Internet specific epistemological beliefs and online information searching strategies of pre service teachers gender and department differences

Abstract

With the wide use of internet, internet has become the easy and fast way of accessing information and one of the main sources used to access information. Especially with the spread of the use of Web 2.0 technologies, many internet users are now able to add/edit content on internet, shape it in a collaborative way on social environments and easily share it. Therefore, it is believed that there has been changes in the epistemological beliefs of internet users towards internet as a source of information. The purpose of this study is to examine internet-specific epistemological beliefs of pre-service teachers in terms of gender and department they study; and to reveal the impact internet-specific epistemological beliefs on online information searching strategies. The study group includes 203 pre-service teachers. For the collection of the data, personal information form, internet-specific epistemological beliefs and online information searching strategies inventory were used. The results of the study revealed that internet-specific epistemological beliefs did not change based on gender; yet there was a statistically significant difference based on department pre-service teachers study. In addition, it was also found that internet-specific epistemological beliefs did not have a significant impact on information searching strategies. And depending on the findings of the study, what could be done in the process of using internet-based information sources in education and teacher training programs were discussed and suggestions were made.