Examination of the Perceptions on the View of Preschool Teachers About School Counselor

Abstract

The responsibility of the development and the achievement of the child seems to be put on the shoulders of the preschool teacher. However, education is a teamwork in which not only teacher but also school administrator, family, school counselor (psychological counselor) and other supporting units should take active duty and work in cooperation. The school counselor plays an important role in following and supporting the child's bio-psycho-social development in this process. For all that, it is noteworthy that there is no effective cooperation between preschool teacher and school counselor. This study aims to investigate the perceptions of preschool teachers about school counselors. The data on school counselors’ perceptions was collected by metaphor analysis method. Content analysis was used to classify the data. The study group of the research consisted of 221 preschool teachers working in European side of Istanbul during the academic year of 2016-2017. As a means of collecting data, teachers were asked to complete the sentence "School counselor is like .............. because ..........". Also the "personal information form" was used to obtain demographic information. Conceptual categories were created by analyzing the reasons why teachers prefered and used their spesific expressions to complete the survey. It was determined that the school counselor perceived positive expressions such as advisor, helper, guiding, problem solver, supporting.