Measurement of Tourism Education Perceptions of Tourism Undergraduate Students by Using the Word Association Test Method: The Case of Giresun University

Abstract

There is an inverse proportion of the tourism sector with the increasing tourist demand and the number of students receiving tourism education every year. Also, students' insecurity in the tourism sector and the perspective of tourism education have started to be an important problem. For this reason, it is necessary to determine the reasons of the tourism education perceptions of the students studying in universities for tourism education. In this research, it is aimed to determine perceptions about tourism education and tourism sector of undergraduate students in tourism. Students' minds about tourism education will be determined and knowledge levels will be determined. The importance of tourism education in student perceptions will be determined through the word association test. In the study, SPSS 22 program was used to obtain demographic information. The frequency table was made of the response words obtained from student perceptions. According to the responses words, the concept of creating a network map has been demonstrated relationships between students' perceptions of tourism education. In this study, it is put forward the perceptions of the students taking tourism education about their future and the tourism education.