Investigation of Teacher Candidates' Family Communication Patterns According to Different Variables (Turkey: Kastamonu University Example)

This study aims to investigate the communication patterns of teacher candidates. For this purpose, 577 teacher candidates were examined (420 women, 157 men). A Demographic Information Form and the Revised Family Communication Pattern Instrument were used to collect the required data. Paired-samples t-test was used to investigate whether there was a difference between participants' conversation-orientation and conformity-orientation scores, and independent-samples t-test was used to investigate whether there was a difference in scores across the genders. Further, one-way ANOVA was used to determine whether there was a relationship between the parent's level of education, the region where the teacher candidates grew up in, and the size of these places. Least significant difference (LSD) test was used to follow up on the significant results. The results revealed a significant difference in conversation- and conformity-orientation average scores across the genders. According to these results, female teacher candidates were found to have higher conversation-orientation scores, whereas male candidates were found to have higher conformity-orientation scores. Additionally, it was found that as parents' education level increase, the conversation-orientation in the family communication also increases. In the framework of family communication, it has been determined that the teacher candidates with the highest conversation-orientation scores were from Marmara Region, whereas the teacher candidates with the highest conformity-orientation scores were from Black Sea Region. A positive relationship was found between the region where teacher candidates grew up and the conversation-orientation scores. Moreover, their conformity-orientation scores were found to be negatively related with the size of the place where the teacher candidates grew up. [This paper was published in the INTE-ITICAM-IDEC 2018 Paris, France proceedings, Volume 1, p1005-1012.]