Adaptation of academic staff to digital transformation in public universities: The case of Istanbul University – Cerrahpaşa School of Foreign Languages

In recent years, the information accumulated as a result of the rapid progress of technology development has contributed to the digital transformation process. The acceleration of digitalization has led to a radical and permanent change in the lives of individuals of all ages. This situation has brought the importance of digital transformation and adaptation to public and private developments. Digital transformation has gained a different momentum worldwide, especially with the Covid-19 pandemic process experienced in recent years. As a result, the technology literacy of individuals has begun to be questioned. In this research which was conducted with the participation of 15 academic staff who have a minimum master's degree at Istanbul University – Cerrahpaşa School of Foreign Languages, it was aimed to determine whether they have resisted to the changes to the developments in the field of digitalization, to what extent they use it in their business and private lives, and their thoughts about these changes. It is aimed to determine the needs in line with the answers received and to present suggestions based on the inferences in this context. In this study, the semi-structured interview method, which is one of the qualitative research techniques, was chosen. In the first stage of the study, in line with the results from the demographic characteristics and in the second stage with the semi-structured interview technique, it was investigated whether and how they showed resistance to adaptation to the digitalization processes. According to the research findings, it has been observed that the technology literacy of the academicians participating in the research is developed, digital competence has been gained, and they have no problems adapting by showing flexibility to change in the digital transformation process. Therefore, they do not show resistance; they support the digitalization process.