Abstract: Handicraft is a business area requiring effort and imagination, easily secures raw material and is realized by very simple instruments. Handicraft training is given by certain institutions in the level of associate, undergraduate and master degrees. Apart from them, courses are organized for spending leisure time, gaining skills, acquiring a hobby, job etc. at some private or public institutions in certain areas in which handicrafts made. Especially the handicraft training at the university level is important in terms of the development and continuity of handicraft training. For this reason, in this study the expectations and gratification levels of the students studying at the Ankara University, Home Economics High School, Handicraft Department, Gazi University, Faculty of Industrial Arts Education and Department of Family and Consumer Science Education, Gazi University, Faculty of Art and Design Handicraft Education Department have been determined.

INTRODUCTION

Handicraft is a business area requiring effort and imagination for which raw material is easily provided is made by very simple instruments and provides a good additional income. Additionally, according to researches it has been stated that people develop their technique, creativity and material evaluation skills.

Handicraft was always a profession. Therefore, most people dealed with handicraft which was appropriate to their area. Handicraft provides job opportunities to handicapped or normal people in every season of the year every hour of the day for every age and academic background and is not bound to an exterior material ensurance and techniques (Arli, 1990).

People gave the first examples of handicrafts, while they were meeting their basic requirements being covered and protected from external factors. Then, handicrafts changed in compliance with envrironment conditions and had a traditional feature by reflecting feelings, artistic tastes and cultural features of the community in which handicrafts occured. Handicraft has gained attention in every age. As a natural consequence of this situation, everybody had the need to deal with it. Some reasons are as follows: acquiring an economic income, spending leisure time, getting rid off stress, evaluating waste materials, gaining a status in the society, having a political power, filling a need and solving a problem (Yazicioglu, 2000). Handicraft training has been given nowadays in certain faculties, high schools and vocational high schools. Handicraft in terms of Faculty is given at the bachelors level at Art and Design Faculty, Faculty of Fine Arts and High School of Home Economics.

Additionally, most of the vocational high schools of Turkey give the training especially at the Universities of Adana, Adiyaman, Afyon-Dinar, İscehisar, Amasya, Ankara-Beypazari, Akdeniz-Serik, Artvin, Aydin-Karacasu, Nazilli, Soke, Balikesir, Dursunbey, Bozuyuk, Pazaryeri, Sogut, Bingol, Bolu, Gerede, Bucak Hikmet Tolunay, Uludağ-Teknik Bilimler, İznik, Mustafa Kemal Pasa, Orhangazi, Çanakkale, Hitit, Pamukkale, Düzce, Trakya, Firat, Erzincan, Atatürk, Anadolu, Gaziantep, Giresun, Mustafa Kemal, Süleyman Demirel, Istanbul, Marmara, Yildiz Teknik, Dokuz Eylül, Ege, Kahramanmaraş Sutuc imam, Karabük, Karamanoglu Mehmetbey, Erciyes, Kirikkale, Kirklareli, Kilis, Kocaeli, Harran, Namik Kemal, Gaziosmanpaşa, Karadeniz Teknik, Usak, Uludag, Bozok, Zonguldak Karaelmas, Çukurova, Gazi, Selçuk, Dumlupinar, Inonu, Celal Bayar, Mersin, Nigde, Ordu, Osmaniye, Sakarya, Rize, Sinop, Cumhuriyet, İzmir Ekonomi; textile, ceramic, carpet and rug, marble technology, jewellery and jewellery design, costume design, jewellery design and handling decoration stones, carpet business, leather trade, handicraft, fashion design, textile engineering, mastership of decorative arts, mastership of wearing industry, mastership of fashion design, mastership of needlework, mastership of textile weaving and knitting, ceramic processing, carpet business and couture, leather garment, marbelling, glass-ceramic, applied jewellery technology, development and marketing of textile, mastership of ready wear, mastership of textile, mastership of textile finishing, mastership of flower-knitting-weaving mastership of clothing trainings are given.

Presenting the rich Turkish culture to all over the world besides keeping handicraft alive and besides the contrubiton to the national economy, it will cause positive results like establising new employment areas for the increasing unemployment because of the rapid population growth improving the prosperity by increasing the family income, preventing immigration from villages to cities, creating exportation sources with qualified production, activating the raw material sources and inactive labour and gaining more value (Altuntas, 1994).

