Investigating Turkish pre-service English language teachers’ virtual teaching dispositions

Abstract

The current study sought to investigate Turkish pre-service English language (EL) teachers’ virtual teaching dispositions (i.e., social, pedagogical, expert/cognitive, and virtual/technical presences) and the extent they are related to gender, age, and teaching status variables. The participants were 84 pre-service EL teachers drawn from a Turkish university, and data were collected through Welch and Napoleon’s (2014) virtual teaching disposition scale (VTDS). The results indicated a significant difference between the scores of male and female pre-service EL teachers in both social and virtual/technical presences. However, the participants did not exhibit a significant difference between pedagogical and expert/cognitive presences. Consequently, a one-way ANOVA was run to explore the role of the age variable on the participants’ virtual teaching disposition, with the results revealing a significant difference for only the pedagogical presence and expert/cognitive presence among the participants, whose ages ranged from 18 to 20, those aged 20-23, and those over the age of 24. Finally, the results revealed a significant difference between the scores in the expert/cognitive presence of the participants who teach English and those who do not. However, no significant difference was identified between the mean scores of the two groups in social presence, virtual/technical presence, or expert/cognitive presence.