Teacher Candidates’ Perceptions About Teacher

In this study, it was aimed to determine the perceptions of a total of 177 teacher candidates who were studying classroom, science, social sciences, early childhood and mathematics teacher departments. Data were gathered through word association test (WAT). After getting data, frequencies of response words were determined and concept maps were drawn. According to the findings of the study, the most different response words were obtained from early childhood teacher candidates while the least different response words were obtained from social sciences teacher candidates. Therefore, it can be said that early childhood teacher candidates have more structured perception about their future career. When response words were examined according to different departments of teacher candidates, it can be said that mathematics teacher candidates related teacher mostly with “school”, “affection”, and “student”, early childhood teacher candidates with “affection”, classroom teacher candidates with “student”, science teacher candidates with “guide”, and social sciences teacher candidates related with “school”. As considering the common responses of all teacher candidates, there were words relating to materials, which they would use when performing their careers, relating to personality traits and relating to roles that they see equal. It can also be said that teacher candidates have mostly positive perception about their future career