The Communication Skills, Self-esteem and Attitude towards the Music Teaching of Candidates Studying in the TRNC

The relationship between communication, self-esteem and the attitude towards music teaching, which are all necessary features for a music teaching candidate, has been observed for students in the music teaching program in the TRNC. The data for the communication skills of 66 students studying music teaching in Near East University and Girne American University have been obtained through a “Communication Skills Inventory”, the data for their self-esteem has been obtained through the “Rosenberg Self-esteem Inventory” and their attitude towards music teaching has been measured through the “Scale for the Attitude towards Music Teaching”. The data analyzed using a t-test, Pearson correlation, and one-way ANOVA. A weak correlation between attitude and communication skills, a weak correlation between attitude and self-esteem and a moderate correlation between self-esteem and communication skills was determined. The attitude, self-esteem and skill scores do not seem to change depending on the gender or the high school from which the student graduated. The communication skills scores seem to decrease as the classes increase.

virtual communication. In many researches done aimed towards self-esteem [7][8][9] have been emphasized the importance of it. Because of these features, it can be said that high self-esteem is important for a teacher to create personal and career-related differences [5]. It can be seen that the features of a teacher are important in reaching the goals of the education system.
The individual who will teach should have positive attitudes towards the field. This is important in meeting the needs of the field in an effective way [10]. Attitude is defined as "the way that an individual acts when faced with people, situations or non-living things" [11] or "an individual's positive or negative behavior" towards the variables mentioned above [12]. According to another definition, attitude is "the emotional tendency that is for or against an idea, situation, place, person or object" [13].
Researches have shown that the positive attitude of a teacher has an important effect on their job satisfaction. Thus, irrespective of the field, the attitude of teachers is a factor in them loving their profession and being more successfully [14].
In this study, the communication skills, self-esteem and attitudes towards teaching of students in the music teaching department in the TRNC have been examined through some variables.

The Aim of the Research
The study aims to observe the communication skills, self-esteem and attitudes of the potential music teachers receiving their education in the TRNC in accordance with their gender and the high school they graduated from and their class. In addition, the relationship between communication skills, self-esteem and attitudes towards teaching is aiming to be seen. The study also aims to compare the findings with other researches' results.

The Importance of the Research
The results of the study are important in terms of shedding light onto the process for institutions in the TRNC that provide education for music teaching and the administration and staff of these institutions. It also aims to raise awareness on features such as communication skills, self-esteem and attitude towards teaching of candidates during the aptitude tests and student selection. Another fact that makes this research important is that it is the first study where the communication skills, self-esteem and the attitude towards teaching of music teaching candidates studying in the TRNC are observed.

Research Model
In the study correlational research method was employed. Correlational research models aim to determine the existence and extent of the covariation between variables [15]. In this study the scores obtained from communication skills, self-esteem and the attitude towards music teaching scales were analyzed in terms of gender, graduated high school types and the year they were in at university. The findings were also compared with the results of other researches that could reached in the literature.

Population and Sample
The population of this study consists of students in the music teaching programs of the TRNC. Sixty-six students studying in the Music Teaching Programs of the TRNC's Near East University and Girne American University were used as samples.

Data Collection Tools
Within the research, the students were given a form about personal information (gender, high school field, and class) created by the researches as well as the scales below.

Communication Skills Scale
The five-point Likert scale developed by Ersanlı and Balcı [16] in 1998 has 45 items. The scale has three sub-divisions that measure mental, behavioral and emotional communication skills. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient calculated by Ersanlı and Balcı to determine the internal consistency of the scale was 0.72. The correlation of the parallel tests done to measure the validity was calculated as 0.70. In the current study the Cronbach Alfa parameter was calculated as 0.88 for the whole scale, 0.78 for the mental subdivision, 0.67 for the emotional subdivision and 0.62 for the emotional subdivision.

Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale
The scale was created by Rosenberg in 1965 and it was translated into Turkish by Çuhadaroğlu [17] in 1986. The four-point Likert scale is made up of 10 items. In the study by Çuhadaroğlu the reliability of the test is calculated as 0.75 and the validity is calculated as 0.71. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient for the current study was calculated as 0.84.

Scale of Attitude towards the Music Teaching
Profession (SATMTP) The scale developed by Tufan and Güdek [18] has 19 items and 2 subdivisions. The value division is 10 and the love-commitment division is made up of 9 items, it has a five-point Likert rating system. The KMO for sampling adequacy was .94. It was determined that following the varimax rotation method, the factor loadings were between .57 and .78. The corrected item-total correlations became .61-.79 for the love-commitment subdivision and .61-.75 for the value subdivision. The Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient for the whole scale was .95, for the love-commitment dimension .91 and for value subdivisions .90 [18]. In the current study the Cronbach Alfa values were 0.93 for the whole scale, 0.87 for the love-commitment subdivision and 0.91 for the value subdivision.

