Opinions of Academic Administrators Regarding Constructing a Quality Culture at Education Faculties

Teacher quality is directly related to the quality of education. It is important that teacher candidates be very well equipped at pre-service period as well as be followed during in service period. The aim of teacher education is to equip student teachers with knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding the teaching profession. In this context, it is important to construct a quality culture at education faculties to improve the quality. In this study, one dimension of a multidimensional study on internal quality standards was focused on. This study was based on a mixed methods design. While quantitative data gathering techniques (document analysis) were used to determine the current quality policies at education faculties, qualitative data gathering techniques (interview) were used to determine the suggestions regarding applications to foster a quality culture of academic administrators (deans, vice deans and department chairs). When results of the study about quality policies were analyzed, it was observed that while there were quality policies of universities at their internet sites and as a written document, such policies were not prevalent at faculty level. In addition to this, when the opinions of academic administrators regarding quality applications to foster the quality of teacher education and a quality culture were analyzed, it was observed that there was a consensus regarding constructing quality policies at the faculty level by a participating view, informing all participants about this study and the necessity to apply the decisions. In this context, it is necessary to guarantee that required mechanisms, processes, and functions are existing to reach the desired quality and systems to be designed to help the institutions to reach their target.