Turkish and Finnish trainee elementary teachers’ beliefs about the teaching styles of university teaching staff

The aim in this study was to identify the beliefs of Turkish and Finnish elementary trainee teachers about the teaching styles of university teaching staff; in particular, in terms of the teachers’ sociolinguistic and textual competence and significant mores of university educational culture. Data were gathered using the University Teaching Beliefs Questionnaire (Gorsuch, 2003). The findings showed that a meaningful difference occurred in the beliefs of Turkish students between the 1st to 4th years of their course, in the dimensions of sociolinguistic competence and significant mores of university educational culture, but no such change was observed among Finnish students. When students from the 2 countries were compared according to their years of study, meaningful differences were found in their beliefs in the dimensions of sociolinguistic competence and significant mores of university educational among 1st-year students and in the dimension of significant mores of university educational culture among 4th-year students.