Impact of the Digital Literacy Courses Taken by the Prospective Social Studies Teachers by Distance Learning on Digital Citizenship Skills

Abstract The purpose of this study is to determine the efficacy of the digital literacy course taught to undergraduates with the cooperation of the Council of Higher Education (CHE) and Anadolu University on the ‘digital citizenship skills’ of social sciences teachers. In this context, 30 prospective social sciences teachers who received digital literacy training participated in the study, which employed criterion sampling, a purposive sampling technique. The study followed a pre-test and post-test uncontrolled quasi-experimental model. The digital literacy course process by distance learning covered eight weeks. At the beginning and the end of the digital literacy course, a ‘digital citizenship’ scale was applied to the prospective teachers. In research results, a significant positive difference was detected between the pre-test and post-test scores of prospective teachers obtained from the whole of the digital citizenship skills scale. Between pre-test and post-test scores of ‘digital communication’, ‘digital ethics’, and ‘critical thinking’ sub-dimensions of the digital citizenship scale, a significant difference was not detected. On the other hand, a positive significant difference was detected between scores from its digital skills, digital participation, digital rights and responsibilities, and digital commerce sub-dimensions. Similarly, between digital security points, which is another sub-dimension of the study, a significant difference was detected, though this difference was found to be negative. In this context, it is proposed that similar training should be made more common, more functional subjects in digital topics that teachers do not know should be the focus rather than those prospective teachers are expected to know, some changes regarding digital security must be implemented in institutions that teach the digital literacy course with distance learning and that these should enrich this subject further.