Analysis of Changes in the Affective Characteristics and Communicational Skills of Prospective Teachers: Longitudinal Study

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to analyze the change in the affective characteristics (attitudes, interests and self-efficacy beliefs) and communication skills of prospective teachers, and to question what these changes are, how they happened and the reason behind them. This study has been designed longitudinally for this purpose. The study group consists of 28 prospective teachers that were educated under 3 different undergraduate programs. 12 of the prospective teachers studied primary mathematics education while 8 of them studied Turkish and 8 of them studied social sciences. The research’s study group was determined by the maximum variation sampling method. The placement scores of prospective teachers were taken as a basis in order to enable maximum variation. Data was collected from prospective teachers by means of scales and semi-structured interview forms. According to the research’s results, prospective teachers started their teaching education with a high level of affective characteristics and communication skills. It was seen that there was a decrease in the attitude and self-efficacy levels, an increase in the communication skills levels and no change in the interest levels of prospective teacher over time. The results show that there was no significant difference between the first and second measure scores from the participant’s measure instruments. However, in the analyses performed individually, it was seen that some prospective teachers had significant changes in their affective characteristics and communicational skills.