When these factors are taken into account; handicraft training preserves its importance. This study aims to determine the expectation and gratification level of the students receiving handicraft training at university.

For this reason, the demographic features of the students, the reasons of choosing the school, their opinion about the advantages of the handicraft training, the situation of whether they find the training adequate or not, the areas they want to specialize in the future, their opinion related to the reasons why handicraft training retrogrades, the situation developing their manual skills in terms of studying at the department of handicraft, their situation of using the skills they have learned after school, the evaluation of the products, their future ideal by using their skills they have learned, the difficulties of handicraft training.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

The students of the Ankara University Home Economics High School Department of Handicraft, Faculty of Industrial Arts Education and Department of Family and Consumer Education and Gazi University Faculty of Art and Design Department of Handicraft Education have been in the framework of this research. A survey form which is consisted of open ended and multiple choice questions has been applied to students. The survey datas have been acquired by negotiating face to face with 277 students. The acquired datas were evaluated according to the SPSS statistic packet program. This is a descriptive research depending on screening method. Screening method is the research approaches which aim to describe a situation in the past or still available by its present image (Karasar, 2005).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As shown in Table 1, when the ages of the students analysed; it has been defined that the ages between 22-25 are the highest with 56.7% and the ages between 15-18 and over 30 are the lowest with 2.2%. It has also been stated that the reason why the highest age gap is between 22-25 is that the university entrance age is 18. It is also related to the proportion of students passing the examination and that the survey is applied to the senior class.

The results of Table 2 has been stated that 78.9% of the students are graduated from a vocational high school and 22.0% of the students are graduated from a high school. According to these results we can easily understand that the students are mostly graduated from vocational high schools.

Table 1:	Distribution according to the ages of the students

Table 2:	High school type from which the students have been graduated

Table 3:	The number of siblings of the students

According to Table 3, 32.1% of the students have 3, 20.6% have 4, 16.6% have 5 and over siblings. When Table 4 is analysed, it has been determined that 35.6% of the families of the students have an income between 751-1200 TL, 27.3% of them have an income between 401-750 TL and 16.4% of them have an income between 1201-1500 TL. As it can be seen from the Table 5, 87.4% of the students did not have a paid work and 12.6% of the students have a paid work. As it can be understood from the Table 6, 74.3% of the students working at a paid work are working in the private area and 25.7% of them are working in the public area.

Table 4:	Monthly income of families of the students

Table 5:	The situation of the students about which they work as a salaried staff member

Table 6:	The distribution of the working students according to their enterprise

The reason why the most students work at private ones is that they continue their education.

As it can be understood from Table 7, 43.7% of the students live at a dormitory, 37.2% are at rent with their friends, 16.7% of them live with their families. Most of the students (43.7%) live at the dormitory.

Table 7:	The distribution of the students according to their residence situation

Table 8:	The reasons of the students choosing the school

Table 9:	The opinions of the students about the advantages of handicraft

Table 10:	The situation of the students deciding to study at the department of handicraft

Table 11:	The situation of the students related to whether they are content with the working environment of the school or not

Table 12:	The discontent reasons of the students about the working environment of the school

As it is shown in Table 8, 32.5% of the students choose the department because of his/her grade, 29.6% of them choose it for having a job, 17.7% of them choose it because it is his/her ideal and 9.1% of them choose it because they are graduated from a vocational school. It has been determined that the grade of the university entrance examination is very effective and the students made their choice in this direction.

As it has been shown in Table 9, 33.1% of the students evaluated handicraft as Psychological satisfaction, social security and dignity, 23.9% of them evaluated it as the best method for spending leisure time, 13.2% of them evaluated it as the best method for evaluating waste materials. It has been stated that more than one factor was also effective. As it has been shown in Table 10, 70.4% of the students decided to study at the department of handicraft with their own decision, 13.9% of them decided about it upon a demand of his/her family, 7.7% of them decided about it by chance and 3.6% of them decided about it upon an advise of a friend. It has been stated that the decisions of the students have been effective on them, while studying at the handicraft department.

When Table 11 analysed, we can see that 63.2% of the students are not content with the working environment of the school and 36.8% are content with it. It has been thought that the lack of the laboratoire instruments and the physical conditions affects the discontent situation of the students.

