Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the opinions of physical education teacher candidates on the school experience course. The qualitative case study design was adopted for this study. The research group was composed of 67 teacher candidates. A semi-structured questionnaire was used in the study. The collected questionnaires were analyzed with Content Analysis Method. The concepts were evaluated in four main themes. The opinions of the candidates about the application were investigated in the first theme, the opinions of the candidates about the schools of practice were investigated in the second theme, the opinions of candidates about the activities in the school experience course were investigated in the third theme, and the opinions of the candidates about the practice instructor were investigated in the fourth theme. In conclusion, the study revealed that the opinions of the teacher candidates on school experience course were generally positive; practice teachers with strong personal relations and high professional experience increased the course success; the arrival of practice teachers in courses before prior preparation had a negative impact on candidates; and the instructor in charge of teaching the school experience course should be prepared excellently, particularly before the course, and monitor the implementation.

Key words: School experience course, physical education teacher candidate, qualitative data analysis.