The Holmes Group

This study aimed at investigating the extent to which teacher candidates believe they possess the teacher competencies specified by the Ministry of Education. The study was conducted with senior year students from several departments including Computer Education and Instructional Technology, Early Childhood Education, Elementary Education, Science Education, and Mathematics Education, in the Faculty of Education of Hacettepe University. The data were collected through an instrument developed by Mahiroglu. The scale used had a 0.98 reliability coefficient. It consists of 14 categories with 206 competencies items. The students were asked to evaluate their own competencies with reference to the given items in the instrument on a 4 point Likert type scale ranging from “poor ” to “excellent”. Findings were analyzed by using the SPSS statistical package. t-Test and one way Anova tests were conducted to look for significant relationships between different variables. The findings indicate that in most of the competency areas, students find themselves “good ” or “excellent”. It was a positive finding that in at least half of the items, “poor ” was not selected by any of the participants. The participants ’ evaluation of their competencies show significant differences based on gender and the department