EVALUATION OF DIGITAL COMPETENCE BY INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TEACHERS IN TURKEY IN THE CONTEXT OF 21ST CENTURY SKILLS AND THE QUALITY FRAMEWORK OF MINISTRY OF EDUCATION

Abstract

This research which examines information technology teachers’ opinions on digital competence is a phenomenological qualitative research and was carried out with 10 information technology teachers in Turkey. The data were collected through semi-structured interview form developed by the researchers and analyzed by using content analysis method. The findings showed that information technology teachers explained digital competence with 193 utterances. These utterances were identified in 3 themes as “digital competence and its components”, “importance and effects”, “digital competence and education”. These themes were separated into 9 categories as “meaning”, “sub-dimensions”, “supporting competences”, “importance”, “positive effects for future”, “negative effects for future ”,“ acquisition by formal education ”,“ acquisition by informal education ”,“ digital competence and educational problems”. It was seen that information technology teachers expressed their opinions on digital competence with 61 codes from these categories. According to the results of the research, information technology teachers frequently produced “digital literacy”, “knowledge and “communication”, “foreign language knowledge”, “necessity of the knowledge society”, “necessity to be information literate”, “fast communication”, “technological antisocialism”, “useless knowledge acquisition”, “social regression”, “school education”, “early technology introduction” and “objective level mismatches” codes while expressing digital qualifications that individuals are expected to have. Article visualizations: