Preservice teachers’ views about the twenty-first century skills: A qualitative survey study in Turkey and Sweden

The purpose of this study was to investigate the views of preservice teachers from Turkey and Sweden about twenty-first century skills. The participants of the study were 197 preservice teachers from universities in Turkey and Sweden. In the study, the views of preservice teachers about twenty-first century skills were investigated with an open-ended questionnaire, and the collected qualitative data were analysed using a content analysis method. The findings indicate that within the context of daily life, the preservice teachers from both countries associated twenty-first century skills mostly with technology, digital citizenship, communication, and information literacy. Within the context of education, a great majority of the preservice teachers from Turkey associated twenty-first century skills with information literacy and technology, while those from Sweden associated twenty-first century skills mostly with technology, distance learning and communication. In addition, it was seen that among the skills considered by the preservice teachers from both countries to be necessary for their careers and for their future students, they all put most emphasis on digital literacy. However, as the second most frequent skills, the preservice teachers from Turkey emphasized critical thinking and problem solving skills, while the preservice teachers from Sweden mentioned communication skills and information literacy.

"[T]he preservice teachers both in Turkey and Sweden associated twenty-first century skills in daily lives mostly with meeting their daily needs, becoming effective individuals who can keep up with the society, using technological tools, digital environments and social networks, establishing communication with the help of technological tools, searching and managing the information and becoming source-critical.... A great majority of the preservice teachers in Turkey associated twenty-first century skills with information literacy and technology within the context of education.... On the other hand, the preservice teachers in Sweden associated twenty-first century skills mostly with technology, distance learning and communication." (Authors, 2364-2365)