An investigation of candidate teachers' social skill levels according to their use of social network sites

This study is intended to investigate candidate teachers? social skill levels according to their use of social network sites. Survey method is used based on this aim. Sample of the study is composed of 701 teacher candidates studying at Dicle University, Ziya Gökalp Faculty of Education in Spring semester of 2012 ? 2013 academic year. The data on the usage of social networking sites is collected through the ?Social Network Sites Usage Survey? developed by the researcher and the social skills levels were assesed through ?Social Skills Inventory?, developed by Riggio in 1989 and translated into Turkish by Galip Yüksel in 2004. As the data of the research doesn?t meet the hypothesis of the parametric tests, Mann ? Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis Variance Analysis have been used for data analysis. In case of detection of a significant difference as a result of Kruskal Wallis variance analysis, Mann Whitney U test, adjusted by Bonferroni, was used in order to determine the groups between which difference is significant. According to the results of the study, significant difference was found among teacher candidates? total social skill levels with respect to their membership of social network sites, the duration of their membership to social network sites, the number of their actively used social network sites, the average of daily-time spent on social network sites, their making comments on the contents in social network sites and their use of smileys in social network sites. However, there isn?t a significant difference among total social skill levels with respect to their main purpose of using social network sites. The important results obtained from the research about the sub-dimension forming the social skills can be summarized as follows: ? Emotional expressivity skill levels of teacher candidates showed significant difference with respect to their membership of social network sites, the average of daily time spent on social network sites, their main purpose of using social network sites, their making comments on contents in social network sites and their use of smileys in social network sites. ? Emotional sensitivity skill levels of teacher candidates showed significant difference with respect to their membership of social network sites and their making comments on contents in social network sites. ? Emotional control skill levels of teacher candidates showed significant difference with respect to their membership of social network sites and the number of their actively used social network sites. ? Social expressivity skill levels of teacher candidates showed significant difference with respect to their membership of social network sites, the duration of their membership to social network sites, the average of daily time spent on social network sites, their making comments on contents in social network sites, their main purpose of using social network sites and their use of smileys in social network sites. ? Social sensitivity skill levels of teacher candidates showed significant difference with respect to their membership of social network sites and the number of their actively used social network sites. Suggestions were made based upon the obtained results. Keywords: Internet, Web 2.0, Social Network Sites, Social Skill, Social Networks and Social Skill, Candidate Teachers