Student Teachers Perspectives on Teaching Profession out of a Multigrade Classroom Site Visitation

Abstract

Multigrade classrooms, places where students of different grades are taught together, have been used throughout the world for two main purposes: to solve the problems of uneven student enrolment as well as the insufficient number of teachers and to provide the disadvantaged and remote areas with education. In the case of Turkey, student teachers need to gain the earliest possible awareness of a real education setting, specifically the reality of multigrade classrooms. Village schools visited in this study are the schools affiliated with one of the provinces, which was within the scope of TUBITAK Evrena 1010 Project, entitled as “Role of Immigration on Student Engagement: Influence of Social, Cultural, Psychological Factors and Social Capital” (112 K 600). The purpose of this study is to investigate the ways in which “a multigrade classroom experience in a village school” contributes to student teachers’ attitudes towards teaching and being a teacher. The research was conducted as a case study among qualitative reseach methods. The data was drawn from the reflections reported by 109 student teachers in İstanbul and analyzed by means of content analysis. This project revealed two main themes: (i) Student Tecahers’ Perceptions of the Constraints/Barriers Encountered by Teachers and (ii) Student Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Being a Teacher. This site visitation is expected to raise awareness of the student teachers to make a change in the lives of pupils and school administrators.

Keywords

• Student teachers
• Higher education
• Multigrade class
• Village school
• Reflection