Prospective primary school teachers' change in attitudes and anxiety profiles during their preparation program

Abstract

The sensory characteristics of teachers and prospective teachers directly affect them and their teaching activities. It is important to examine in detail how the attitude and anxiety levels of prospective primary teachers towards the teaching profession change throughout the years they receive education. This study aimed to cross-sectionally and longitudinally examine whether the attitude and anxiety levels of prospective primary school teachers towards the teaching profession changed throughout their undergraduate education and determine the factors/experiences triggering this change in accordance with the qualitative data obtained. A cross-sectional study was carried out with the participation of 1085 prospective teachers. For the longitudinal study, quantitative and qualitative data were collected together from 57 prospective teachers over a period of four years. Attitude scale regarding teaching and occupational anxiety scale for prospective teachers were used for data collection. The results of both the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies showed that the attitude scores of the participants did not change in accordance with the grade level. However, it was determined that the anxiety scores of the participants decreased as the grade level increased. The results revealed that this change is statistically significant. The qualitative results revealed that internship practices and direct experiences had a great influence on this change.