Examination of the Factors Affecting Elective Selection in Turkish Language Teaching Undergraduate Program

Curriculum plays an important role in the training of gifted teachers. This situation is confronted with situations such as constantly updating and radically changing teaching undergraduate programs. One of the complementary elements of the programs is electives. The Turkish Language Teaching Undergraduate Program, in which interdisciplinary studies increase efficiency, has also been renewed with these features in mind. There are 52 different electives in the Turkish Language Teaching Undergraduate Program published in 2018. This study was carried out to determine what factors affecting prospective Turkish teachers while choosing these courses. 162 prospective Turkish teachers studying at Sinop University Faculty of Education Turkish Language Teaching Department participated in the study conducted in the survey model in the 2019-2020 academic year. The questionnaire developed by Tezcan and Gümüş (2008) as a data collection tool to determine the factors affecting the course choices of university students was updated and applied. While analyzing the data, 5 themes were determined as “items related to being economical”, “items related to career goals”, “items related to teaching staff”, “items related to friend effect/environmental factors” and “items related to course features”. Prospective Turkish teachers selected courses that they can easily pass and contain information that will help them in their professional life; the lecturers considering the course to be successful in their fields; that the circle of friends is effective in the choice of elective courses and the family is ineffective in this process; the results they chose for lessons related to their talents and interests were reached.

programs related to teaching: "Teaching is a profession, teaching knowledge and field knowledge" (Küçükahmet, 2007).
These courses in the undergraduate programs are also supported by elective courses planned according to these categories.
What's more new world-recognized training teachers in Turkey have also been implemented. Pre-service teachers are tried to be ready for the profession with high knowledge of the profession, field, and general culture. This is also valid for the undergraduate program of Turkish teachers, who will play an important role in reaching the next generations of Turkish, being the language of science and raising individuals with high language skills (Çoban, 2020).
Establishing institutions related to Turkish teaching and determining the curricula of these institutions have drawn attention as important steps (Kavcar, 2002;Güzel, 2003;Biçer, 2017).
"The theme/text-based teaching of the Turkish lesson is an element that makes interdisciplinary possible. When developing skills, texts with common elements with other disciplines can be used. However, for Turkish lessons to be conducted according to the principles of interdisciplinary, first of all, the interdisciplinary quality of Turkish education should be clarified theoretically" (Kanatlı & Çekici, 2013).
"In the ranking of the most important problems of Turkish Teacher factor, problems in teacher training programs, insufficiency in Turkish education and teaching' 20 (14%) are seen as the third most important problem according to the first three places according to the opinions of the participants" (Göçer, 2013).
"One of the target groups of Turkish education is those coming from Turkish states and communities. Until a few years ago, one of the most basic and indispensable courses of Turkish Education Departments; the elimination of the Living Turkish Dialects course, which is occasional -if not sufficient-an opportunity for prospective teachers to learn both the living Turkish dialects and to recognize their target audience/Turkish world, and not to be conducted by the experts of the field in the faculties given as elective courses; It is inevitable to include Living Turkish Dialects lessons that do not doubt that learning/teaching the dialects of Turkish in different geographies/regions, contributing to this by taking into consideration the historical ties between us and the communities and the targeted relations to be realized" (Alyılmaz, 2010).
"For the elements in Turkish education to be effective, school buildings, equipment, programs, tools are important, but the knowledge of the teacher who will use them and apply the program is more important than all of them. A school can only be defined as good if the teachers working there are also good at their profession" (Kavcar, 1998).
The differences in the elective courses in the undergraduate programs coincide with the fact that the teaching fields of the lecturers who give the courses differ. This situation draws attention to the Turkish language teaching program. When the curricula of universities with Turkish teaching undergraduate programs are examined, it is seen that there are many elective courses. In the new Turkish teaching undergraduate program published by the Council of Higher Education in 2018, which of the elective courses will be determined. The distribution of elective courses in the program is as follows:  It is possible to say the following about the application of elective courses in Turkish Language Teaching undergraduate programs. Many problems are encountered, such as the low number of teaching staff in some universities, the lack of classrooms and physical environment, the introduction of some elective courses as compulsory elective courses, the opening of their courses in the semester, and the desire to earn income. In addition to the elective courses, it is seen that in some universities, students tend to choose courses from university and faculty elective courses because they have a chance to pass the courses in activities with a student club.
Elective courses; the effects of prospective teachers on social skills (Alkan & Erdem, 2011); evaluation of faculty members and students within the framework of their opinions (Demir, 1996;Demir & Ok, 1996), an examination of elective courses in the faculty of theology (Korukcu, 2011), decision-making in elective course choice (Kutlu, Abalı, & Eren, 2012), pre-service teachers the lessons he wants to take (Saraç, 2008); it is encountered when the literature regarding the studies related to the elective courses of the Turkish teaching undergraduate program is examined, the Turkish teaching undergraduate programs at different universities are compared (Yılmaz, 2014), and the opinions of prospective Turkish teachers regarding the undergraduate programs (Özkan & Şahbaz, 2011;Durukan & Maden, 2011) are examined.
In the ever-changing, updated Turkish Teaching undergraduate program, elective courses also differ. Accordingly, this research was carried out to determine the factors affecting prospective Turkish Teachers' choice of elective courses. The research sought answers to the following questions: 1) Are the elective courses requiring less effort important in the preferences of prospective Turkish teachers?
2) What is the place of career goals of prospective Turkish teachers in elective course preferences?
3) Are teaching staff effective in the elective course choice of prospective Turkish teachers? 4) Do the friends and environment have an effect on prospective Turkish teachers why choosing electives? 5) Are the features of the elective courses effective in prospective Turkish teachers?

