Dinçer, B., Aksoy, R. M. (2021). Postgraduate students’ views on values education. International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET), 8(3). 1369-1384. Received : 05.02.2021 Revised version received : 06.04.2021 Accepted : 30.04.2021 POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON VALUES EDUCATION Research article (corresponding author) Beste Dinçer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9264-3665 Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, Turkey bdincer@adu.edu.tr Ruskat Merve Aksoy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3145-1088 Adnan Menderes University, Aydin, Turkey ruskatmerveaksoy@outlook.com Biodatas: Beste Dinçer has been Assistant Professor in Aydin Adnan Menderes University Faculty of Education since 2014. Her research interests are curriculum studies, curriculum development and assessment, teacher training & value education. Ruskat Merve Aksoy works as an English language teacher in the Ministry of Education and an MA student in curriculum and instruction department in Aydin Adnan Menderes University. Her research interests are curriculum development studies. Copyright © 2014 by International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET). ISSN: 2148-225X. Material published and so copyrighted may not be published elsewhere without written permission of IOJET. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9264-3665 mailto:bdincer@adu.edu.tr mailto:ruskatmerveaksoy@outlook.com http://orcid.org/xxxx http://orcid.org/xxxx Dincer, Aksoy 1370 POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS’ VIEWS ON VALUES EDUCATION Beste Dinçer bdincer@adu.edu.tr Ruskat Merve Aksoy ruskatmerveaksoy@outlook.com Abstract The aim of this study was to examine the views of postgraduate studying in the field of Education Programs and Instruction on values education integrated into 2017-2018 curriculum. This study which was carried out in qualitative research design was a case study. Participants were selected on a voluntary basis, through purposeful and maximum variation sampling, from among students who have completed their graduate education in the Department of Educational Sciences of a state university located in the Aegean region and had taken the values education course. The interviews were conducted face-to-face and online during 2019-2020 academic years. The qualitative data was analyzed by descriptive, and content analysis. Emphasizing the importance for the individual and society, postgraduate students emphasized the importance of conducting education in a healthy way, in a suitable climate and with a curriculum programmed according to the needs and stated that it was a social responsibility that should be emphasized by all stakeholders as well as academic success for the welfare of the society. As for effective value education programs, the participants focused their suggestions on program development and stakeholders’ attendance in school settings. Keywords: postgraduate, graduate students, values, values education 1. Introduction Values have great importance in building a healthy society from past to present, living in peace of society, and handing down cultural beliefs to the next generations. Recognition of values enables the learning of societies’ cultures, beliefs, and lifestyles. Also, it provides to be known right from wrong by shaping their perspective on life. In this context, values education has an important role in preserving values and transferring them to future generations correctly. The concept of value is a relative and an abstract concept, so it has a wide range of different definitions. Values are desirable goals beyond relevant situations that serve as guiding principles for the life of the individual or other social entities, varying in importance (Shwartz, 1994). Value is our behavior towards our goal of being in life and what we believe during our whole lifetime (Rokeach, 1973). Ulusoy (2007) defines value as the importance and worth given to something. In another definition, values emerge as a concept that reveals the characteristics of a group or individual as hidden or explicit and affects the choice between the forms, means and purposes of the action (Kluckhohn, 1951). It is understood from Kluckhohn's value definition that values are shaped according to the current situation, time, and intended purpose. In another definition that has a similar view, it defines values as principles and beliefs that shape human behaviors and attitudes, affect our preferences, and ensure the formation of personality (Merter &Yılmaz, 2012). When the definitions of value are considered, it is remarkable that the common feature mentioned in all of them is that they affect the beliefs and perspectives of individuals and are mailto:bdincer@adu.edu.tr mailto:ruskatmerveaksoy@outlook.com International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1371 effective in the decision-making process. Values, in the most general definition, are material and spiritual elements that are determined to ensure the continuity and peace of a society and which include social, economic, cultural, religious, and scientific elements that vary according to society and time. As well as different value definitions, the classification of values varies. The change in value classification is closely related to how the concept of value is defined. Rokeach and Schwartz are among the most important writers in the field of values education. While Rokeach has collected the values under two main headings: purposive and instrumental (Rokeach, 1973), Shwartz (1996) has built ten value types: power, achievement, hedonism, stimulation, self-direction, universalism, benevolence, tradition, conformity, and security. Schwartz's value