Abstract:

Teacher need to develop interpersonal relations and to communicate effectively in their daily lives. The most basic skills which are required for effective communications are active listening and effective response. Teacher candidates must have effective communication skills in order to establish interpersonal relations. Teachers who have effective communication skills may carry out social interactions with his environments, provide effective teaching environment and classroom management. For example, the young adults’ communication skills have powerful effects on their relations, teaching activities and performance. Nowadays, a great deal of importance is given to interpersonal relationships as the teachers’ competencies. Therefore, the teacher candidates are required to be mentally healthy to fulfill their expected roles, and to actualize their personal developments, to develop close relationships, and to prepare a teaching profession that are necessary for becoming an effective teacher. In addition, teacher candidates are expected to demonstrate effective communication skills, interpersonal relations, and problem solving skills. However, they should not have fear of negative evaluation in social situations or social anxiety.
Social anxiety is an important concept in educational environment because socially anxious individuals experience anxiety at all times and avoid social relations. Therefore, teacher trainees no having social anxiety can use communication skills effectively and manage his/her interpersonal relations. In addition, teacher candidates need to prepare better for their profession and by means of having positive competencies.
This study is an attempt to investigate whether social anxiety exists and differs significantly according to variables such as gender, program type attended and attachment styles. The present study had two goals : (a) to explore the level of social anxiety in a sample of Turkish teacher candidates, and (b) to examine whether the level of social anxiety differs significantly in terms of gender, program type attended and attachment styles. Therefore, this study is a relational research. The sample of the study consisted of the teacher candidates attending different teaching programs at Faculty of Education, Anadolu University, Turkey in 2008-2009 academic years. The data were collected with Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, Inventory of Experiences in Close Relationships. Independent t test and one-way analysis of variance with Tukey’s HSD post hoc test were used in data analysis. The findings have pointed out that the social anxiety may be an important factor for the teacher candidates.

Keywords:

social anxiety, attachment style, teacher candidate.