Historians or History Teachers? A Qualitative Study in Pedagogical Formation Program in Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to determine how the history teaching career is perceived by prospective history teachers who attended the pedagogical formation program in Adıyaman University in 2014-2015 academic year. The study was conducted through content analysis of 5 sets of essays dealing with various aspects of history teaching. The essays topics were chosen being inspired from the History Teacher’s Special Field Competencies identified by Ministry of Education published in 2011. The participants of the study were 11 female and 13 male prospective history teachers who did not have teaching experience except for the teaching practice in pedagogical formation program. Each participant submitted 5 essays, each with a different topic. The topics were accepted as the main themes. Analysis did not reveal a consistency between their objectives in teaching history, their teaching and testing methods. In the light of the results, some suggestions were made on history teaching as second career, history teaching practices at universities and testing methods at secondary and high schools.