Method
In this chapter; information on the research model, the research group, the data collection tool, and the analysis of the data was presented.

Research Model
In this study, in which the reasons for choosing elective courses taken by prospective Turkish teachers during education and training process were investigated, the survey model was used. A survey model is a research approach that seeks to identify and describe certain characteristics of a group that existed in the past or present. The important thing in this approach is to observe the existing one as it is (Büyüköztürk et al., 2018).

Research Group
The population of the study consists of 162 prospective Turkish teachers studying at the Department of Turkish Language Education at the Faculty of Education, Sinop University. Since the number of prospective Turkish teachers in the population is limited, sampling was not taken. In the research, the whole population was tried to be reached. Voluntarily basis, a total of 124 prospective Turkish teachers participated in the study by completing the questionnaire. The demographic features of prospective teachers participating in the study are given in Table 3. As shown in Table 3, 92 of the prospective teachers are female and 32 are male. Only one-fourth of the prospective teachers are men. When the distribution of the prospective teachers' age levels is analyzed, it is seen that there are 41 participants in the 17-19 age group, 71 participants in the 20-22 age group, and only 12 participants in the 23+ group. More than half of the participants are between 20 and 22 years old. 36 of them from the 1st grade, 40 from the 2nd grade, 23 from the 3rd grade, and 25 from the 4th grade participated in the research.

Data Collection
The research data were collected by a questionnaire developed by Tezcan and Gümüş (2008) to determine the factors affecting the course choices of university students. The first version of the survey consists of 25 items of 4-stage Likert type. Before the survey was applied three field experts were consulted, and a pilot application was made with 10 university students. As a result of these procedures, "Does the number of credits of the course affect your selection of elective courses?" was removed from the questionnaire because the credits of the elective courses to be taken are equal. "Is it effective at having the classes held in the morning or afternoon?" was removed from the questionnaire because all of the students participating in the pilot program stated that they were not a factor in the course selection. "When choosing a course, I pay attention to the fact that the lecturer who gives the lesson is charismatic/beautiful.", "I make sure that the course I choose is suitable for my program." and "I take care to take the lessons that I believe will guide me in my professional life." The items were added to the questionnaire form in line with expert opinions and pilot implementation results. The questionnaires were rearranged to respond to the expressions "I strongly disagree", "I disagree", "I am indecisive", "I agree" and "I strongly agree". The final version of the questionnaire was applied to prospective teachers.

