Teacher Candidates’ Thinking Styles: An Investigation of Various Variables

Abstract

Within the scope of the research the following question has been addressed: "Is there a statistically significant difference in students' thinking styles according to (a) gender, (b) academic discipline and (c) grade, between the beginning and the end of an academic semester?" Purpose of the study is to reveal the differentiation occurred in teacher candidates' thinking style preferences during an academic semester, according to some variables. "Thinking Styles Inventory", developed by R. J. Sternberg and R. K. Wagner (1992), has been applied to 794 teacher candidates from various disciplines, at the beginning and end of the semester. As the result of the study, it has been found that, significant difference occurred in the "Conservative" sub-scale's mean scores between the 1st and 2nd application, for both genders. Regarding the means of "Conservative" sub-scale, it has been seen that the mean scores of female and male teacher candidates have increased at the end of the semester. Another finding of the study is that the joint effect of academic discipline and thinking style's differentiation status was significant for all sub-scales. Similar studies can be conducted with teacher candidates from different departments of education faculties. The current research was limited with one semester. On the other hand, longitudinal researches lasting an academic semester or more can be accomplished. Researches, covering other thinking styles and discovering the relationships among them can be conducted. Experimental studies featuring differentiation of the thinking styles are fairly limited. Therefore, experimental researches can be emphasized at teacher-training institutions. Thinking styles of teacher candidates are different form each other. Thus, the preparation of learning environment considering this diversity is an important step on teacher training. Individuals should organize and manage their own learning processes. Thus, raising teacher candidates' awareness about their own style seems to be crucial. Teacher candidates, after creating awareness about their own styles, can give the appropriate weight in activities for improving the style in order to achieve a task.