Attitudes of Social Studies Teachers Towards Post-Graduate Education

Abstract

Social studies is a course that aims to provide primary and secondary school students with knowledge, skills, and values related to daily life. The aforementioned nature of the social studies field increases the importance of social studies teachers' competencies in social studies education. From this point of view, social studies graduate education, which is aimed at specializing in social studies education, also gains more importance. The aim of this study is to determine the attitudes of social studies teachers towards postgraduate education. The study group the research consists of 65 social studies teachers, 24 female, and 41 male, working in the Ağrı province of Turkey. The sequential explanatory design of the mixed research method, in which qualitative and quantitative data used, is applied in the research. The data of the research were collected through the scale and semi-structured interview form. In the analysis of the statistical data of the research, the t-test was used for samples independent of the parametric tests, and the descriptive analysis technique was used in the analysis of the qualitative data. In the study, it was determined that there was no significant difference in the attitudes of social studies teachers towards graduate education within the scope of gender variable. The study also revealed that social studies teachers' views on postgraduate education are positive and there are various reasons why they want to do postgraduate education. Suggestions were made depending on the results obtained in the research.