A NEEDS ASSESSMENT STUDY FOR THE STUDENTS OF THE FACULTY OF EDUCATION

7th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION, Ankara, Türkiye, 9 - 12 Kasım 2019, ss.263-264, (Özet Bildiri)

The competencies acquired by individuals during the formal education period play an important role in preparing individuals

for work life. The most important of these competencies is information and communication technology competencies.

Information and communication technology competencies should be seen as issues that are sought to be gained especially

during university education and which should be given importance by educational institutions (Eryılmaz, 2018). The rapid

development of information technologies has made it imperative for societies to follow technological developments and

integrate new technologies into existing systems. One of the systems affected by this rapid development is the education

systems of the communities. In addition, the learning paradigms adopted in recent years have changed their understanding of

education and higher education institutions have been affected. The flexibility provided by information technologies in learning

environments and easy access to information have brought about the integration of information technologies into education in

higher education (Löfström and Nevgi, 2008). Teachers play an important role in the spread of information technology

integration in educational institutions. It is expected that information technology courses will be designed to meet the needs in

the education programs of the faculty of education in order to train teachers who will be able to integrate them into learning

environments by using technological tools effectively (Haydn and Barton, 2007). When the curriculum development stages are

examined, it is seen that the first stage is to determine the educational needs. For the preparation of the program, the need for

a program should emerge and in order to meet this need in the best way, the real need must be determined. In addition, it is

important to take into consideration the needs of the society, the individual and the subject area in the needs determination

studies that are planned (Karacaoğlu, 2009). It is a set of systematic procedures for the purpose of identifying needs, making

decisions about the program, establishing policies, institutional development and sharing institutional resources. Needs

assessment can be defined as an assessment focused on a specific need. Needs often arise where there is a conflict between

the situation that should be and the current situation (Witkin and Altschuld, 1995).

The aim of this research is to determine the needs of the students of the Faculty of Education of a state university for the

information technologies course they are taking within the scope of general culture courses at the first-grade level and to

determine the program of the course accordingly. The research was conducted with a mixed model using both quantitative and

qualitative research methods. The participants of the study were 235 students studying at the first-grade level of the Faculty of

Education of a public university. The quantitative data of the study were collected by means of achievement test for the

information technologies course developed by the researchers and the need assessment scale related to the use of information

technologies course developed by Akbunar (2012). The achievement test, which was developed in order to check the students'

prior knowledge about the information technologies course, consists of 40 questions covering the subjects of the course. The

need assessment scale for the use of information technology course is a six-dimensional scale consisting of 25 items and the

overall Cronbach's Alpha value is 0.932. The dimensions of the scale are operating system usage, package program

applications, designing personal web site, using internet effectively, preparing presentation materials and basic concepts.

Qualitative data of the study were collected by interview method. For this purpose, a standardized open-ended interview form

was prepared by the researchers. Descriptive statistical techniques were used in the analysis of the quantitative data of the

research and qualitative data were analyzed through descriptive analysis. When the findings obtained from the achievement

test were examined, it was found that the students mostly lacked in the computer hardware units and the basic concepts related

to the internet, the office programs, especially in the features of the electronic spreadsheet program. When the findings

obtained from the needs assessment scale were examined, it was found that students deemed necessary sub-dimensions of

basic concepts related to operating system usage, package program applications, personal web site design and basic concepts

of computer; it was determined that they consider the dimensions of using internet effectively and preparing presentation

materials very necessary. However, the least needed dimension of the students was to design a personal website. The findings

obtained from the semi-structured interview form in the research are as follows: Most of the students stated that they want to

use the knowledge and skills acquired in this course while they teaching, for this reason, this course should be intensified with

more practical studies and they stated that they have difficulty in using technology, these difficulties should be determined and

solved.