Research in related literature has identified the importance of parental engagement in their children’s schooling. When the involvement by parents/families increased it could be one of the most vital ways to improve students and school success (Beycioglu, 2016; Comuntzis-Page, 1996; Li & Hung, 2012; Nir & Tzili, 2005). The traditional sense of parents’ role in education has been limited with what they do at home and what schools formally tell them to do in regular meetings in schools. Traditional schools have long been solely responsible for academic topics, whereas families have been attended to the moral, cultural, and religious education of children (Hill & Taylor, 2004).

With the impact of changes in society, this traditional role of the family has transformed over the years (Beycioglu, Ozer, & Şahin, 2013; Epstein, 1994; Epstein & Sanders, 2002). Today, “in the context of greater accountability and demands for children’s achievement, schools and families have formed partnerships and share the responsibilities for children’s education” (Hill & Taylor, 2004, p. 161). Educators no longer consider parents and families as a part of the external community like in the past.

There are different definitions or conceptualizations of parental involvement in the literature. Castro et al. (2015), for example, consider parental involvement “as the active participation of parents in all aspects of their children’s social, emotional and academic development” (p.34).

Similarly Kaplan Toren and Seginer (2015) conceptualized parental involvement “as a multidimensional construct, including parental educational aspirations, future plans for their children, educational decision-making, and support with school work, parental knowledge and parental participation in the school” (p.812).

That urges us explore what opinions prospective teachers have in their mind on parental involvement before they enter the profession (e.g. Loughran, 2008).  Because there stands the claim that teachers who have perceptions of school processes including parental involvement as expected from teacher profession will likely to foster a healthy school organization in general, and teacher-parent relationship in particular.

As a result of the idea that few researchers have been directing their attention to prospective teachers’ on school parent relations, this qualitative study aimed to explore prospective teachers’ beliefs and/or attributions about parental involvement in schools. Searching the related Turkish literature, the researcher could not find any study directly focused on this issue. That supported the necessity of conducting a research about the topic. In addition, it is important to study prospective teachers’ beliefs about parental involvement because prospective teachers’ informal school-parent relationships, and the relative lack of influence of family-school issues in school context upon their beliefs and conceptions, may provide us with ‘‘pure’’ perspectives of the preferred parental involvement. This may also lead to revise our teacher education programs.

Research Design and Methods Depending on what the researcher is trying to find, this study will employ a qualitative research procedure to collect and analyze data. Qualitative research, as research approach in the behavioral and social sciences, focuses on indepth understanding of social and human behavior and the reasons behind that behavior (Hoy, 2010; Silverman, 2006). In other words, it aims to explore and understand the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem (Creswell, 2009). In addition, as Creswell (2007) states, “researchers bring their own worldviews, paradigms, or sets of beliefs to the research project, and these inform the conduct and writing of the qualitative study” (p. 15). Data collection and participants: Qualitative data from a questionnaire with semi-structured questions will be used to reveal participants’ beliefs on principals. The questionnaire which will let the participants know that they are encouraged to write down anything they think important comprised open-ended questions. The questions used in this study were derived related literature. As for validity and reliability, the interview form was presented to experts studying the field of Edu Adm in Turkey. The interviews were carried out with ten prospective teachers and Edu Adm researchers prior to actual interviews to identify problems and take precautions for the study to be properly conducted. The participants were asked to analyze the items in the interview form and state their opinions concerning the clarity of the questions in the form. Specific comments from participants will be led to some alterations on the form to make the interview questions more comprehensible, plain, and precise. Prospective teachers will be asked to obtain further information about their opinions on principalship and leadership. It is expected that more than 100 prospective teachers, who are studying at a faculty of education of a university in Turkey, will be invited by e-mails to participate in the study. Expected number of returning participants consists of about 50 volunteer prospective teachers and they will be included in the study provided that they will meet the criteria of being a student in his/her last year of training.

Analysis and Expected Outcomes Thematic analysis will be used to explore participants’ opinions. The data will undergo four stages of analysis suggested by Marshall and Rossman (2012): ‘organizing the data’, ‘generating categories, themes and patterns’, ‘testing any emergent hypotheses and “searching for alternative explanations’. The analysis will identify central themes and the thematic framework will be guided by research questions. Thus, we expect that analysis of the findings from the interviews will reveal main categories parental involvement and will led a better guidance of candidate teachers during preservice education.

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