Faculties' Information and Communication Technologies Action Competencies

Abstract

Problem Statement: Information and Communication Technologies Action Competence (ICTAC) is defined as "individual's motivation and capacity of using information and communication technologies (ICTs) in course of critically selecting and conducting possible democratic actions that may solve societal problems related or not related to ICTs". In contrast to other fields of action competence, ICTAC is a term that deals with not only solving society-wide problems in ICT field but also all problems having potential of being affected by KT-society relation. Faculties from department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology (CEIT) have significant roles in the process of helping individuals acquire ICTAC. Purpose of Study: The aim of this research is to determine ICTAC levels of faculties from CEIT departments and whether faculties' ICTAC differed with regard to their gender, seniority, academic title, and bachelor's degree. Method: The study was conducted with the use of singular and relational survey methods, and the study group included 83 faculties studying at CEIT departments of 32 different universities in Turkey. Data collected through the ICTAC Scale developed by researchers. This is a single factor scale with 0.98 reliability coefficient. Findings: Faculties frequently performed action competence examples given in data collection tool, faculties' ICTAC did not differ with regard to their gender, academic title, and bachelor's degree and faculties' ICTAC decreased while their seniority increased. Discussion and Results: Results suggested no significant difference between participants' ICTACs with respect to gender. While there is a tendency to reveal gender differences within techno-centric studies this study is an exception. Gender differences may be minimized by the fact that faculties are well educated and relatively homogenous with regard to field expertise. However revealing no significant gender differences and higher means is a positive finding. Another essential finding of this study is negative correlation between ICTAC and seniority. This finding can be explained by faculties' academic obsolescence. However this assertion needs further examination. Furthermore this can also be attributed to older faculties' lower ICT uses and competencies. There is also no significant difference with respect to participants' BA fields. A possible explanation to no significant difference results may be the fact that ICTAC deals with societal problems in which solution processes are not affected by these variables.