classification is a dynamic interrelated structure that includes harmonious and conflicting types. Moreover, Akbaş (2004) classified the values into five titles: traditional, democratic, work, scientific and basic. Lickona (1992) divided values into moral and non-moral values. When the classification of values was considered, it was seen values were categorized under general and special headings in different perspectives. That is why that value priorities are relative states. Although the rankings of values and priorities of each period and every society differ, well- being and acceptance by the society in which they live are the common points of all. From far in the past, societies aim to transfer their adopted values to future generations so that they are not lost. Character education, moral education, values education, however, they were named, the common point of all of them is to ensure that societies live in peace and prosperity. The education of values primarily starts with children taking role models of their parents consciously or non-consciously, and influenced by social environment and media. Schools, on the other hand, are the most important institutions that play a prominent role in ensuring to teach basic moral and human values to individuals and to raise sensitivity to them through affective field education. The importance of the study Although interest in value studies shows different momentum from time to time, at the present in the 21st century, values education is a popular topic that is widely discussed in the literature in the field of educational sciences. That is why dealing with problems in a global and dizzying world is increasingly difficult all over the world. Increasing violence in schools, increase in the rate of drug and substance use, murders, suicide rates, fraud, copy in the exams, the decrease in work ethics suggests that the values have been lost. In 1993, according to the public policy research organization Public Agenda conducted a national public opinion survey entitled "What Americans Expect from Public Schools" that 71 percent of Americans believed that teaching values was more important for schools than teaching academic subjects (Greenawalt,1996). In Turkey, it was declared that integrating values into the curriculum was one of the main reasons for the revision of the latest 2017-2018 curriculum by the Ministry of National Education also it was stated that value education is the ultimate goal and spirit of all education, it should not be seen as a separate curriculum or subject / learning area, in this regard, schools and teachers should consider values as an integral part of the curriculum and bring them to their students by using appropriate approaches (TTKB, 2017). Gradually, the Council of Higher Education (YOK) has included ethics and morals as a compulsory course in the teacher training programs of the Faculty of Education in 2018. When the literature was investigated, it was seen that there were studies about values education that are related to values education currents, teachers and students' opinions, perceptions about values education, values education at school, methods and techniques used in values education (Fidan, 2009; Balcı &Yelken, 2010; Tahiroğlu, Yıldırım & Çetin, 2010; Dincer, Aksoy 1372 Kiral & Dinçer, 2018; Dinçer & Gözel, 2019). In addition to these, there were also descriptive studies to determine the value preferences in different samples (Akbaş, 2008; Altunay and Yalçınkaya, 2011; Oğuz, 2012; Kalın, 2017; Dasari, 2017; AkıTürk & Kahraman, 2019; Buluç & Uzun, 2020). However, apart from one study conducted before implementation of the last curriculum, there has been no study on the views of graduate and doctoral students on values education studying value education lessons in Educational Sciences with a different perspective. In the light of these thoughts, it is valuable to take the opinions of the experts who are both in the education and who are trained in this field on the functioning of the process and how it should progress. It is important to question how values that are considered so important in theory work in practice. Therefore, this research aims to reveal the views of graduate students on values education implemented in the 2017-2018 curriculum. For this purpose, this study aims to answer the questions below:  What are the general thoughts of graduate students on values education?  How do graduate students evaluate their values education practices?  According to the graduate students, how should the classroom environment be that will enable them to gain values?  What are the suggestions of graduate students regarding effective values education practices? 2. Method 2.1. Research Design The aim of this study is to examine the views of graduate and doctorate students studying in the field of Education Programs and Instruction on values education. This study which is carried out in qualitative research design is a single case study. In these types of assessment situations, they are particularly often used to analyze the functioning and implementation process of the process; In this respect, they are associated with process evaluation in a sense (Yin, 2012). Since a situation is analyzed and described in a holistic manner, this research can be described as a single case study (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2008). 