Turkish Prospective Teachers’ Perceptions of Social Network Sites on Their Professional Development

Abstract

Former studies investigate how Web 2.0 technologies influence learning and found out that Social Network Sites such as Facebook and Myspace provide interactive environments where students have chance to communicate on their courses outside the classroom. More recent studies based on Facebook emphasized its usage on informal learning by pointing out that Facebook enables students benefit from each others’ learning experiences. The purpose of this study was to investigate Turkish prospective EFL teachers’ perceptions of Facebook on their professional development. This study was conducted on 29 EFL freshman students in a state university in Turkey. Data were collected with a Likert type questionnaire and results were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 statistics program. According to the frequency statistics, Turkish prospective EFL teachers were found to perceive Facebook as a collaborative environment enabling them to share both information about their courses and professional knowledge. Keywords: Web 2.0, Facebook, Professional development, Prospective EFL teacher