Full Length Research Paper

Views of student teachers on information technology integration in geography teaching

Hakkı Yazici¹ and Hilmi Demirkaya²*

¹Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Education, Afyon Kocatepe University, Afyon, Turkey 03100.

²Department of Social Studies, Faculty of Education, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University, Burdur, Turkey 15100.

*Corresponding author. E-mail: hilmi.demirkaya@gmail.com.

Accepted 3 June, 2010

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the views of Primary School Social Studies teacher candidates regarding integration of Information Technologies in teaching and learning processes. The sample of the study was composed of 122 student teachers in their third year pursuing their studies in the “Department of Primary Education Social Studies Teaching”, Faculty of Education, Mehmet Akif Ersoy University. The study was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, student teachers were asked to prepare a one-hour lesson plan to find the answer to the question “How much do student teachers who are expected to start teaching within one year integrate Information Technologies in their lesson plans?” Of the participants, 59% were found to integrate Information Technologies in their lesson plans at varying degrees. In the second stage of the study, student teachers were posed an open-ended question to reveal their views on the reasons why they integrated or avoided integrating Information Technologies in their lesson plans. In the third stage of the study, student teachers were asked the following questions: “Do you think that information technologies are integrated in your geography lessons?” and “How much do you plan to integrate Information Technologies in your geography lessons when you start teaching in the future?” The responses to these questions were evaluated. The data obtained were analyzed through descriptive statistics method.  

Key words: Geography course, student teacher, IT-information technologies, teacher education, technology.