Investigating the Effects of the Power Sources Used by Lecturers on the Prospective Pre-School Teachers' Belonging to University Levels

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of the power sources used by lecturers on the belonging to university levels of the prospective pre-school teachers. This study was carried out with quantitative method and correlational screening model. The participants of the study consisted of 300 prospective pre-school teachers (262 female, 38 male) who were studying at 3rd and 4th year of pre-school teaching departments of universities in seven different provinces of Turkey and were accepted to participate voluntarily in this study. Teacher Power Use Scale and The Belonging to the University Scale were used in the study as data collection instrument. The data were analyzed by LISREL 8.7 and IBM SPSS Statistics 22 programs. Pearson's correlation analysis was performed to determine the relationship between power resources and the belonging to university levels. Regression Analysis was carried out to determine whether power sources used by lecturers are predictors of the belonging to university levels. The result of the study revealed that while expert power was the most used, coercive power was the least used power sources by the lecturers. In addition, prospective pre-school teachers have a high level of belonging to university, and there is a significant relationship between the power sources used by lecturers and the belonging to university levels of prospective pre-school teachers. Furthermore, coercive, reward, referent, and expert powers were found to be significant predictors of the belonging to university levels of prospective pre-school teachers. The findings of the study were discussed and suggestions were offered.