Abstract
TURKISH TEACHER CANDIDATES’ PERCEPTIONS OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS SUFFICIENCY
This study aims to investigate the perceptions of pre-serviceTurkish teachers regarding 21st-century skills. The study group of the research was identified through simple random sampling and consisted of 216 pre-service teachers studying in the Department of Turkish Teaching at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University. The 21st Century Skills and Competences Scale was used in collecting the data of the study, which was designed according to the single survey and causal-comparative model. The results of the study show that pre-service Turkish teachers’ perceptions of 21st-century competencies are low in the dimensions of perceptions of learning and renewal skills and life and professional skills, which are the sub-dimensions of the scale. However, they are very low in the dimensions of information, media, and technology. It was found that grade*gender interaction, number of books*pages, and mother*father educational status interaction were not effective variables for pre-service Turkish teachers’ perceptions of 21st-century skills and competencies. Among these variables, only the variable of the number of books read during the year was found to make a significant difference in favour of the participants who read less than those who read a lot in the pre-service Turkish teachers’ perceptions of competence in life and professional skills. In terms of perceptions of competence in information, media, and technology, participants who read moderately within a week were found to be significantly different from those who read a lot.
Keywords
21st-century skills, pre-service Turkish teacher, gender, grade, number of books, number of pages.