ATTITUDES and PERSONALITY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHER CANDIDATES

The primary objective of the study described in this book was to examine prospective early childhood education teachers 'attitudes toward the teaching profession and how those attitudes relate to their personality characteristics. The theoretical background for this research derives from both teacher education and psychology literature. 180 prospective early childhood teachers participated in the study.Collected research data originated from the education departments of three Turkish universities located in Ankara.The measurement of attitudes toward teaching used The Attitude Toward Teaching Scale, and for the measurement of personality characteristics, Locus of Control and Sociotropy-autonomy Scale. The results showed that the participants had fairly high positive attitudes toward teaching. In general, the demographic characteristics were not related to these attitudes. Having greater internal locus of control orientation had no significant influence on attitude toward teaching. Except for one sub-factor, the sociotropy-autonomy scale was not related to the attitude toward teaching scale.