An Investigation of the Relationship Between Digital Literacy Levels of Social Studies Teacher Candidates and Their Attitudes Towards Distance Education

Abstract

The relationship between the digital literacy levels of Social Studies teacher candidates and their attitudes towards distance education was investigated in this study. In addition, attitudes of teacher candidates towards distance education and their digital literacy levels were compared in terms of gender, year of education and income variables. The sample of this study, in which the general screening model was used, consisted of 260 social studies teacher candidates studying at state universities in the Central Anatolia Region of Turkey in the 2020-2021 academic year. “Digital Literacy Scale” developed by Bayrakçı (2020) and “Distance Education Attitude Scale” developed by Ağır (2007) were used in the data collection process. Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test was run for data normality and after data normality was provided, regression and Pearson correlation analyzes, independent sample t-test, one-way ANOVA test and Post Hoc analysis were performed. The findings of the current study showed that the digital literacy levels of teacher candidates did not differ significantly depending on gender and grade levels, but the digital literacy levels of male teacher candidates were higher. It was observed that the attitudes of teacher candidates towards distance education significantly differed based on gender and year of education. It was determined that teacher candidates with high-income had a more positive attitude towards distance education and had higher levels of digital literacy compared to teacher candidates with low- and middle-income levels. The findings of the present study also showed that there was a positive and moderately significant relationship between digital literacy levels of teacher candidates and their attitudes towards distance education, and it was concluded that digital literacy levels of teacher candidates significantly predicted their attitude scores toward distance education. relationship between digital literacy and distance education perceptions in the literature. This study is important to fill this gap in the literature. Based on the observation that the efficiency of distance education, which started at all levels of education rapidly and compulsorily due to the pandemic, varied especially because of the digital competencies of teachers and students, this study aims to investigate the relationship between digital literacy levels of teacher candidates and their attitudes towards distance education. For this purpose, the answers of the following research questions were sought: