Teachers' Views on Digital Literacy and Barriers

Abstract

This study aimed to examine teachers' views on digital literacy and its barriers. A mixed methods approach including both quantitative and qualitative data together was used. In the quantitative part, the Digital Literacy Scale developed by Ng (2012) and adapted to Turkish by Hamutoğlu et al. (2017) was used to determine the digital literacy levels of teachers. In the qualitative part, a semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher was used to collect data on digital literacy barriers. While 653 teachers participated in the quantitative part of the study, 36 teachers participated in the qualitative part. Mean values of digital literacy of the teachers who participated in the quantitative part of the study reflected a level of agreement, and no significant difference was found when the digital literacy levels of the teachers were compared with the variables of attitude, technical, cognitive and social factors and gender, department and educational status. However, a significant difference was found between the social factor and the variables of professional experience and time spent on digital platforms. When teachers' views on the barriers to digital literacy were analyzed in terms of the attitude factor, the majority of teachers emphasized the barriers of not liking and being interested in using technology and not being able to learn technology easily. When analyzed in terms of the technical factor dimension, the majority of teachers emphasized the barriers of lack of knowledge about technology and inability to use technology. When analyzed in terms of the cognitive factor, the majority of the teachers emphasized their lack of technology knowledge.