21st Century Skills of Pre-service Teachers and Visions of Faculties of Education in Acquiring 21st Century Skills

Abstract

This study aims to reveal the situation of pre-service teachers in terms of having 21st century skills and their opinions on faculties of education in terms of enabling them to acquire these skills. In the study, which was designed as explanatory mixed method, 621 pre-service teachers and 26 pre-service teachers were included in the quantitative and qualitative dimension, respectively. To collect the data, “Multidimensional 21st Century Skills Scale” and “Semi-Structured Interview Form” were used.  In the analysis of quantitative data, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, min, max, independent sample T-test, ANOVA test and Scheffe test were used. In the analysis of qualitative data, content analysis was used. In the quantitative aspect of the study, it was concluded that the 21st century skills of the pre-service teachers were at high level, the 21st century skills of the pre-service teachers with high general point average (GPA) and who participated in more social activities were higher than the others, and the 21st century skills of the pre-service teachers did not differ significantly in terms of the gender variable. In the qualitative dimension of the study, it was obtained that pre-service teachers had learning and innovation, knowledge, media and technology, life and career skills; they thought that teachers, parents, academicians, the individual himself/herself, and bureaucrats were responsible for acquiring 21st century skills, there were strengths of faculties of education in enabling them to acquire 21st century skills.