Dilek Gokturk

String Teacher Education in Turkey: a Descriptive Study Dilek Gokturk

The purpose of this study was to examine the undergraduate string teacher education curriculum in Turkish universities in both eastern and western regions. To accomplish this task, the relative strengths and weaknesses of Turkish string teacher education were investigated through an intensive literature review and a survey. Seventy-one string professors at nineteen university music teacher training schools in Turkey were sent a questionnaire for the purpose of this investigation. The findings indicated that there were significant differences in the application of the centralized string teacher education curriculum in universities in eastern and western Turkey such as the number and the quality of string faculty, the conditions of teaching facilities and the number and weekly hours of string education courses. According to the respondents in both regions, the string teacher education curriculum should be restructured and new courses in string teacher training should be added to the curriculum. Based on these findings, a model undergraduate curriculum for string teacher education was developed and included at the end of the study.