The relationship between information technology self efficacy beliefs of instructors of Turkish as a foreign language

The study aimed to investigate the relationship between information technology self-efficacy beliefs of instructors of Turkish as a foreign language and their use of technology. A total of 157 instructors working in language courses and Centers for Teaching Turkish within different universities in Turkey and instructors working in Yunus Emre Institutes and universities in different countries participated in this study. "Demographic Information Form" and "Questionnaire for the Instructors' Use of Information Technologies" were used to analyze the participants' purposes and frequency of their use of information technologies with regard to different variables. "Scale of Information Technology Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Instructors" and "Scale of Information Technology Self-Efficacy Beliefs of Instructors in Foreign Language Teaching" were utilized to investigate their self-efficacy beliefs on these areas. Some parts of these scales were adapted from Ekici, Taşkın Ekici and Kara (2012). According to the results, flash memories, e-mail, search engines, word processing and presentation software applications, online dictionaries, social networking sites, scanners and anti-virus software applications were determined as the most frequently used information technology tools by instructors. Besides, it was revealed that the participants mostly used information technologies so as to find materials related to the course, prepare materials, motivate the students and prepare course activities. The results indicated that instructors had almost high level of self-efficacy beliefs related to information technologies both in general and in foreign language teaching. Different variables such as age, educational level, teaching experience, institution, and certificate showed no statistically significant difference. There were significant gender differences in general information technology self-efficacy beliefs in favor of men, while there were no significant gender differences regarding information technology self-efficacy beliefs in foreign language teaching. Self-reported level of competence in information technologies was seen as the most effective variable regarding both self-efficacy areas. When the relationship between two self-efficacy areas was enquired, positive and mid-high level relationship was identified between them. The factors influencing the instructors' level of self-efficacy beliefs in both areas were examined as well. Statistically significant difference was observed only in terms of self-reported level of competence in information technologies.