2.2. Participants Participants were selected on a voluntary basis, through purposeful and maximum variation sampling, from among students who have completed their graduate education in the Department of Educational Sciences of a state university located in the Aegean region and have taken the values education course. Taken into consideration the easy accessibility of the graduate students to be carried out in a university, the selection from different branches and departments represents the maximum diversity. The interviews which were made both face-to-face and online were conducted with a total of 16 graduate students, 10 of which were at the master's degree and 6 at the doctoral degree. The graduate students, who were interviewed, included faculty members at the university, teachers working in public and private schools in different branches, and project instructors working in the Ministry of National Education who had experience in the value education process. Demographic Characteristics of the Participants were expressed in table 1 as below: Table 1. Demographic Characteristics of the Participants International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1373 2.3. Data Collection Tools and Procedures The data of the study were collected in the fall and spring semesters of the 2019-2020 academic year via a semi-structured interview. The interview form consisted of 4 open-ended questions prepared by the researchers as follows:  What are your thoughts on values education integrated into the 2018 curriculum?  So, how do you evaluate the application of values education practices in the classroom? Which practices were done in schools for values education? Which techniques or methods do you use in the classroom?  How should the classroom environment be to gain values? Can you describe all aspects of it?  What are your suggestions for effective value acquisition for graduate students? What do you think should be done? After ethical considerations and permission procedure was handled, and pilot studies were done the final interview forms were produced. The interviews were conducted by note-taking technique. The shortest interview was calculated as 20 minutes, and the longest interview duration was 35 minutes. The interviews were carried out during participants’ free hours such as lunch breaks or in between class hours. 2.4. Data Analysis The data were written in a word document with the note-taking technique, and the analysis process of the data was analyzed by using descriptive and content analysis techniques. Content analysis enables to discover core consistency and meanings by reducing/correlating data and establishing relationships with each other (Patton, 2002:452). Data analysis started with transcribing the interview form, which was written in three columns, and trying to make inferences from the whole text. In data analysis, the order of "Code (Codes) - Categories - Concepts", also called 3C in English, was followed (Lichtman, 2010). The abbreviations “MA1-10” and “PHD1-6” represented the participants’ postgraduate students’ degrees based on confidentiality. 2.5. Validity and Reliability of the Data Analysis The procedures for validity in the qualitative research are as follows: In qualitative research, the validity of the researcher indicates the situation, phenomenon, events as it is and as neutral as possible (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2016). So, during the face-to-face interviews, it was tried to collect in-depth and real data by establishing closeness with the participants. And the characteristics of the graduate and phd students interviewed and the classes were described in detail by allowing comparison with other studies. Branches Gender/ Level of Education Female Male Classroom teacher 2 MA 1 PHD Guidance and psychological counselor 1 MA 1 PHD Mathematics teacher 1 MA 1 PHD English teacher 2 MA PHD Lecturer 1 PHD 2 MA Science teacher 1 PHD 1 PHD Computer and technology teacher 2 MA Dincer, Aksoy 1374 The procedures for reliability in the qualitative research are as follows: Direct quotations were used to increase the trustworthiness of research findings as it was written in Le Compte & Goetz (1982) cited in (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2006). In addition, to ensure internal reliability, direct quotations were included in the text, interviews were reviewed by the researcher after certain intervals after the thematic analysis within the scope of back- time reliability, and the reliability of the coding was increased by making appropriate changes. Additionally, a different coder / lecturer (Phd) (agreement / agreement + disagreement) x100 was examined by using Miles & Huberman formula (1994). And the agreement coefficient was calculated as .90 for the interview forms. These results have been accepted as reliable for the research. 3. Results In this part, the results of the interview analysis were explained. 4 themes named after (1) the necessity of values education, (2) values education practices, (3) classroom climate for the teaching of values, (4) recommendations for effective value education program were created along with the codes and the sub-codes. Each theme was explained and discussed separately in the results section. 3.1. The necessity of values education As for the 1st theme under the name of the necessity of value education, the participants discussed their opinions mainly within two factors of the education system and the foundations of education categories as shown in table 2. Table 2. The necessity of values education Category Codes The factors of education system Poor program literacy, Obscurity in practice, Social responsibility awareness, A part of the affective education, Increasing the awareness of teachers, the necessity of being role model, Advancing according to individual efforts School climate Not showing integrity with school rules, the necessity of creating a conscious school atmosphere Program Generating workarounds, Non-Behavioral, the necessity of being given directly, Lack of integrity between levels, Inadequate practices on paper Family Workloads of working families, Lack of