"EXAMINATION OF CLASSROOM TEACHERS’ 21st CENTURY TEACHING SKILLS"

Abstract

In recent years, the rapid developments in information and communication technologies have impacted education systems immensely. These developments not only made various updates in the education programs, but also brought up the skills that the teachers who train the learners of the new millennium should have. The aim of this study was to determine the level of use of the 21st century teacher skills required by the age of classroom teachers and to examine the level of use of these skills in terms of gender, graduation status and professional preference variables. In the study, a cross-sectional survey model, a quantitative research method, was adapted. The data were collected via “21. Century Learner and Teacher Skills Use Scale” developed by Göksun (2021). The participants were composed of 269 primary school teachers selected by simple random sampling method. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 22.0 program. Since the research data did not show a normal distribution, Mann-Whitney U tests were used for two-category variables, and KruskalWallis tests were used for three or more categories. The results revealed that the classroom teachers' use of 21st century teacher skills was at a good level. It was also observed that the highest level of use among the sub-dimensions of 21st century teacher skills belonged to "approving skills"; and there was a significant difference in 21st century teacher skills subdimensions according to gender, graduation status and professional preference. The significant differentiation in favor of those who willingly choose the teaching profession in all sub-dimensions according to the vocational preference variable showed the importance of the professional interest and ability in the success of applying the 21st century skills required by the profession.