USING PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS FOR CHOOSING TEACHER CANDIDATES

Importance of educational psychology has been emphasized for increasing student success and improving professional competencies of teachers. There has been a growing number of studies showing the effect of teacher motivation, burnout, identity and beliefs on teaching practices and professional performance. However, psychology in teacher education needs more research studies for preparing student teachers psychologically for the complexities and dynamics of real classrooms. Therefore, this study aims to find out and compare the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers about using psychological tests for choosing teacher candidates for pre-service teacher education. For this purpose, 298 pre-service English teachers, all seniors, from four different state universities and 47 in-service English teachers from 15 different cities in Turkey participated in the study. The participants were given a written interview protocol (WIP) to share their perspectives via yes/no questions and open-ended questions. Out of 345 participants, 299 (86.6%) reported that English teacher candidates should go through some psychological tests to be accepted for pre-service teacher education programs aside from getting high scores from the high-stake examination called KPSS, which is a national examination that people have to pass to become a public personnel in Turkey. Yet 27 (7.8%) opposed the idea for various reasons. Additionally, 5 (1.5%) had mixed perspectives with both positive and negative perspectives and 14 (4.1%) were suspicious about the applications. The findings show that the perspectives of pre-service and in-service English teachers are similar to each other because high majority of the participants of both groups think that teacher candidates should pass some psychological tests before beginning university education. These perspectives offer important insights into teacher education in Turkish context. Policy makers and authorities are advised to implement effective policies in setting criteria for choosing teacher candidates like establishing university committees consisting of teacher educators who will hold a face-to-face interview the candidates, apply certain psychological tests, examine the answers of the candidates and reach a final decision about the acceptance or rejection of the candidates.