Needs Analysis to Determine the Autonomous Learning Levels of Teacher Candidates

<p class="fw-6" style="text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font color="#48465b" face="Poppins"><span style="font-size: 12px;">In the field of education, the concept of learner autonomy has attracted considerable attention and acceptance in recent years.&nbsp;</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">The fact that teachers have an undeniable role in fostering autonomous learning skills emphasizes the importance of teacher&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">education on this issue. Considering all the knowledge and skills that teachers should possess, teacher training institutions&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">should not only provide an education that will develop pre-service teachers' autonomy but also equip them with the necessary&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">techniques and strategies to develop learner autonomy. In this context, the aim of this study is to examine pre-service teachers'&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">autonomous learning levels according to different variables. Since the current study aims to determine the autonomous&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">learning levels of pre-service teachers, it is a descriptive survey model. The study group of the research consists of 196 pre-</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">service teachers studying at Kocaeli University Faculty of Education, English Language Teaching, and Preschool Teaching&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">departments. The purposive sampling method, one of the non-random sampling methods, was used to determine the sample&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">of the study. "Demographic Information Form" and "Autonomous Learning Scale" were used as data collection tools. IBM SPSS&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">25.0 package program was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics were used to examine the scores obtained from the&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">Autonomous Learning Scale, the T-Test for Independent Samples was used to examine the differentiation of the scores obtained&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">from the scale according to gender and the One-Factor ANOVA method was used to examine the differentiation according to&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">grade level. According to the results of the research, it was determined that the general autonomous learning levels of pre-</span><span style="font-size: 12px; color: rgb(72, 70, 91); font-family: Poppins;">service teachers were above average.</span> <p class="fw-6" style="text-align: justify; margin-bottom: 1rem;"><font color="#48465b" face="Poppins"><span style="font-size: 12px;"><b>Keywords:</b> Learner autonomy, preschool teaching, English language teaching, teacher education</span></font>