Turkish preschool teachers’ beliefs and practices related to child-centered education

Date

2013

Author

Sak, Ramazan

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The aim of this study was to describe preschool teachers' beliefs, self-reported and actual practices related to child-centered education in Turkey. In addition, the consistency of preschool teachers’ beliefs and their practices about child-centered education was examined. In order to investigate this phenomenon, 20 preschool teachers working in public schools were interviewed related to their beliefs and self-reported practices about child-centered education. Also, 5 of these teachers were observed and their documents were reviewed in order to investigate their actual practices. A semi-structured interview protocol and an observation form were developed by the researcher to explore the preschool teachers’ beliefs, self-reported and actual practices related to child-centered education. For the qualitative data analysis, word-repetition technique was used. The findings of the study showed that preschool teachers had both appropriate and inappropriate beliefs, self-reported and actual practices related to main components of child-centered education such as the physical environment, instructional activities, relationship, behavior management, assessment and parent involvement. There were both consistency and inconsistency between teachers’ beliefs, self-reported and actual practices. Teachers evaluated themselves as absolutely child-centered, usually child-centered, both teacher-centered and child-centered, or teacher-centered. Teachers gave the reasons for them being unable to be child-centered as; heavy workloads, their educational background and lack of knowledge about child centeredness, expectations of parents and principals, and class size. Recommendations are made as how to remove these obstacles in order that Turkish preschool education can become more child-centered.

Subject Keywords

Early childhood teachers, Preschool teachers, Student-centered learning., Active learning., Early childhood education., Education, Preschool.

URI

http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12615929/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/22625

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis