Investigation of The Effect of Pre-Service Classroom Teachers’ Critical Thinking Disposition on Their Media Literacy

It is important to develop a critical perspective in terms of interpreting the messages to be given to the individuals through media and questioning the authenticity and content of these messages. It is therefore necessary to train the individuals called media literate who can critically perceive and evaluate the information conveyed through the media to increase the positive effects of the media and to reduce their negative effects as much as possible. The purpose of the current study is to investigate the effect of the pre-service teachers’ critical thinking disposition on their media literacy. The study employed the relational survey model, one of the quantitative research methods. In order to collect data, a personal information form, the Critical Thinking Disposition Scale, and the Media Literacy Level Determination Scale were used as the data collection tools. As a result of the study, the critical thinking disposition of the pre-service teachers was found to be medium and their media literacy was found to be high. The critical thinking disposition was found to be varying significantly depending on their gender and grade level; their media literacy was found to be varying depending on grade level but not on gender. There is a positive but low relationship between critical thinking disposition and media literacy and critical thinking is a significant predictor of media literacy

The Relationship between the Pre-service Classroom Teachers’ Techno Pedagogical Instructional Competencies and Epistemological Beliefs

The purpose of the current study is to determine the relationship between the pre-service classroom teachers’ epistemological beliefs and techno pedagogical subject-area competencies. While the universe of the study is comprised of a total of 187 senior pre-service teachers attending the Department of Classroom Teacher Education in Mugla Sıtkı Kocman University in 2014-2015 academic year, the sampling consists of 141 pre-service teachers selected through the random sampling method from among the universe. The reason for selecting the senior students for the universe of the study was that they had already taken the subject-area, pedagogical and general culture courses. In the collection of the research data, The Techno Pedagogical Competency Scale and Epistemological Belief Scale and a personal information form were used. The data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS 21.0 program package. During the analysis process, first it was tested whether the data display a normal distribution and after it was determined that the data show a normal distribution, from among the descriptive statistics, t-test and one-way ANOVA were used to reveal the differences and Pearson-product Moment Correlation Coefficient analysis was used to elicit the correlations. The analyses revealed that the pre-service classroom teachers’ level of techno pedagogical competencies is high and their level of epistemological beliefs is medium. Gender and academic grade point average were found to be not leading to significant differences in their techno pedagogical subject-area competencies. Moreover, a negative and significant correlation was found between the pre-service classroom teachers’ techno pedagogical subject-area competencies and epistemological beliefs

Determination of Classroom Pre-Service Teachers’ State of Personal Innovativeness

Today, in every passing moment, a new piece of information is acquired and the accumulation of this information leads to social and technological developments. Therefore, today, individuals are expected to rapidly adjust to innovations. As such, individuals should be open to innovations and willing to adopt innovations; that is, they need to be innovative. In this regard, most of the responsibility for training innovative individuals within formal education should be assumed by classroom teachers as they are working in the first stage of compulsory education. In order to be able train innovative individuals, classroom teachers should posses the characteristics of innovativeness. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was set to be to determine the pre-service classroom teachers’ state of innovativeness and investigate it in relation to different variables. The current study was conducted on 322 pre-service classroom teachers randomly selected from among the classroom teachers attending a university in 2014-2015 academic year. In the collection of the data, “Personal Innovativeness Scale” adapted to Turkish by Kılıçer and Odabaşı (2010) was employed. In the current study, the internal consistency of the scale was found to be .74. At the end of the study, it was found that the pre-service classroom teachers’ mean personal innovativeness level is medium and the state of their innovativeness varies depending on gender in favor of the female pre-service teachers. Moreover, the male pre-service teachers were found to be more resistant to change than the female pre-service teachers. The grade level and academic achievement variables were found to be not significantly affecting the pre-service classroom teachers’ state of innovativeness. In light of these findings, it was suggested that pre-service teachers should be given adequate training during their pre-service education so that they could design activities to educate their prospective students as innovative individuals