The Analysis of the Data
The distribution of the data obtained from the scales were analyzed separately based on gender, graduation and class levels and parametric test assumptions were checked. In the analysis of scales by gender and by graduation, in the events where the normality assumption was not met Mann-Whitney U test, and where the normality assumption met t-test was used. In the analysis of scales by the year the Kruskal-Wallis H test was used. In order to determine the relationship between the scores obtained from the scales, the Pearson correlation parameter was calculated. Table 1 shows that none of the scale scores varies according to gender. Male and Female students are very close to each other.

Findings
As it can be seen in Table 2 none of the scale scores varies according to high school type. The scores of the Fine Arts High School students are very close to the scores of students from other high schools. However, it should not be overlooked that 18 of the students did not answer this question; therefore, the analysis was done with 48 students. 3.082 0.427 Self-esteem was calculated out of 4, the other scales were calculated out of 5 scores. Where normality and equality of variance were met Student's t-test was reported, where they were not met Mann-Whitney U test was reported. As it can be seen in Table 3, the significant differences can be seen in the scores of communication skills (H = 8,69, p = 0,03) and the "emotional" factor which is a subdivision of communication skills (H = 14,29, p < 0,0). The Mann-Whitney U test was employed in order to determine which class years differ. Results showed that there was a difference between the 1 st and 4 th years in terms of communication skills' general scores and in the emotional subdivision; there was a significant difference between 1-4, 2-4 and 3-4. These findings show that the communication skills points of the last years have declined. The Communication Skills, Self-esteem and Attitude towards the Music Teaching of Candidates Studying in the TRNC As it can be seen in Table 4, there is a weak correlation between attitude towards the music teaching and communication skills, a weak correlation between attitude towards the music teaching and self-esteem, and a moderate correlation between communication skills and self-esteem. Along with communication skills and self-esteem affecting each other, it can be said that both of them affect the attitude towards the music teaching.

Conclusions and Discussion
In literature there are many examples of studies done aimed towards the attitude for the profession of teaching in potential teachers. According to Çermik, Doğan and Şahin [19], despite teaching being accepted as a "woman's profession" where it is mostly preferred by females, there is no difference between the genders in the points obtained for the attitude towards the profession of students studying music teaching in the TRNC. It can be said that both males and females seem to have a similar attitude towards the music teaching profession. In other studies that show the gender-based attitude towards music teaching, it could be seen that female students of this department had a more positive attitude than the males [14,20,21]. When the study was done for students in other teaching departments, there was a considerable difference between the attitude of females and males [22][23][24]. However, when the studies for attitudes in other teaching departments were observed, a study that didn't show a difference between the genders was not found. [25][26][27][28][29][30][31].
The general judgment of the public is that women are more open to communication than men and they can communicate much easier [32]. According to Newman [32], women give more importance to their friendships than men and they are more sensitive, loving, thoughtful and they enjoy being with other people. However, when the points obtained in the study are observed, it can be seen that there is a difference between the genders studying in the TRNC. In a study done by Çevik [33] in order to see the communication skills of the potential teachers, there was a similar result. While similar results were obtained in studies aimed towards potential teachers in other teaching departments [31,32,34,35], it can be seen that female students and teachers have better communication skills [2,36,37].
Self-esteem changes depend on the social environment, family, friends, socio-economic situations and acceptance in the society [38]. In the study, it was determined that there is no difference in the points obtained from the two genders when studying the self-esteem of potential music teachers studying in the TRNC. In his study, Özmenteş [39] points out that there is no considerable difference in self-esteem between the genders in the music-teaching department; nevertheless, the average for the self-esteem points was higher for males than females. In their study aimed towards the self-esteem of music teaching candidates, Otacıoğlu [5] and Küçük [21] could not identify a statistical difference in the general scale values of self-esteem between the genders. On the other hand, Küçükosmanoğlu [40] determined that there was a significant difference in the self-esteem levels of the genders studying in the music teaching department and pointed out that female students have a higher level of self-esteem than males.
The music department graduates of fine arts high school are mostly studying in the music teaching departments of education faculties in university. It can be said that throughout their high school years, they prepare themselves for this goal and focus on their own teaching. Despite the idea that graduates of fine arts high schools have more positive attitudes towards teaching, the points obtained for graduates of fine arts high schools and other high schools who went on to study music teaching in the TRNC are very close to each other. A similar result was obtained in Çiçek Sağlam's study [14]. While Bulut [20] states that graduates of fine arts and sports high schools have a more positive attitude towards teaching than graduates of normal high schools, Küçük [41] pointed out that graduates of normal high schools have more positive attitudes than fine arts graduates. Even though it is possible to come across studies that have not obtained a difference in the attitude towards teaching when comparing fine arts graduates and normal high school graduates [25], there are also studies that have shed the light on a considerable difference between the two [42].
The communication skills points of students studying in the music teaching department in the TRNC who graduated from the fine arts and normal high schools are very close. In Yıldız and Kayhan's study [37], there isn't a considerable difference based on the school of graduation in the communication skills of potential music teachers.
Self-esteem is affected by various factors. However, in the study, the points obtained for self-esteem of fine arts and normal high school graduates studying music teaching in the TRNC are very close. In Küçükosmanoğlu's study [40] there is no significant statistical difference in the self-esteem level of graduates of fine arts and normal high schools. Küçük [21] on the other hand determined that normal high school graduates had higher self-esteem levels than fine arts graduates.
Even though a rise in the attitude towards teaching is expected due to the fact that there are various lessons aimed towards teaching in music teaching programs, there was no difference between the classes among students studying in the music teaching program in the TRNC. Küçük [21] noted that there is a more positive attitude among the first years when compared to the forth years. There is no difference in the attitude towards teaching based on class for departments in other teaching fields [25,31].
It was determined that there is a difference in the communication skills of potential music teaching candidates studying in the TRNC; it was also determined that the communication skills points of the students decreased in the final year. Yıldız and Kurtuldu [37] were unable to determine a significant difference in the communication skills of music teaching candidates in their studies. Another study in the literature where no difference was determined is Tunçeli's study [31]. While Gülbahçe [32] pointed out that the communication skills of first-year students was lower than the others, Saracaloğlu, Yenice and Karasakaloğlu [43] point out that the first years' communication skills were at a better level than the forth years.
It was determined that the students studying music teaching in the TRNC show no difference in self-esteem levels based on class. Otacıoğlu [5] was also unable to determine a statistical difference between the classes on the scale of self -esteem. Küçük [21] determined that there was a difference in the self-esteem levels of first-year students when compared to the fourth-year music teaching students. Küçükosmanoğlu states that there is an important statistical difference in the self-esteem level based on graduate level and study group and he states that first-year students have a higher self-esteem level than third years, fourth-year students have a higher level than second and third years.
A weak correlation between the attitude towards teaching and communication skills was determined among the music teaching candidates studying in the TRNC. Likewise, Tunçeli [31] obtained similar results and stated that there is a weak but significant correlation between the value subdivision of attitude towards the profession and communication skills.
A weak correlation between the attitude towards teaching and self-esteem levels was determined among the music teaching candidates studying in the TRNC. Küçük [21] has stated that there is a positive correlation between the attitude towards music teaching and self-esteem. Abbasoğlu and Öncü [44] on the other hand state that there is a low level but positive correlation between self-esteem and teaching in students studying to become physical education teachers.
Also, in the study, a moderate correlation between communication skills and self-esteem was determined among the music teaching students studying in the TRNC. In summary, as well as communication skills affecting self-esteem, it can also be said that they each affect each other in terms of the attitude towards the profession.

Recommendations
The generations today are being exposed to a different kind of culture beyond their surroundings due to the living conditions, technology and societal developments of our time. Just as there are positive aspects of this situation, there are also some drawbacks. In this situation the communication skills and self-esteem as well as the effects of these on a candidate music teacher's attitude towards the profession need to be studied. Just as it can be thought that as the class moves up, their communication skills increase due to the fact that as last year students their responsibilities are changing and increasing, it also shows that the new generation's self-esteem and communication skills can be strengthened or its value can be increased.
If the study is held with a larger study group, the significance level of the results will also increase. Within this context, if all high education institutions provide ease for researchers, then more wide scope and detailed studies can be held.
The findings of this research are evaluated to result in various other studies which compare cultural similarities and differences of students studying music teaching in different continents just as Brand had done [45]. By doing research on students studying to become teachers in fields other than music can facilitate generalization and it can lead to clearer results.
In order to more meticulously study the factors that have led to the potential teachers' communication skills, self-esteem and attitudes towards teaching, a student's pre-graduate studies, high school and post-graduate studies need to be observed. Also, holding the study again but focusing on master's students will enable a causative comparison.
Having a more widespread phenomenological analysis, case studies and relational researches will help us understand ideas of communication skills, self-esteem and attitude towards the teaching profession among music teaching students with a more detailed data acquisition and analysis. Also, with more specialized titles related to the topic, like for instance how Hughes [46] had had sub-topics like questioning abilities when analyzing communication skills, a more detailed contribution can be made to the field.