Determination of digital citizenship competencies of social studies teacher candidates

The aim of this research is to reveal the digital citizenship competencies of social studies teacher candidates in the context of various variables. For this purpose, a unique scale with 6 sub-factors, 21 items and a total variance of 52.755% was developed with exploratory factor analysis to determine the digital citizenship competencies of social studies teacher candidates, and this structure was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis. With this structure obtained, social studies teacher candidates' gender, class level, daily internet use frequency, information technology usage skills, their status of following the developments in information technologies, their status of following social developments and socio-economic status are related to digital citizenship and its sub factors competencies were examined. While 701 social studies teacher candidates were reached during the scale development process; Within the scope of the main sample, 440 social studies teacher candidates studying in the education faculties of state universities in the 2020-2021 Fall/Spring semester were reached with easily accessible sampling. As a result of the analysis, it was found that the digital citizenship competencies of social studies teacher candidates did not differ in terms of gender; Depending on the class level, as the class level increases, digital citizenship competencies increase; As the time spent on the internet increases, the average digital citizenship score decreases; Digital citizenship competencies increase as information technology usage skills increase; That there is a significant difference in favor of the developments in information technologies and those who follow social developments regularly; It has been determined that as the socio-economic status rises, digital citizenship competencies also increase. These results were discussed together with the relevant literature and suggestions were made.