The attitudes of prospective social science teachers to the internet access and their self-efficacy confidence in educational internet use

The aim of this study is to investigate the self-efficacy confidence of prospective social sceince teachers in education-based internet use and their attitude to the internet access. In the study were involved 337 prospective social science teachers who study at the Department of Social Science, Department of Primary Education, Faculty of Education, Giresun University. In the study were used the Scale of The Self-efficacy Confidence in Educational Internet Use developed by (Şahin, 2009) and the Scale of Likert-Type Attitude To The Internet Use by (Tavşancıl, Keser, 2002.) In addition, a personal information form previously prepared was used to determine such features of prospective social science teachers in the sample as gender, class, computer and internet use. The scale of self-efficacy confidence in educational internet-use consists of 28 items in the five likert-type. The validity and reliability analysis of the scale was done by (Şahin, 2009) and Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.89. One other 'Scale of Internet-Use Attitude with 31 items is in the five likert-type. The validity and reliability analysis of the scale was done by (Tavşancıl, Keser, 2002) and Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient was found to be 0.89. Moreover, a personal information form previously prepared was used to determine the features of prospective social science teachers such as gender, class and educational field. The total scores of prospective teachers, descriptive statistics in terms of personal characteristics, independent samples t-test, one-way-anova analysis for the comparison between the averages of more than two independent groups, the Bonferroni post hoc test, a post hock test, to determine the reason for the difference between the groups were used and Pearson correlation analysis was performed for the determination of the relationship between the variables. Pearson Correlation Technique was used to determine the relationship between the self-efficacy confidence in educational internet-use of prospective social science teachers and their attitude to the internet in parallel with the results obtained. The analysis made indicated that there existed, at a moderate level, a positive and meaningful relationship between the self-efficacy confidence in educational internet-use of prospective teachers and their attitude towards the internet. The research results showed that the self-efficacy confidence in educational internet use of prospective social sceince teachers differs based on the variable of gender. The self-efficacy confidence in educational internet-use of prospective social sciences differs based on such variables as the level of the classroom, the way of the internet Access, the year of the use of the internet, the time of the existence of a computer, the connection of the internet, the frequency of the internet-use, interest in the computer out of class-hours, the level of the internet-education depending on any course taken other than class-hours and the aim of the internet-use. The dependent variable of prospective social science teachers' attitude to the internet differs in terms of such variables as the year of the use of a computer, the time of the ownership of a computer, the frequency of the use of a computer and taking private educational computer corurses in addition to school courses. The attitude of prospective social sciences teachers to the internet differs depending on such variables as the level of the classroom, the way of the internet-access, the frequency of the internet-use and the level of the private course taken other than the course given at school. Keywords: educational use of the Internet, self-efficacy, social studies teacher, internet.