Views of teacher trainees on computer ethics

Computer use in every domain of education is developing. Teachers face ethical dilemmas about computers due to increase in computer use. Teachers should be informed about computer ethics to become efficient in their teaching. Thus teachers should also be aware of unethical computer behaviour. This issue is especially essential for students in education faculties. It is a fundamental point for teacher trainees to develop the knowledge and behaviour to be sensitive towards computer ethics. The aim of this study is to determine teacher trainees's views on computer ethics. Findings in the study provide views of teacher trainees on computer ethics. The study was conducted with 559 students who were fourth year students of 11 different teacher-training programs of 5 departments Anadolu University Education Faculty in 2005- 2006 shool year. Data was gathered by means of a personal information form to identify certain personal characteristics and the "Unethical Computer Using Behavior Scale" which was created by Namlu and Odabaşı. Certain personal characteristics of the teacher trainees were determined by personal information form in 4 questions and "Unethical Computer Using Behavior Scale" in 80 items under five factors including intellectual property, social impact, safety and quality, net integrity, information integrity used to determine view of teacher v trainees on computer ethics. The SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) for Windows 14 program was used to analyze the data. To the data, independent Groups t-test (One sample test) used to compare two goups according to result of Levene test. if equal varyans is not assumed then Tamhane method proposed by Field (2000), if equal varyans is assumed then Scheffe method proposed by Huck (2000) were conducted to determine the group that caused the difference. The result of the study showed that teacher trainees are sensitive about computer ethics in terms of intellectual property, social impact, safety and quality, net integrity, information integrity of items under five factors. Females students are more ethical than male students on computer ethics. Net integrity and information integrity factors are affected by the program studied. Views on computer ethics were not affected by income level of family. Infringement of intellectual property was increased due to increment of computer using frequency.