Investigation of digital fluency of teacher candidates

Digital fluency can be defined as a dynamic and variable competence which is expressed as being able to adapt to the transformations experienced in the technology in order to acquire new information to be encountered throughout life. Digitally fluent teachers are expected to contribute to the growth of digitally fluent students. The purpose of this study is to examine the digital fluency of teacher candidates. In order to achieve this purpose, mixed method design was used in the study. The population of the study consists of 41459 teacher candidates who are still studying in the education faculties of universities as of the spring semester of 2017-2018. The research sample consists of 2491 teacher candidates studying at 17 state universities was determined through the combination of hierarchical cluster and random sampling. The Digital Fluency Scale was developed to measure the digital fluency of the teacher candidates. According to the findings of the study, it is obtained that the teacher candidates are at intermediate level of digital fluency. There is a significant difference between the digital fluency of teacher candidates according to gender and the type of technology used. It was seen that the teacher candidates' digital fluency increased as their grade level and foreign language knowledge increased. Among the digital fluency of teacher candidates, it is concluded that there is a significant difference in favor of teacher candidates who study in technology-oriented departments and graduate from high schools. Another result of the study revealed that personality traits of openness to experiences, emotional stability, conscientiousness and extraversion which are the factors of the Ten-Item Personality Inventory explains 13.8% of the change in teachers' level of digital fluency.