The Effect of Teacher Training on the Learning Styles of Prospective Teachers of Social Studies

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of four-year-long undergraduate education on the learning styles of prospective teachers of social studies. This study was conducted in accordance with longitudinal method, which is one of the research designs used in developmental psychology researches. The study was conducted with the participation of 70 prospective teachers of social studies who studied at Ondokuz Mayis University Faculty of Education between 2009 and 2013 and who volunteered to participate in the study. The learning styles of prospective teachers were found by using Kolb's learning styles inventory in the first and last years of their undergraduate education. When the data from this assessment tool were analyzed, it was found that undergraduate education did not cause a significant difference in the perception (concrete experience-abstract conceptualization) and processing (reflective observation-active experimentation) ways in the learning styles of prospective teachers and similar results were found when the variable of gender was taken as the basis.