Examination of department of computer education and instructional technology teacher candidates' digital literacy levels and cyberbullying sensitivities

In this study, sensitivities of digital literacy and cyberbullying of teacher candidates trained in Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies (CEIT) was examined in terms of various variables. In addition, the relationship between candidates' digital literacy levels and their sensitivities to cyberbullying was investigated. The universe of the research is constituted by prospective teachers of the Department of CEIT. The working group of the research is students who are in training at 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade in spring semester 2017 – 2018 at Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technologies in Elâzığ Fırat University Faculty of Education. In order to obtain data in the research, Personal Information Form, Semi-structured Interview Form on Cyberbullying and Digital Literacy, Sensitivity Scale for Cyberbullying and Digital Literacy Scale were used. The quantitative data obtained were analyzed with the SPSS 21.0 package program. The obtained data were analyzed by Kolmogorov-Smirnov Z-Test, Independent Samples t-Test, One Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Tukey, LSD, Kruskal Wallis, Mann Whitney U-Test and Pearson Correlation Analysis Test. Qualitative data were analyzed by descriptive analysis. As a result of the research, it was determined that the digital literacy levels of the teacher candidates are at a high level. According to the results of the research, it is observed that the candidates' gender, age, whether they have personal computers, whether they are members of any social network, daily time spending on the Internet, did not seem to have a significant effect on literacy levels. It was found that the candidates in the 3rd grade had higher digital literacy levels than the 2nd and 4th grade students. Moreover, as the years of computer use of candidates increased, digital literacy levels increased. It was found out that teacher candidates who participated in the study had high level of sensitivity to cyberbullying. It is observed that the candidates' gender, age, class, duration of computer use, whether they are members of any social network, did not seem to have a significant effect on cyberbullying sensitivities. It has been determined that candidates who have personal computers have a higher sensitivity to cyberbullying than others. A moderately positive correlation was found between the teacher candidates' digital literacy levels and their sensitivities to cyberbullying. Accordingly, when the digital literacy levels of the participants increase, their sensitivity to cyberbullying is increasing. When the qualitative data were examined, it was observed that teacher candidates were conscious about digital literacy and cyberbullying sensitivity.