of this study revealed that the majority of prospective

teachers are not familiar with the reasons of recent educational reform. A

significant majority of the respondents had the view that the Educational

reforms bring little benefits and in some cases damage both the teachers and

the students. The study concluded that a well-organized change is essential in

teacher education programs in order to encourage teacher candidates to be

involved critically in, and with, the educational system, in which they will

work.

Keywords: benefits of educational reform, educational reform, educational

reform in Turkey, teacher candidates, teacher education