professional problems experienced by information technology teachers and suggested solutions: longitudinal survey

The study aimed to determine the opinions of teacher candidates in the fourth year of Computer Education & Instructional Technologies department (CEIT) on the Problems Experienced by Information Technology (IT) Teachers and Suggested Solutions and it has been designed in case study routine taking place within qualitative research tradition and in a longitudinal survey model. The final year IT teacher candidates receiving education in Ankara University Educational Sciences Faculty CEIT department in academic years 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 have formed the study group of the research (N=123). The data obtained in the research by open-end questionnaire have been analysed and interpreted by inductive encoding technique, freuency analysis and descriptive content analysis. At the end of the study carried out, it has been determined that the IT teacher candidates have handled in two sub-dimensions the problems experienced by the IT teachers, these being, problems towards the courses the IT teachers attend and problems regarding the professional lives of IT teachers and suggested solutions in line with these. The leading problems towards the courses the IT teachers attend are that the courses are optional, the courses are grade-free, the course hours are few, the significance of IT not being comprehended very well by the executives, teachers, parents and students, inadequacy of physical means of IT classes and references of the course. And, the main problems regarding professional lives of IT course teachers are the duty, power and responsibility of IT teachers not made clear enough, difficulties in formative teacher practice, course hours which have to be completed by IT teachers not being able to be completed and problem of permanent staff, the courses that must be attended by IT teachers being taugth by teachers from other branches, lack of executives and experts trained from a field to supervise IT and formative teachers. And, the suggested leading solutions of participants on the problems experienced are that the duty, power and responsibility of IT teachers have to be made clear and some regulations must be made towards IT courses. Moreover, in the study, the teacher candidates have reported that the FATİH project started to be applied could be a chance to overcome such problems