Teachers' Evaluation of Their Pre-Service Teacher Training

The purpose of this study is to evaluate pre-service teacher training of a faculty of education based on graduates' responses. The teachers who were the graduates of this institution and currently have been practicing teaching in schools. The study used an instrument entitled as the Pre-Service Preparation of Teachers to Teaching. The instrument was developed by Darling-Hammond (2006). The sample of this study included 228 teachers who were the graduates of Faculty of Education in Marmara Region and were teaching in elementary and secondary schools around Turkey. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis was carried out for validity of the instrument. Five factors were emerged. The results of CFA indicate a good fit. Cronbach alpha and split-half reliability procedures were used to establish reliability. The subscales were found to be reliable. These factors were highly and positively correlated with each other. The teacher responses were compared on these five factors based on gender, experience, teaching level, location of the school, number of students in classroom and school, socio-economic status of schools, and whether teachers had a master's degree or not. t-tests and one-way ANOVAs conducted to see whether there were differences among groups. Teachers indicated that the pre-service training they had received in the faculty of education prepared relatively well on supporting different learning styles. Secondly, they rated equally program and teaching and teaching and learning competencies. They rated professional development the third while they rated their preparation as the lowest on creating a productive classroom. Recommendations were made based on these findings.