Investigating preservice Turkish teachers' literacy skills

The aim of this study is to determine the literacy skills (academic, information, digital, critical, visual, culture, media) of prospective Turkish teachers and to examine these skills according to gender and grade level. When the literature is analysed, there is no study in which the literacy skills of prospective Turkish teachers are handled in a holistic way. Generally, there are studies in which one or several skills are handled together. This study is expected to contribute to this deficiency in the field. Descriptive survey model was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 155 Turkish language teacher candidates who continue their education in Muş Alparslan University Turkish Education Department and participate voluntarily. The data were collected through 'Google Forms' in the spring term of the 2023-2024 academic year. 'Academic Literacy Scale' developed by Demir and Deniz (2020); "Information Literacy Scale" developed by Adıgüzel (2011); "Digital Literacy Scale" developed by Ng (2012) and adapted by Hamutoğlu, Güngören, Uyanık, Erdoğan (2017); 'Critical Literacy Scale' developed by Dal and Aktay (2015); "Visual Literacy Competencies Scale" developed by Kiper, Arslan, Kıyıcı and Akgün (2012); "Cultural Literacy Scale" developed by Kılıçoğlu Kıvrak (2023) and "Media Literacy Determination Scale" developed by Karaman and Karataş (2009). The data were analysed with SPSS 26.00 software. In addition, since all measurements showed normal distribution, t-Test and One Way Anova were performed from parametric tests. In the study, it was concluded that Turkish teacher candidates have high academic literacy, information literacy, digital literacy, critical literacy, visual literacy, cultural literacy and media literacy skills. Detailed results were also obtained according to gender and class variables.