Investigation of Graduate and Doctoral Students' Attitudes towards Postgraduate Education According to Various Variables

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the attitudes of graduate and doctoral students towards postgraduate education in terms of various variables. For this purpose, the research was designed in the survey model. The participants of the research are 663 students who are continuing their postgraduate education at a university. The data were collected with the “Attitude towards Postgraduate Education Scale” developed by Çetin et al. (2023). In the analysis of the data, Kruskal-Wallis H test and Mann-Whitney U test, which are non-parametric tests, were used according to the structure of the variables in the data set. As a result of the Kruskal-Wallis H test and the Mann-Whitney U test, the effect sizes of the variables with significant differences between them were determined and interpreted. As a result of the research, it was seen that more than half of the participants had a positive attitude towards postgraduate education. In the sub-dimensions of valuing postgraduate education and giving importance to postgraduate education, a significant difference was found in favor of female students in the scores of attitudes towards postgraduate education within the gender variable. No significant difference was observed in any of the sub-dimensions in terms of the age variable. In terms of the variable of the department where the postgraduate education is given, the attitude scores of the students studying in the education departments showed a significant difference in the first two dimensions, compared to the students of the science departments. When the students' attitude scores were analyzed according to the type of program, it was observed that there was a significant difference in favor of doctoral students in the first two dimensions.