Arab Educational Information Network

This study aimed at identifying the attitudes of preservice teachers studying at the Faculty of Education at Kuwait University towards psychology and its components and at detecting differences in those trends according to the study variables (gender, specialization, previous knowledge of psychology courses, monthly income, place of residence, and cumulative average). The descriptive-survey methodology was used in order to achieve the objectives of the study. The sample of the study consisted of (746) students (589 females and 159 males), who are enrolled in the faculty of education at Kuwait University, and who were chosen using the stratified random method. The attitudes towards psychology and its components scale has been developed and verified by researchers. The results indicated that the attitudes of the pre-service teachers towards psychology and its cognitive, emotional and behavioral components were neutral with a mean score of (2.97), where the order of the mean scores was 3.10, 3.05, and 2.75 for the cognitive, behavioral and emotional components, respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in the attitudes of students towards psychology and its components (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) due to the variables gender, specialization, social status, income and place of residence. However, the results showed statistically significant differences in the attitudes of students towards psychology and its components in favor of students who studied psychology before and in the attitudes of students due to cumulative average, and in favor of students with GPA higher than very good. The study concluded with recommendations based on the findings. (Published abstract)