Pre-service teachers' perceptions about e-democracy: A case in Turkey

Sendag S.

COMPUTERS & EDUCATION, vol.55, no.4, pp.1684-1693, 2010 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Publication Type: Article / Article
  • Volume: 55 Issue: 4
  • Publication Date: 2010
  • Doi Number: 10.1016/j.compedu.2010.07.012
  • Journal Name: COMPUTERS & EDUCATION
  • Journal Indexes: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus
  • Page Numbers: pp.1684-1693
  • Keywords: Computer-mediated communication, Learning communities, Media in education
  • Akdeniz University Affiliated: No

Abstract

This study investigated the perceptions of pre-service teachers concerning e-democracy. These perceptions were studied across individual variables such as: Internet use skills, frequency of Internet use, voting, and civic group membership. A total of 701 randomly selected pre-service teachers from a major research university in Turkey participated in the study completing a fourteen item questionnaire. The overall distribution of the data was examined through the descriptive statistics while the Mann-Whitney U, Kruskall-Wallis H, and Jonckheere-Terpstra tests were employed to determine the differences and trends. The results showed that most of the pre-service teachers believed in e-democracy, while they rarely participated in e-politics. Findings also indicated that Internet use skills, frequency of Internet use, voting, and civic group membership had significant effects on specific components of e-democracy. The impacts of the results were discussed in terms of teacher education. The results highlight the need for integration of e-democracy components into the pre-service teacher education curriculum. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.