Among quality canons for an educational service is listed the quality of teaching personnel (Scarr, Esienberg & Deater-Deckard, 1994). Indeed, what counts for teacher quality to a considerable extent is the quality of education they receive through pre-service teacher education programs; and this link emerges from the fact that teachers’ behaviours are substantially moved by the education they have been equipped with (Howes, 1983). In preparing effective practitioners for the profession, enabling learning from the wisdom of practice is seen among the core idiosyncrasies of a teacher education program. Evidently, the most effective programs are those incorporating a clinical alongside a didactic curriculum where candidates are required to contact with the field extensively throughout the whole program than those providing “a dollop of student teaching” only at the end (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 40). Yet, strongly supported have been those programs that include carefully designed, purposeful practice experiences (Zeichner, 2010). On the other hand, our accumulated knowledge also says that the practice side of teacher education programs has been haphazardly implemented due to lack of ample insight on what happens in them and loose relation to university coursework (Darling-Hammond, 2010).

As is indicated, studies investigating the whats and hows of field experience courses bear special importance. In this sense, research shows that the Turkish context is by no means distinctive from the international one in creating dissatisfactory practice experiences for prospective teachers. However, the review of the national literature also showed that vast majority of existing studies focused intensively on producing numerical facts than using qualitative methodology, which, when compared to quantitative approach, yields more in-depth and information-rich data (Patton, 2002). This clearly implies a need for more informative and illustrative studies providing insight into how practice teaching takes place in action and what hinders its success. More strikingly, ECTE programs have fairly been neglected in the national literature. Since the duration of interaction with students, intensity of daily routines and density of care responsibilities are extended, investigating the effectiveness of field experience would offer educated guidance for training competent early childhood teachers. Moreover, a closer look further revealed that pre-service teachers have been the primary data source to studies investigating the effectiveness of field experience courses. This persistent focus brings a limitation to the data produced so far, since candidate teachers’ partial interaction with the field and lack of actual teaching experience may inhibit them from seeing the whole picture (Yıldırım, 2011). On the contrary, in-service teachers have better hold of how field experience opportunities correspond to the requirements of professional practice. In return, this profound knowledge would provide coherent information on the effectiveness of university-based field practice courses with their relation to actual teaching experience.

Attempting to fill the gaps indicated above, this study thus aimed at exploring the effectiveness of field experience courses through perceptions of in-service early childhood teachers. By utilizing qualitative methodology, the findings are prospective to inform both national and international literature and policy of the ingredients of a successful or unsuccessful field experience implementation.

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