Investigation of the relationship between pre-school teachers' lifelong learning tendencies and digital literacy levels

The Examination of Pre-school Teachers' Lifelong Learning and Digital Competencies in terms of Varios Variables The aim of the study is to determine the lifelong learning tendencies of pre-school teachers and their digital literacy levels by various variables (gender, teaching experience, age, graduated faculty, technology use level, daily internet usage time, having a social media account, frequency of using social media, online education attended, the number of in-service training/projects attended). In addition, the goal is to illustrate how the sub-dimensions of 'willingness to learn' and 'openness to development' of lifelong learning predicts digital literacy views of pre-school teachers. Survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study. The universe of the research consists of independent kindergartens affiliated with the central districts of Diyarbakır (Bağlar, Kayapınar, Sur, Yenişehir) and 862 preschool teachers working in primary schools with kindergartens. The entire universe was reached during the data collection process. The sample of the study consists of 271 preschool teachers from the entire universe who completed the scales, which were delivered online due to the epidemic outbreak. During the data collection process, the entire universe was reached. As a data collection tool in the research, "Lifelong Learning Tendency Scale (LLTS)" developed by Gür Erdoğan and Arsal (2016), "Digital Literacy Scale (DLS), which was developed by Ng (2012) and adapted into Turkish by Hamutoğlu, Canan Güngören, Kaya Uyanık, and Gür Erdoğan (2017), and "Personal Information Form" developed by the researcher were utilized. Data collection procedure was applied online due to the suspension of face-to-face education in schools during the COVID-19 pandemic process. In the data analysis, the significance level was accepted as .05 and the "SPSS 25.0 Package Program" was used. Descriptive statistics were used in the analysis of the data, independent group t-test was used to compare the means between two groups, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare the means between more than two groups, and "Tukey-Scheffe" tests were used to find the source of the difference in multi-group comparisons. In addition, the Mann Whitney U-test was used to determine whether the scores obtained from two unrelated samples differed significantly from each other, and the Kruskal Wallis H-test was used to determine whether the mean of two or more unrelated samples differed significantly from each other. Pearson Product Moment Correlation test was utilized to show the relationship between pre-school teachers' lifelong learning tendencies and their digital literacy, and Multiple Linear Regression was used to reveal how sub-dimensions that form lifelong learning tendencies such as willingness to learn and openness to improvement predict the digital literacy views of pre-school teachers. According to the results obtained from the findings of the research, pre-school teachers' lifelong learning tendencies were found to be "very high" across the whole scale and the survey's sub-dimensions of willingness to learn and openness to development. The digital literacy levels of preschool teachers were also found to be "very high" in the "attitude" and "cognitive" sub-dimensions, "high" in the "technical" and "social" sub-dimensions and in the total scores of the scale. Preschool teachers' lifelong learning tendencies showed a significant difference in the total scores of LLTS according to the variables of the number of online trainings they attended and the number of in-service training they attended. There was no significant difference in terms of gender, age, teaching experience, graduated faculty, technology usage level, daily internet usage time, having social media accounts and daily use of social media accounts. The digital literacy of preschool teachers showed a significant difference in the total scores of DLS according to the variables of gender, technology use level, daily internet usage time, daily use of social media accounts, the number of online trainings attended and the number of in-service trainings attended. There was no significant difference in the variables of age, teaching experience, graduated faculty and having social media accounts. When the correlation value between the lifelong learning tendencies of pre-school teachers and their digital literacy levels was examined, it was observed that there was a linear, positive, moderate relationship. In this case, it can be argued that as the lifelong learning tendencies of pre-school teachers increase, their digital literacy levels increase as well. According to the results of the multiple linear regression analysis conducted to reveal how the lifelong learning tendencies of preschool teachers predict their digital literacy levels, lifelong learning sub-dimensions showed a significant relationship with digital literacy altogether.