Examining pre-service teachers? use and acceptance of information and communication technologies in terms of several variables

One of the obstacles in educational technology integration is considered to be teachers? use and acceptance of technology. Thus, it is important to determine the variables that influence pre-service teachers? use and acceptance of technology who are regarded as the future source of human force for the education system. Depending on this importance, the purpose of this study was to examine the variables that predict pre-service teachers? use and acceptance of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The study was designed based on the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology developed by Venkatesh et. al. in 2003. In addition, the variables of attitudes towards use and self-efficacy, which are considered to be important variables which are not found in the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology yet which are reported in literature to influence technology acceptance were included in the model.The study was carried out with the relational survey model. The universe of the study was made up of 38545 senior students attending the education faculties of state universities in Turkey in the academic year of 2011-2012. In the study, the Scale for Pre-Service Teachers? Technology Acceptance and Use which was developed by the researcher and whose internal consistency coefficient was calculated as ?= .95, was used as the data collection tool. The scale was applied to a total of 2654 pre-service teachers? and the return rate was 27,6%. For the analysis of the data collected in the study, linear and multiple regression analysis methods and such descriptive statistics as percentages (%), mean scores (X ?) and frequencies (f) were used.As a result of the analysis of the data collected in the study, it was found out that among the variables of attitudes towards technology use and self-efficacy, facilitative situations, social impact, effort expectancy and performance expectancy; such variables as attitudes towards technology use and self-efficacy, social impact and performance expectancy were significant predictors of pre-service teachers? behavioral intention for technology use and that approximately 67% of the variance was explained. In study, it was also revealed that the variables of foreign language level, ICT use experience and gender which are used as moderator variables did not cause any statistically significant difference. Based on the findings obtained in the study, various practical suggestions were put forward for future research.