History Teacher Candidates’ Evaluation of Their Undergraduate Programs

Abstract

The aim of this research is to reveal the thoughts on the history program of the teacher candidates who have recently graduated from the history teaching undergraduate program. In this research, a case study model from qualitative research methods was adopted. The study group of this research consisted of 49 teacher candidates, 18 female and 31 male. The teacher candidates were senior students to graduate at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year, and they were selected from education faculties at three state universities. Within the framework of this study, an easily attainable method was adopted in the selection of universities and faculties, and the criterion sampling, a purposeful sampling method, was used while choosing the study group. The data of the study were collected via e-mail correspondence with a questionnaire consisting of open-ended questions created by the researcher. The data obtained from the study group were analyzed using descriptive analysis. When the results of the study are evaluated in general, it could be stated that the history teacher candidates in the study group mostly have positive opinions about their undergraduate education. However, teacher candidates expressed that the course contents were very theoretical and added that the number of practical courses should be increased.