Pre-service teachers' perceptions of social media – A qualitative survey study in Turkey and Sweden

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service teachers' perceptions of social media. The phenomenology approach, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The participants of the study included 201 pre-service teachers studying at two state universities, one in Turkey and the other in Sweden, in the spring term of the 2018-2019 academic year. In the study, metaphors were used to reveal pre-service teachers' perceptions of social media. The pre-service teachers were asked to fill in the following query: 'Social Media is like ……… because ………'. The collected qualitative data were analyzed by using content analysis method. The findings indicated that the pre-service teachers from both countries perceived social media mostly as a tool for communication and access to information and that a very few of them associated social media with education. In addition, it was found that pre-service teachers from Turkey had more negative perceptions of social media compared to those from Sweden. The pre-service teachers from Turkey who had negative perceptions associated social media mostly with addiction.