Attitudes towards profession and anxiety levels of education of mentally handicapped students

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between mental disability teaching students' attitudes toward teaching and their concern level. The sample of this study contains a total of 410 first and fourth grade students of special education department, mental disability teaching section in Anadolu university(114 students), Ondokuz mayıs university(73 students), Gazi unversity(79 students ) Marmara university(75 students ) and Selçuk university(69 students ) at 2009-2010 academic year. In this study as a data collection tool "teaching profession attitude scale" developed by Çetin(2006) is used in purpose of determining mental disability teaching candidates' attitudes towards profession; "state- continuity concern scale" developed by Spielberg(1979) is used to determine concern levels and "personel information form " is used in purpose of gathering information about teacher candidates. As a conclusion of the study ,it is suggested that fourth grade students' scale scores of attitudes towards teaching profession is higher than that of first grade students. state continuity concern scale scores of Mental disability teaching students who has participated in this study is changeable according to grade levels. Also mental disability teacher candidates' attitudes towards this profession is differing by variants like gender and whether or not working at the field. State and continuity concern levels are changed by gender variant but not changed by whether or not working at the field variant.