The word cloud illustration of the cognitive structures of teacher candidates about education concept

Abstract

Graduates of Arts and Sciences Faculties attend Pedagogical Formation Certificate Programme as Pedagogical Formation Education is a necessity to be a teacher. This study was conducted for searching the views of teacher candidates attending the Pedagogical Formation Certificate Programme about education concept. The data of the study were the replies of 234 participants with a bachelor’s degree. The reply words of the teacher candidates for “education” concept in the Word Association Test were analyzed by word cloud technique. “Preparation for life”, “examination”, “course”, “education”, “stress”, “civilization” and “acquisition” words proved to be the mostly preferred words. It can be said that the students’ word associations with education concept were valid. However, some of these associations were far from the scientific information and the teacher candidates gave superficial answers more so. According to the findings of the study, Word Association Test was affirmed to be an effective technique to manifest the cognitive structure, and the results of the Word Association Test were illustrated by Word Cloud technique in order the cognitive structure manifested in the study to be comprehensible.