Data Analysis
Before the data was analyzed, the items related to each other were ordered under 5 themes as "items related to being economic", "items related to career goals", "items related to teaching staff", "items related to friend effect/environmental factors" and "items related to course features". While analyzing the data, arithmetic means of each item were shown first. Then, independent t-test results are given place and interpreted.

Results
In this section, the findings obtained by analyzing the data are presented in tables. When Table 4 is analyzed, the items with the highest arithmetic average have the effect of "Grade level affects my selection." (X: 3.91) and "I would like to choose the lessons that I believe I can pass easily." (X: 3.74). Accordingly, prospective Turkish teachers choose the courses they think they can easily pass.
The prospective Turkish teachers' use of economic features in the selection of the courses according to the gender variable is given in Table 5. p<0.05.
When Table 5 is analyzed, in the economical feature of the prospective Turkish teachers, only "I pay attention to take lessons selected by just a few students." It can be seen that they differ statistically. Male prospective teachers want to take lessons taken by a few students compared to female prospective teachers. In Table 6, "I pay attention to take the lessons that I believe will guide me in my professional life." (X: 4.48) and "I think and evaluate what the course I choose will add to my academic life." it is seen that the arithmetic mean of the items (X: 4.43) is higher than the other items. Among these items, it is thought that the prospective Turkish teachers select the courses they think they can help them during their professional life while choosing elective courses.
The status of the selection of the elective courses according to the gender variable of TÖA according to career goals is given in Table 7.   In Table 8, prospective Turkish teachers said, "The measurement and evaluation style of the instructors giving the lesson is important for me." (X: 4.25) and "I try to take lessons from the lecturer I believe is successful in her/his field." (X: 4.29) has been added to the items at a high level. "When choosing the course, I consider the political views of the lecturers." (X: 1.77) and "When choosing a course, I pay attention to the fact that the instructor who gives the course is charismatic/beautiful." (X: 2.10), on the other hand, were at a low level. Prospective Turkish teachers stated that the political views and physical characteristics of the instructors were not effective in the selection of the elective course. It is understood that the prospective Turkish teachers choose to take courses from the instructors who are successful in their fields and who perform measurement and evaluation at certain standards. p<0.05.
When Table 9 is analyzed, "When choosing a course, I pay attention to the fact that the instructor who gives the course is charismatic/beautiful.", "When choosing the course, I consider the political views of the lecturers." and "The opinions of the lecturers whom I consult direct me." there was a statistically significant difference between the male prospective Turkish teachers and the female prospective Turkish teachers. In the selection of elective courses, it is understood that male prospective Turkish teachers consider both the political views and charismatic/beautiful of the lecturers compared to the female prospective Turkish teachers. It has been determined that female prospective Turkish teachers have a preliminary interview with the instructor of the course they want to choose with an academic attitude and also it can be said that female prospective Turkish teachers chose the lessons according to the information they obtained from this interview. In Table 10, when choosing elective courses, prospective Turkish teachers say, "I act according to the opinions of students who have taken that course before." (X: 3.27) and "When choosing an elective course, I care about the opinions of my friends." (X: 3.34), it is seen that they have a high level of participation. Prospective Turkish teachers, "I act according to the direction of my family in the selection of elective courses." (X: 2.00), on the other hand, it was determined that they participated in a low rate. According to this, it can be said that the prospective Turkish teachers ignore the wishes of families while caring about the opinions of friends groups and students who have taken courses before.  Vol. 13, No. 9;2020 When Table 11 is examined, it has been determined that friend effect/environmental factors elective course choices do not have any effect on the gender variable. It can be said that female and male prospective Turkish teachers have similar views when choosing elective courses. In the election of elective courses in Table 12, prospective Turkish teachers said, "I choose electives according to my interests and hobbies." (X: 4.54), "I consider my abilities in the selection of elective courses." (X: 4.23) and "I make sure that the course I choose is suitable for my program." (X: 4.27), it is seen that they are highly involved. It is understood that the prospective Turkish teachers' curricula besides their abilities and interests are effective in the selection of elective courses. p<0.05.
When Table 13 is analyzed, only the course features of the female and male prospective Turkish teachers stated that "Being similar to the lessons I have taken before allows me to choose the lesson." It is seen that their selection differ statistically. Based on this result, it can be said that the prospective male prospective Turkish teachers tend to take elective courses similar to the courses they have taken before.