As it can be shown in Table 12, 65.9% of the students are not content with the working envorionment of the school because of the inadequate physical conditions, 17.6% of them are not content because of the inadequate program, 6.6% of them are not content because it is not technological and 5.5% of them are not content because there is no material support.

When Table 13 results, it has been understood that 29.6% of the students stated that the problem of education causes retrogression in the handicraft training.

The students listed their other answers about this as follows: economic problems (19.5%), marketing problems (18.8%), insufficient time (9%), insufficient importance (4%), education and economic problems (2.5%). It can be shown from the Table 13 that education problem has the highest rate and it has been thought that this results from the lack of the instutions giving training in terms of undergraduate level.

When the Table 14 is analysed, we can easily understand that 61.9% of the students don’t think to promote in a certain area of handicraft, they want to specialize in textile (7.2%), in leather (6.6%), in hand needlework (6.1%), in design (4.3%), in handicraft (4.3%), in teacher (4.0%), in weaving (3.2%), in decorative (2.9%), in stained glass (2.2%) and also in marbling (2.2%). The reason why the students don’t want to promote in the area of handicraft can be just because handicraft could not preserve its old importance.

In Table 15, it has been stated that 89.9% of the students think that studying at the department of handicraft develops their manual skills and 10.1% of the students think the opposite.

It has been seen that manual skills has a positive effect on imporving skills because in every area of handicraft manual skills are necessary. In Table 16, it has been determined that the ability of the students has been developed in terms of creativity (36%), technic (22%), experience (15.2%), technic + creativity + experience + evaluating the waste materials (8.4%), technic and creativity (4.4%) and evaluating the waste materials (2.8%).

Table 13:	The opinions of the students about the retrogression reasons of handicraft training

Table 14:	The areas the students want to specialize in the future

From Table 17, it has been determined that 81.8% of the students think that they can use what they have learned after school and 18.2% of them think the opposite. It has been thought that in the framework of the handicraft training accordingly they can use the informations they have learned at school in every aspect of life, they can benefit from them after school.

As it can be shown from the Table 18, the students want to evaluate the products as fitment (36.9%), gift (21.2%), sale (10.3%), marriage outfit (6.2%), fitment marriage outfit gift and sale (5.5%), fitment and gift (4%). According to the Table 19, 61.6% of the students think to be a teacher, while 5.8% of them think to teach this art to people.

Table 15:	The contribution of the handicraft education to the manual skills of the students studying at the department of handicraft

Table 16:	The distribution of the students according to their improvement of skills

About 6.6% of the students stated that they have no expectations. It has been determined that the students who understand that for the contuinutiy of the handicraft training individuals giving training in the framework of handicraft are needed, think to be a teacher.

Table 17:	The situation of the students whether they can use what they have learned after school

Table 18:	The utilization areas of the products made in the framework of handicraft

Table 19:	The future ideals of the student according to their acquired information and skills

CONCLUSION

In this research the gratitude levels and expectations of the students from the Ankara University Home Economics High School Department of Handicraft, Faculty of Industrial Arts Education and Department of Family and Consumer Education and Gazi University, Faculty of Art and Design Department of Handicraft Education have been determined. The students choose their department because of their grades (32.5%), having a job (17.7%), having an ideal (17.7%), being graduated from a vocational school (9.1%). The students evaluated handicraft as psyhcological, social satisfaction and dignity (31.1%), the best method for spending leisure time (23.9%), the best method for evaluationg waste materials (13.2%), a good additional income (6.6%).

It has been stated that the students gave opinion on why handicraft training retrogrades as follows; education problem (29.6%), economic problems (19.5%), marketing problems (18.8%), not having enough time (9%), insufficient importance (4%), education and economic problems (2.5%). About 61.9% of the students don’t think to go ahead in the area of handicraft. Some of them want to specialize in textile (7.2%), leather (6.6%), hand needlework (6.1%), design (4.3%), handicraft (4.3%), weaving (3.2%), decorative (2.9%), stained glass (2.2%), marbling (2.2%). The students want to evaluate their products as fitment (39.6%), gift (21.2%), sale (10.3%), marriage outfit (6.2%), fitment, marriage outfit, gift, sale (5.5%), fitment and gift (4%).

As we can understand the students stated that the handicraft training is given successfully, they are content with the given training but that they won’t apply this in the future as a job. Among the reasons of this we can list the followings; the retrogression of handicraft in recent years not having a sufficient income as a job, used as a hobby or leisure time activity.