communication, the necessity of starting in the family, Personal Healthy personality formation, Equality of opportunity (individual right), The right of living as a human being Social Continuation and stability of society, Community benefit, Regulating human relations, Providing common rules, Social responsibility, Preventing social collapse, Bridging from the past to the present / cultural transfer International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1375 The graduate students who expressed their general thoughts on values education evaluated the necessity of values education in the teacher, program, school climate, and family categories, which are the elements that make up the education system. Similarly, they emphasized the importance of values education by referring to the individual and social functions of education. They stated that the transmission of values is not only the duty of the school and teachers, but also everyone's duty as a part of social responsibility and so it should be supported. Although the acquisition of values starts in the family, especially considering the limited communication and interaction with the children of working families, they emphasized that teachers should be positive role models and work should be done in essence rather than in words. Values education affects societies and individuals. Individuals need a certain process to internalize them and transform them into behaviors. Values education also requires the planned implementation of this process. I think values education is given in schools with a lot of misunderstanding. I mean, children are highly valued in schools, but I think we should question which one of them works. I think a few values should be set and the child should internalize it as behavior and transform it into behavior. (PhD6) Values education starts in the family. First, the family should give this to their child in a planned way. It should also be aware of this. I don’t know how to teach table manners of living in society to my child. You should not shout when you enter the apartment. I am giving examples from my own child. For example, these are the fundamental values I want to do to him, what I want to apply. I have to give these. School can no longer give them. I think he must have bought these when he went to school. Since it is in the school, there is no living environment there. (MA5) Cooperation, unity in the family, integrity, solidarity, the table is set together and raised together. Using words like please, starts in the family. If you try to give this at school, I think the school age is late. I think it is late even if the child is the first grade. This must start in the family first. As the second step should now continue in schools. For example, being in a queue at school. Being able to control the time, being in the classroom when the class bell rings, not being late for school, …for example, what else? Sharing with his friends, these are the values that the school can now give in school life. These should also be included in the school curriculum in a regular, disciplined manner. (MA3) 3.2. Values Education Practices As for the 2nd theme, the list of categories and codes extracted from graduate students' opinions regarding values education practices were examined. Participants’ views were examined in many different codes under two categories as traditional and alternative approaches/ were given in Table 3. Table 3. Graduate Student’s Views of Values Education Practices Category Sub-category Codes Traditional teacher- centered approaches Restriction Suggestion (direct instruction), Presentations, Boards Alternative approaches methods and techniques Usefulness Drama method, Demonstration, Discussion, Case study, Problem-solving, Moral dilemma, Fair community schools, Role-playing, Fishbone analysis, Hands-on activities, Video presentation, Telling jokes, Story, Caricature, Implicit assignments, Trips, Visits Dincer, Aksoy 1376 Graduate students emphasized that value education should be done with applied activities that include alternative methods and techniques instead of the traditional-teacher-centered approach/methods of value transfer in schools. Many of the participants mentioned the limitations of the teacher-centered approach/methods applied in schools regardless of grade. They stated that it would be beneficial for students to internalize the activities by moving them outside the classroom environment to transfer the values given in schools to real-life conditions. Quotations from the opinions of graduate studies are as follows: I do not think direct teaching is very logical in values education. Again, for the reasons I just mentioned, those values are not a field to be memorized or have formulas. For this, people need environments and ways of working to implement it and place it in their lives. This is why direct methods do not make much sense. When we look at the courses such as the affective field course, values education research and values education in the doctorate program we took, there are indirect methods and direct methods in our studies. (MA1) As we said in the values education, it can be said that social studies, life science, religious culture lessons may be gained in the dimension of such moral dilemmas. But in science, my branch of biology, and mathematics, this subject remains a bit more abstract. It is always a test trouble, you know, because of always measuring success, teachers are a little more distant about it. (PhD4) When we came to the subject of providing values education, that is, I gave an example in the lesson. Case studies, historical events, historical texts will perhaps be a bit like the philosophy of idealism, but they are given from the beginning and used as interesting, of