Examination of the learning approaches used by prospective teachers

Abstract

The aim of the study is to determine the learning approaches used by prospective teachers and to examine whether they differ in terms of several variables or not. To this end, answers for the following questions are sought: 1. To what extent do prospective teachers use deep and surface learning approaches? 2. Do the learning approaches used by prospective teachers differ in terms of gender, age and department variables? Quantitative research method was employed in the study. The population of the study, carried out in survey design, consisted of prospective teachers attending a teacher training certificate programme at a university in Turkey in 2014-2015 academic year. The sampling of the study was 344 teacher candidates in the departments of “Turkish Language and Literature”, “History”, Philosophy”, “Geography” and “Religious Culture”. “Revised Two Factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F)” adapted to Turkish by Önder and Beşoluk (2010) was used as the means of data collection. The questionnaire consists of 20 five point likert items and two subcategories. The data were analysed in SPSS 22,0 statistics package programme. Percentage, frequency, mean, standard deviation, independent samples t-test and one-way Anova were used to analyse the data. According to the results of the study, prospective teachers use deep learning approaches more than surface learning approaches. Although prospective teachers’ use of deep learning approaches don’t differ with respect to gender, their use of surface learning approaches differ in favour of male prospective teachers. It was also found out in the study that age variable doesn’t have an influence on the learning approaches of prospective teachers. Surface learning approaches differ in terms of department variable.