The relationship between teaching style and reflective thinking level of teachers in the context of digital competencies

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between teachers' teaching style preferences and reflective thinking levels in the context of digital competencies. The research, in which the quantitative method was used, was carried out according to Relational Model. The research population consists of secondary school teachers in the central district of Çorum in 2022-2023 academic year. In order to assign the sample, simple random sampling method was selected and 202 scales were taken into consideration. The data were obtained from the responses from the Teacher Personal Information Form, which includes age, gender, branch and service year, Digital Competence Scale for Educators, Teaching Style Scale and Reflective Thinking Scale, then, analyzed with the SPSS Software (Version 26.0). One Way ANOVA was applied to compare age, branch and service year and the scale scores, and Independent Sample T Test was applied to compare gender and the scores. In addition, Pearson Correlation analysis was used to detect the relationship between digital competence, teaching style and reflective thinking levels. As a result, it was identified that the digital competence level was concentrated in Integratives and teaching styles were concentrated in Expert and Authority styles, whereas, reflective thinking level was generally high among the participants. Although there were major differences in terms of age, branch and the service year variants in the context of digital competence, teaching style and reflective thinking level, no significant difference has been found on the basis of gender. However, it was determined that there is a positive correlation between teaching styles and reflective thinking levels of teachers with high digital competence.