course, these are a little challenging for the teacher, there should be a master of the field to read the literature should be a good design. can be used. As I said, the moral dilemma method can be used as an example. It can be made available to children. Then, over time, you can expect a change in behavior, perhaps reinforced with drama. (MA3) 3.3. Classroom Climate for the Teaching of Values As for the 3rd theme, the participants ’views were discussed under the classroom climate category with physical conditions, classroom atmosphere, and teacher roles categories and initiated codes as it was presented in Table 4. Table 4. Graduate Students Views of Classroom Climate for the Teaching of Values Category Codes Physical Conditions Freedom of movement, Changeability, Fun walls, Decorated with live plants, Clean and tidy, Comfortable seating area, Boards full of pictures and illustrations, No queue, Not tied to the classroom Classroom Atmosphere Happy students, Free environment to allow discussion, Active participation, Democratic classroom environment, Learning environment by doing and experiencing, Fun classroom, Compatible with school culture Teacher Roles Student-centered with a democratic attitude, Sincere, Facilitator, Guide, Role-model, Tolerant, Respectful to individual differences, Humanist, High-risk management skills, Equidistant, Observer, Loving his/her job, Expert in the field, Researcher International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1377 The participants imagined a classroom which has no queue, comfortable seating area with changeable seats decorated with live plants, pictures, and illustrations in terms of the physical conditions of their imaginative value-based classrooms. They want to have students feel freedom while learning. In this positive classroom atmosphere, they described the teacher’s roles as an expert, a facilitator, humanist, respectful, tolerant, sincere, guide, role model in the class. In this way, they made comments on both teachers' personality traits (sincere, tolerant, respectful to individual differences, equidistant) and professional roles (expert, guide, facilitator, researcher, etc.) As values are an integral part of affective field education, graduate students describe a classroom climate that enables effective values education as a classroom environment where thinking skills can be developed with liberal, supporting creative thinking (free, teacher in the position of guidance), and enabling critical (argumentative, democratic environment, respectful of differences) thinking by fun. Sample expressions of each category taken from the students' opinions are given below: Physical conditions: "I would like to have a free environment with no restrictions on movement. It should be an environment where students can feel comfortable just like they are at home. They should sit on the cushions when they want, during the activity. (MA5) I wish there were a democratic classroom environment. In fact, a guide and facilitator who adopts a democratic lifestyle, does not use imperative sentences, and is dominated by respect and love, has fun with the students. (PhD3) Either we are all stakeholders here, after all. Everyone from the cleaner in the classroom to the school principal is a stakeholder after all. Students who have studied at the school for four years and do not know the name of the maid there also graduate. I mean, everybody like this has to look down on each other, for some reason I do not know though. I would try to be democratic not only verbally but also through behavior. I would try to keep the distance equally with everyone. I think it is better to be fair than equality here. I would do everything I could to make the participants actively participate in this point, too…. (PhD1) Well, it is very important that it is democratic once, that is, in a democratic class, we need to gain it. If the values education was given from the beginning, if it was properly given by a teacher and if an idealist teacher wants to do this, there is such an environment in that classroom and everything comes by itself, and values really work in that class. (MA6) 3.4. Effective Values Education Program As for the 4th theme, recommendations for effective values education program, the participants ‘views were stated under two categories named after program development and stakeholders ‘attendance as presented in Table 5. Table 5. Graduate Students’ Views of Effective Values Education Program Categories Sub-categories Codes Program development Planning Teacher selection, Regionalism Budget arrangement, Active use of social media, Commission choice, Sample Project designs, Need analysis for regional needs, Implicit program, People-oriented Dincer, Aksoy 1378 Content Guidebook, Integrity with life, Level compliance, Increasing the affective field activities, Teaching/Learning process Using different methods and techniques, Active approach and methods, Democratic classroom environment, learning by doing, Not in words but in essence practices Teachers training Pre-service and in-service training for raising awareness, being a part of teaching, Stakeholders’attendance Families Should be informed, Collaboration, Participation to the activities, Active family involvement, School management Creating integrity, Increasing the awareness of employees, supporting teachers, Adapting to the conditions of the day, Communication of school staff with each other and the families. It was observed that the participants focused their suggestions on program development and stakeholders’ attendance for effective value education in schools’ settings. They emphasized that while planning values education programs, from teacher selection to budget arrangement, commissions should be