INVESTIGATING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CURIOSITY LEVEL AND COMPUTER SELF EFFICACY BELIEFS OF

ELEMENTARY TEACHERS CANDIDATES

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, “lifelong learning individual" concept is gaining importance in which curiosity is one important feature that an individual should have as a requirement of learning. It is known that learning will naturally occur spontaneously when curiosity instinct is awakened during any learning-teaching process. Computer self-efficacy belief is defined as “individual's self-judgment related to computer using”. In this context, this study is aimed to analyze the relation between elementary teacher candidates' curiosity level and computer self-efficacy belief who will raise the future information society.  The study conducted with senior teacher candidates of Elementary Education Department - Mathematics, Science, Social Sciences and Elementary Education in Hasan Ali Yucel Education Faculty at Istanbul University in 2009 - 2010 academic years. “Computer Self-Efficacy Belief Scale” developed by Aşkar and Umay (2001) and "Curiosity Scale” adapted in Turkish by Demirel and Coşkun (2009) were used as data collection tools. SPSS 13.00 was used for whether there is a relationship between data.

According to gender variety, findings showed "Self-Efficacy Belief regarding to computer did not differ, female students’ curiosity level was statistically higher than male students, and there was a connection between total score of “Self-Efficacy Belief Scale and Curiosity Scale" total score and Width Dimension Score, but there is no connection with Depth Dimension Score.