An Exploration of Turkish Kindergarten Early Career Stage Teachers' Technology Beliefs and Practices
General Material Designation
[Thesis]
First Statement of Responsibility
Ozel, Ozge
Subsequent Statement of Responsibility
Berson, Ilene R.
.PUBLICATION, DISTRIBUTION, ETC
Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.
University of South Florida
Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.
2019
GENERAL NOTES
Text of Note
270 p.
DISSERTATION (THESIS) NOTE
Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree
Ph.D.
Body granting the degree
University of South Florida
Text preceding or following the note
2019
SUMMARY OR ABSTRACT
Text of Note
The purpose of this study was to explore Turkish kindergarten early career stage teachers' self-efficacy beliefs towards technology and their technology integration practices in their classrooms by answering: What are self-efficacy beliefs of Turkish kindergarten early career stage teachers towards technology? How do Turkish kindergarten early career teachers integrate technology into their classrooms' instructions? The study was designed as a qualitative multiple case study and guided by Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory and Mishra and Koehler's (2006) TPACK conceptual framework. I conducted this study in Istanbul, where is the most crowded and metropolitan city in Turkey. The schools were chosen by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE) after the permissions were received from IRB and MoNE, and the participants were assigned by the directors of schools based on research criteria. Participants were chosen purposefully, and there were four female kindergarten teachers in their early career stages, which were identified based on Steffy, Wolfe, Pasch and Enz (2000)' stages: novice teacher and apprentice teacher, teaching five-year-old students at technologically well-equipped classrooms, and who had a bachelor's degree in preschool teaching. Data was collected from three sessions of semi-structured interviews and two sessions of observation based on TIM-O. Data was coded and analyzed based on Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) to make sense teachers' technology self-efficacy beliefs towards technology and Technology Integration Matrix (TIM)'s to understand their technology practice into classroom instructions.