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 21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st century skills of the pre-service teachers were at high level, the 21^st 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 21^st 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 21^st century skills, there were strengths of faculties of education in enabling them to acquire 21^st century skills.