Comparative Examination of Communication and Social Skills of Teachers and Teacher Candidates In Pre-School Education

Education is an effectiveness of communication, teaching is a communication profession. In communication process, there are important responsibilities of the teacher who is forwarding the message to a resource (Dilekmen vd., 2008). Communication skill is one of the most important conditions for the realization of education in a healthy way. Studies show that student achievement is directly related to communication skills of the teacher in the class (Pektaş, 1989; Weis ve diğ., 1990; Davies ve Igbal, 1997). At the same time, a teacher must have a socially acceptable behavior make the interaction with the others. These skills are generally social skills. Social skill, leading to a positive response from others and preventing adverse reactions, enabling communication with the others, leaving positive impact on the environment, are both observable and unobservable behaviors depending on the situation - specific and social context that include elements of cognitive and affective (Yüksel, 2001). There should be a very special relationship between teacher and student in order to be effective during teaching-learning process. This relationship depends on teachers’ communication and social skills. Therefore, the teachers who are always with students and serve as a model should be effective in terms of communication and social skills and they should be trained in this context. In this study investigating the teachers’ and teacher candidates’ communication and social skills levels, it was tried to answer the fallowing questions; 1) Do the communication and social skills points of pre-school education teacher candidates differentiate according to their class variables where they are educated? 2) Do the communication and social skills points of pre-school teachers differentiate according to their seniority? 3) Is there any difference between the communication and social skills points of preschool teachers and teacher candidates? 4) Is there any significant correlation between the communication and social skills points of preschool teachers and teacher candidates? Survey model was used in this investigation. The study was conducted with 100 pre-school teachers working in the central district of Konya and 120 junior and 120 senior students of Selcuk University, Faculty of Education and Vocational Education, Pre-school Education Department, in total with 240 teacher candidates selected randomly. Communication Skill Inventory and Social Skill Inventory for preschool teachers and teacher candidates were used collect the data in the study. Communication Skills Inventory: The Communication Skill Inventory used in the study was developed by Seher Balcı in 1996. This Inventory is a designed likert-type scale consisting of 70 items of positive and 20 items of negative. The items are in quintet liker types (completely like me, a little like me, I am undecided, not like me, never like me,) and are written with rating scale, and scored as 2, 1, 0, -1, -2 for positive, -2, -1, 0, 1, 2 for negative. While the maximum point is 140, the minimum point is zero in the inventory. Social Skill Inventory: The Social Skill Inventory used in the study was developed by Riggo in 1996, and its validity and reliability was done by Yüksel in 1997. This Inventory consists of 90 items for the individuals aged over fourteen. A Five answers likert key has been prepared for items of the inventory. In the key, the maximum score is five, the minimum score is zero. Inversion pointed scores are used for some items. While the maximum point is 450, the minimum point is 90 in the inventory. The differences between the averages of points obtained from the documents were tested with student t and Fisher F test. In determination of the relationship between pre-school education teachers’ and teacher candidates’ points received from two scales, Pearson correlation coefficient was used. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS. 10.0 on computer. Significance level was considered as (P 0.05). The findings were summarized and were discussed below: 1) The communication points of pre-school education teacher candidates’ differ according to their undergraduate education, but there are no differences between social skills points. 2) The communication and social skills points of pre-school education teachers change according to their professional seniority. 3) There was a significant difference between pre-school education teachers and students in terms of communication and social skills. 4) A positive correlation was found between communication and social skills points of pre-school education teachers and teacher candidates. While the university education is improving the communication skills of pre-school education students, there is no significant difference in their social skills. This result indicates that social skills are affected by more fundamental factors. Moreover, the social skill is not affected any more by faculty education because it means personality character. It is seen that the average of communication points are low when the seniority increases. The reason of this result may be the classical approach of senior teachers on communication views. As well, some factors such as professional burnout and decrease in motivation can play a role in decrease in averages points of the teachers. Social skills and communication skills are mutually complementary, therefore social skills point of senior teachers are less. The communication skills points of senior students are significantly higher than the communication skills of junior students. The communication skills average points of pre-school teachers are significantly higher than the communication skills point average of junior and senior teacher candidates. These results indicate that communication skills improve in both areas, education and practice. The same situation is observed in social skills points of pre-school teachers. Pre-school teachers’ being in communication with the children, meeting their needs and interacting with parents of students and also meeting their own social needs may be the reason of their social skills improvement. As communication and social skills are complementary, there is no need to search for the reasons, variation is natural. As a result, a positive relation of .63 was found between communication skills and social skills and it was significant. According to the findings of this investigation, the followings can be suggested: • The credits and contents of lectures and applied courses which improve the communication and social skills of teacher candidates in faculties of pre-school education can be increased. • Healthy communication and social skill features are important in terms of healthy individuals. Therefore, the communication and social skills of pre-school teachers and teacher candidates should be determined and applicable, comprehensive and short term communication and social skills programs can be designed for the teachers and teacher candidates whose communication and social skill levels are low. • Service training courses and workshops can be organized in order to improve the communication and social skills of pre-school teachers.