The Examination of Preschool Administrators' and Preschool Teachers' Perceptions About Counselors' Roles

Abstract

Good quality guidance services that will be provided abused and neglected children, who come from poor socio-economic status in their early childhood years, will increase both the children's and their families' life quality and indirectly contribute to social structure. Without investigating the contributions of counseling services to the education and development of children in preschool education, the abolishment of counseling services in preschool constitutions has been on the agenda. Thus, in this research preschool institutions' administrators and teachers' perceptions of preschool counselors have been examined. The survey model has been used for the research. The research sample consists of 43 preschool institutions managers and 211 preschool education teachers. To reveal preschool administrators' and teachers' perceptions about school counselors, "School Counselor Perception Scale" has been used, which was developed by Mamett (2008). The results of the study have revealed that preschool teachers and administrators, who meet with school counselors more frequently, have a better perception about school counselors. Preschool teachers and administrators think that the most important tasks of school counselors are individual guidance, group guidance, orientation programs and participating in classroom activities. Administrators and teachers have low expectations regarding administrative duties, discipline and keeping student records from school counselors.