The Factors Affecting Techno-Pedagogical Competencies and Critical Thinking Skills of Preservice Mathematics Teachers

Abstract

Students’ high-level thinking skills, like critical thinking, have been developed thanks to the use of technology. When the previous researches in the literature are analyzed, it will be understood that this research is original by providing significant contributions to the literature. This research aims to investigate whether techno-pedagogical competencies and critical thinking skills show statistically significant difference in terms of some variables and whether there is statistically significant relationship between critical thinking skills and technopedagogical competencies of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers. At that point, this research is remarkable for presenting an idea in terms of educating more qualified mathematics teachers. This study was designed as a descriptive study. The sample of the research consists of 552 pre-service elementary mathematics teachers. Two types of data collection tools were used in this study: "TPACK Self-Efficacy Scale" and "Critical Thinking Scale". The data of the study were analyzed by using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 21.0. The results of the study reveal that the techno-pedagogical competencies and critical thinking skills of pre-service mathematics teachers are midlevel. On the other hand, there is a significant relation between the pre-service mathematics teachers’ critical thinking skills and techno-pedagogical competencies.