Investigation of the relationships between individual innovation characteristics of social studies teacher candidates and attitudes toward technology usage in education

In this study, it is intended to do a research on the attitudes of social studies teacher candidates towards the use of technology in education in terms of diverse variables. The study has been conducted through the scanning model to determine the attitudes of social studies teacher candidates towards the use of technology in education with regards to their individual levels of innovatiness and some variables. The target group of the research consists of 258 (125 females, 133 males) social studies teacher candidates. As a data collection tool in the research, "Technology Attitude Scale" and "Individual Inventiveness Scale" have been used. "Technology Attitude Scale" consists of five dimensions such as "The Situation of Unused Technological Devices in Education", "The Situation of used Technological Devices Used in Education", "The Effect of Technology on Educational Life", "The Instruction of Technological Devices" and "The Evaluation of Technological Devices". "Individual Inventiveness Scale" is composed of five aspects as "Innovative", "leader", "Inquiring", "Skeptic" and "Traditional". In the results of the analysis, it has been determined that the attitudes of social studies teacher candidates towards the use of technology in education differentiated according to their individual levels of innovatiness. Therefore, individually more innovative social studies teacher candidates have more positive attitude towards the use of technology. Also in the study, it has been determined that attitudes towards technology indicated diversity according to the class level. The senior students have more positive attitude compared to first graders or sophomores. Keywords: Innovatiness, social studies education, social studies teacher candidates, technology attitude