established, and planning should be made in line with regional needs. Particularly, most of the participants stated that instead of central practices, the programs should be left to the schools, considering regional or even inter-school differences according to the needs. Additionally, no matter how well the program development studies are done, they expressed their opinion on the necessity of active participation of the program stakeholders so that it can function as planned and ensure its continuity in the process. Quotations from the opinions of graduate studies are as follows: As I said from the values education perspective, there is a more centralized approach in our country due to the political factors that are especially active. I suggest it to be more decentralized. Maybe they should bring the values to the forefront regionally in this regard. At this point, freedoms should be recognized. The centralized program is just a framework, and they should leave the implementations to districts, districts and even schools. At this point, a certain budget can be allocated. (PhD3) As far as I look, I see that values education is given more importance to values education in the recently renewed 2018 curriculum, but I do not think that this is very sufficient, our friends summarized their work at their schools, they made a presentation and based on that, I say this, I think it is not enough. I think it stays fit in such literature, is there anyone who does, but I think that values education should participate in life in a practical way. (MA10) My biggest suggestion may be that if we want to have this place in our society, we need to put the values into life first, that is, when the child goes to school, it is a whole of certain rules and that it works in school that it should obey, that is, the school atmosphere should be changed first. To change the school atmosphere, first, administrators and teachers should change themselves and teachers should reach the administrators and parents, and this should be International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1379 reduced to children. In other words, we directly accuse our children by saying that you are not doing this. First, the school needs to change itself, first of all, steps should be taken in this direction in values education. (PhD6) 4. Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendations In the light of the data analyzed by descriptive analysis and content analysis, all the participants stated in their opinions that they have high awareness of values education and they stated in their opinions that they found the practices of values education necessary. Emphasizing the importance for the individual and society, they emphasized the importance of conducting education in a healthy way, in a suitable climate, and with a curriculum programmed according to the needs and stated that it is a social responsibility that should be emphasized by all stakeholders as well as academic success for the welfare of the society. The importance and the necessity of value education was mentioned in several studies such as Gözel, 2018; Dinçer&Gözel, 2019; Gür, Koçak, Şirin & Demircan, 2015; Kozikoğlu, 2018; Çelik, 2020). Most of the participants stated that although the importance of values education is known, the practices in the school environment are limited to traditional methods, it is left to the initiative of teachers, and that the desired efficiency cannot be obtained in this respect. According to preschool teachers, it was revealed that the values education included in the preschool education program was given within the scope of the teacher's initiative and was found to be insufficient (Yazar & Erkuş, 2013). Yiğittir and Keleş (2011) concluded that a significant number of teachers are satisfied with the inclusion of values in the Social Studies Curriculum, that teachers need in-service training on value education, and that the textbooks do not have sufficient coverage of value education. According to Yeşilyurt (2019)’s study, some teaching methods, and techniques such as narration, trip-observation, drama method, case study, discussion, problem solving method, cooperative learning approach were found suitable in terms of theoretical suitability to values education as the participants were mentioned in their views in this study. In value teaching process, a significant number of teachers stated that they used posters, pictures, videos, dramas and using concrete materials knowledge and it was concluded that the number of teachers who think that values are transformed into behaviors by students is low (Batmaz & Erdoğan, 2019). While expressing that they perform values education practices mostly during classroom activities, responsibility projects, prepare visual resources such as brochures, posters, billboards, and exhibitions, and organize drama and their activities, nearly half of the teachers stated that they had difficulties in adapting the values into age groups their lessons with suitable activities (Gür, Koçak, Şirin & Demircan, 2015). It was found that in gaining values related to life studies lesson curriculum that teachers prefer the narration technique, the case study method and drama method, brain storming, question-answer were used most (Batmaca,2016; Gozel, 2018) but not sufficiently. Additionally, Çelik (2020) observed in her study that educational game and individual studies, demonstration, group work, narrative text, concept map were used. In Kozikoğlu (2018)’s study, pre-school teachers thought that although values education is included in the preschool education program of teachers, concrete activities for values education are insufficient, and practices for values education are left to the initiative of the teacher; most