Teacher Candidates’ Metaphorical Perceptions About Pedagogical Formation Education Certificate Program

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to reveal teacher candidates’ perceptions about pedagogical formation education certificate program through metaphors. The study group consists of 675 teacher candidates taking that program at a state university in the Western Black Sea Region of Turkey in the 2021-2022 academic year. Phenomenology design was used to determine teacher candidates’ metaphorical perceptions about the program. The content analysis, a technique that helps to systematically summarize any text with smaller content with canonical coding was used. The data were collected through the form prepared by the researcher. Each of the teacher candidates was asked to compare the sentences “pedagogical formation education certificate program is like (1)…………/similar because (2)……….……” to an object, a shape, an animal, or a living thing (metaphor / mental image) (1) and state the reason (reason / logical basis) (2) for their analogies. These compositions were used as the main data source. Metaphors produced by the pre-service teachers are divided into 12 categories as pathfinder, lighting, raw fruit, gift, mediator, fast train, life, nature, waste, half of an apple, innovator and contradiction. According to this result, the participants mostly expressed their satisfaction with the program, but they complained about the duration and registration fee of it as well. In a program that received such praise, it is recommended to provide longer-term training based on more practice, rather than accelerated training, which is the most criticized situation.