The Value Perceptions of Candidate Teachers at Pamukkale University in Denizli, Turkey

Schools are considered as an important organizations where the effective citizens needed by information society are being trained. In order to achive this important mission, schools should have all kinds of educators who have values and attitudes compatible with the teaching profession. Because as Rokeach (1973) stated  ”The value concept… [is] able to unify the apparently diverse interests of all the sciences concerned with human behavior.” When we think of our values, we think of what is important to us in our lives including security, independence, wisdom, success, kindness, pleasure etc.. Each of us holds numerous values with varying degrees of importance. A particular value may be very important to one person, but unimportant to another.

Because values effect our attitudes and they give a shape to our behaviors, they are being accepted very important elements for our life. . Values whic are some kind of beliefs, influence our perceptions (Robbins, 2005, p;71). Values are your so deep personal beliefs and preferences that influence our behavior at a high degree (Reece and Brandt;1999; p;123).  Values are defined “as the constellation of likes, dislikes, viewpoints, shoulds, inner inclinations, rational and irrational judgments, prejudices and association patterns that determine a person’s view of the world” (Gibson, Ivancevich and Donnelly, 1997, p;105). Certainly a person’s behavior or work is an important aspect of his inner world. Morris (1956) distinguishes three types of values; (1)  ‘operative values’ direct individual behavior, thus reflecting what the respective person desires (dispositional meaning), (2) ‘conceived values’ represent culturally shared conceptions of desirable behaviour (normative meaning) and (3) ‘object values’ characterise the attribution of significance or importance to an object or event, independently of individual preferences or normative standards (economic meaning). Many research studies were carried out to determine the effects of values on human and organizational behaviors. Because, the prime objective of school organizations is to develop and change human behaviors, we should be very interested in  especially the values of candidate teachers. As research studies showed, teaching attitudes of the teachers will be greatly affected by their values.  For this reasons, the purpose of this study is to determine the values of candidate teachers study in faculty of education at Pamukkale University and the following research quesitions have been developed: (1) What are the perceptions of candidate teachers towards their values? (2) Do these perceptions differ according to selected demographic variables such as gender, department, class level and the high school they graduated etc.?

Gibson, J.,L.& Ivancevich, J.,M.& Donnelly, J.,H.(1997). Organizations : Behavior Structure Processes. 9th edition. Irwin Mc Graw Hill, Von Hoffmann Press. Morris, C. W. (1956). Varieties of human value. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reece B.,L.,& Brandt R. (1999). Effective Human Relations in Organizations. 7th edition.Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company. Robbins, P.,S. (2005). Organizational Behavior.11th edition. New Jersey, Pearson education Inc. Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 25 (pp.1-65). New York: Academic Press.