Discussion and Conclusion
In this study elective courses are examined in different themes such as economics, career goal, faculty, friend-environment effect, and course features to determine the factors affecting prospective Turkish teachers' elective course selection.
In terms of economic features, prospective Turkish teachers prefer the courses that they think they can easily pass.
In terms of career goals, it is seen that prospective Turkish teachers choose the courses they think they can help them during their professional life. The results obtained by Durukan and Maden (2011) as a result of the "lessons ies.ccsenet.org International Vol. 13, No. 9;2020 should be useful in private and professional life" in the study in which the prospective Turkish teachers determined their opinions about the Turkish teaching undergraduate program are similar. Alkan and Erdem (2011) also concluded that elective courses should provide supportive information, techniques, and skills that students can use in their future lives. Kutlu, Abalı, and Eren (2012) also state that students make their plans according to their interests, and they choose the courses they think will contribute to them in business and real life. It is understood that prospective Turkish teachers prefer elective courses based on the principle that elective courses should contribute to the student's next life.
It has been determined that the prospective Turkish teachers consider the success of the instructors in their field. The fact that faculty members make assessments and assessments according to certain standards and being the fair is also considered important in the elective course choice. Özkan and Şahbaz (2011) also found that "the lack of teaching staff (lack of method-technique)" was seen as a negative impression in their study to determine the opinions of prospective Turkish teachers for the field courses in the Turkish language teaching program. Kutlu, Abalı, and Eren (2012) also have good relationships with university students and have a high passing rate in past lessons; it states that the faculty members who want a project or who have to attend the course affect the selection of the students. Prospective Turkish teachers take into account the lecturers who give the courses while choosing elective courses. Instructors' approach to students will positively affect the elective course preferences.
Concerning the circle of friends and the environmental factor, it is concluded that prospective Turkish teachers act according to the opinions of the groups of friends and those who have taken the elective course before. In the examination made under this title, it was determined that the prospective Turkish teachers do not care about the family ideas in the elective course preferences. Kutlu, Abalı, and Eren (2012) also state that the circle of friends is an important factor in the choice of elective courses.
In terms of the content-physical properties of the elective courses, it was seen that the prospective Turkish teachers prefer courses related to their abilities and interests. This situation overlaps to take part in the curriculum of elective courses. Prospective Turkish teachers prefer elective courses according to their abilities. In order for this to be more successful, advisors should make more successful orientation practices. The place of the elective courses in the curriculum and the hours of the courses also stand out as an important criterion about the selection of that course. Kutlu, Abalı, and Eren (2012) also determined that in their studies with university students, reasons such as the starting time of the course on the same days as other courses and not preventing the prolongation of the holiday period is important in their elective courses. This situation corresponds to the result of the research.
In elective course selection, there is no difference between genders in terms of career goals, and friend effect/environmental factors. In terms of economics, it is concluded that male prospective Turkish teachers tend to prefer elective courses taken by just a few people. In connection with the effect of the instructor in the elective course selection, it is seen that the female prospective Turkish teachers have a preliminary interview with the lecturers about the course and select the course according to the information they obtained from this interview. In the context of the content and physical features of the course, male prospective Turkish teachers try to take elective courses similar to the elective courses they have taken before.