Early childhood pre-service teachers’ concerns and solutions to overcome them (the case of Pamukkale University)

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study is to determine early childhood pre-service teachers’ concerns and solutions. One hundred early childhood pre-service teachers who were enrolled at Pamukkale University, Turkey, answered two open-ended questions by e-mail. In addition, six of these participants were interviewed for developing a deeper understanding of their concerns and solutions. Five main areas of concerns and solutions were identified as: (1) children, (2) parents, (3) school principals and colleagues, (4) environmental conditions, (5) self-orientation. This paper draws attention to the underlying reasons given by pre-service teachers about their concerns and elicits their ways of overcoming these concerns, in order to identify pre-service teachers’ needs, in becoming effective teachers, and to integrate possible areas of concern in management and development of teacher education.

Keywords: concerns; early childhood education; pre-service teachers; teacher education