Attitudes of Classroom Teacher Candidates toward Graduate Education

The purpose of this study is to examine attitudes of classroom teacher candidates to graduate education in terms of variables such as sex, graduated school type, family income and educational status of fathers. the study consists of 312 candidates including 140 female and 172 male attending to primary education departments in fırat, inönü and erzincan universities in the 2008-2009 academic years. in the research a mixed method pattern consisted of quantitative and qualitative data was conducted. the research data was consisted of personal information and relating to scale of attitudes toward the graduate education. the datas on scale were analyzed using frequency, mean, percentage distribution techniques. moreover, correlation analysis was performed. according to research findings, except for educational status of father, significant differences were found statistically among attitudes in terms of sex, school type and family income variables. in general the attitudes of students to graduate education were positive, but scores weren’t high. moreover, semi-structured interviews were conducted with students in order to determine the causes of these significant differences.