Online Information Search Competencies of Prospective Philosophy Teachers in an Online Pedagogical Formation Program

Abstract

This study aims to examine the knowledge-seeking competencies of prospective philosophy teachers who have received pedagogical training in an online environment according to their "reflective thoughts" and "Inventory of Online Information Search Strategies". The methodology of the study was the single-group pretest-posttest pattern, which is one of the weak experimental designs. The data were obtained from 49 prospective teachers. The results of the study indicated that the online training program created significant differences in all other sub-factors, except reflective thinking habit and understanding sub-factors, and overall total score according to both reflective thinking and online information search strategies. Prospective teachers have entered the process of deep thinking about teaching, evaluating their own experiences and making sense of them; that is, the process of deep thinking caused the change in conceptual perspectives. They gained the skill of evaluating themselves from a different perspective. Prospective teachers have also mentioned that they know the strategies for searching information on the Internet, they can use the evaluation and problem-solving strategies, they can select and compare the information available on the Internet, they can select and compare programs, they can interpret the information and programs that they find, and develop new ways according to their results, shows that they can transform them according to their fields.