Exploring the relationship between teacher candidates' media literacy and online information seeking strategies

The purpose of this study is to seek if there's a relationship between media literacy and online information seeking strategies of teacher candidates' based on different variables. The sample of this study consists of teacher candidates enrolled in 2015-2016 spring semester in Anadolu University Faculty of Education.1858 participants from 12 different departments and 4 class levels from Anadolu University Faculty of Education were included in the analysis process. Data was collected by "Online Information Seeking Inventory" developed by Tsai (2009), adapted to Turkish by Aşkar and Mazman (2013), and the "Media Literacy Level Determining Scale", developed by Karataş (2009). Demographic data was collected by "Personal Information Form". Results show that teacher candidates' media literacy levels are above average, and online information seeking strategy levels are moderate, and neither of them differ significantly in terms of gender and daily internet usage. Teacher candidates' media literacy levels showed significant difference according to class levels and departments. While teacher candidates' online information seeking strategy levels showed a significant difference according to their departments, there was no significant difference with their class levels. Furthermore, there is a positive and meaningful relationship between media literacy levels and online information seeking strategy levels of teacher candidates. Keywords: Teacher candidates, Media literacy scale, Online information seeking strategies.