of the teachers did more drama, play, and story activities for the children to gain the values in the program. To conclude, postgraduate students have been generally aware of the necessity of value education and both traditional, and alternative techniques and methods which can be used in values education process were obtained as it was found in Koç & Çelik (2017)’s study, which value education was investigated in 2014-2015 secondary school curriculum. The main Dincer, Aksoy 1380 problem was that the incorporation of the values into lessons. In their opinions, the participants stated that they did not have enough time such as tests and homework since the branch teachers prepare students for central exams and that they could not make a special application regarding values education. They stated that values related to teaching methods are not a field that has formulas to be memorized or accepted to be learned when directly taught, but on the contrary, they need environments and working style to place them in their lives for internalization and personalization, which is at the last step of the affective field. In this sense, emphasis was placed on the necessity of transferring them to students in cooperation from school administrators to teachers and school personnel for classroom environment for teaching of values. In this study, the participants mentioned about physical conditions, classroom atmosphere and teacher roles under school climate category. Additionally, they described the roles of teachers in value education in detail. In this sense, it emphasizes that teachers have a great job and how devoted they should be towards students. Although it has been mentioned that there should be a student-centered approach in classroom practices, no study has been found that directly concludes that thinking skills and values education affect each other so much and that the development of thinking skills was also supported for the teaching of values. So, the most striking result of this study was that the teacher, who would be a role model in value education, also possesses creative and critical thinking skills and the association of a value-based classroom with a thinking-oriented classroom environment. In other words, teaching values and thinking skills, which are the cornerstones of the affective field of the curriculum, could be evaluated under the same pot. For instance, if we want to give students respect, we must be able to create discussion platforms where they respect each other's opinions. We must be able to make students experience this feeling. Finally, as for effective value education, the participants focused their suggestions on program development and stakeholders’ attendance in school settings. For this reason, they emphasized the planning of the programs, the importance, and necessity of preparing the needs in detail. They all mentioned that value education is a whole, not only in the classroom but also in the classroom, in the schoolyard, outside the school, family, social media, etc. These suggestions were consistent with some research results. For instance, Fidan (2009) emphasized the importance of support of communication tools in value education. Akbaş (2004), Yiğittir & Keleş, (2011), Erkuş (2012), Yazar & Erkuş (2013), Ateş (2013), Akpınar ve Özdaş (2013), Gür & others (2015), Gözel (2018), Kozikoğlu (2018), Kuzu Jafari & Demirel (2019), Dinçer & Gözel (2020) found that the school alone cannot be sufficient in values education, and need support from other factors mainly family, media, environment along with teacher training programs before and during education. Additionally, Sökmen & Nalçacı (2020) mentioned in their study that television and the internet were the most effective media tools to express values and it is critical to increase consciousness and be selective for media to have a positive impact on value accomplishment. Unlike other studies, for planning the development of the value education programs, 2 participants mentioned that the government should have a policy with the budget arrangement to gain values by making projects that will motivate teachers across the country. In this way, efficiency can be increased. In Turkey, material support has been provided to teachers and educators for activities and projects about the education of values with online internet sites. As a summary of the results, it was observed that similar suggestions were done before and after 2017 curriculum, when the value education was integrated with all the programs. This International Online Journal of Education and Teaching (IOJET) 2021, 8(3), 1369-1384 1381 could be an indicator that values education is not provided at the desired level yet and more studies and projects should be done to improve the situation. In this respect, it can be suggested that the programs be implemented with different applications according to the regional and even needs rather than the central understanding. Considering that values will be permanent in an environment where student-centered thinking skills are dominant, discussion, drama, problem solving, etc. may be suggested to encourage the use of method and techniques to create a democratic environment. Examples of activities related to alternative practices as a guidebook for teachers can be shared. Also, school guidance and psychological counselors can organize activities with family participation in cooperation with the family and school. Some budgets can be allocated within the scope of projects for values education such as the budget allocated to education to improve the effectiveness of the school projects or activities. Teachers and school management can be encouraged to do long-term projects. 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