INVESTIGATION OF CYBERLOAFING AND COGNITIVE ABSORPTION LEVELS OF PROSPECTIVE TEACHERS IN TERMS OF VARIOUS VARIABLES

Abstract

In an era where information and communication technologies (ICT) have pervaded human lives, our daily duration of interaction with technological interfaces is increasing steadily. This is especially true of the world’s young population, which includes pre-service teachers. This increased exposure to and interaction with ICT naturally brings about negative effects, alongside its benefits. Among these negative effects are phenomena named cyberloafing and cognitive absorption. The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between cyberloafing behavior and cognitive absorption of pre-service teachers. A sample population of 376 pre-service teachers has been determined via random sampling method among students in various programs of Trakya University Faculty of Education. Data has been collected via “Cyberloafing in Educational Settings Scale” and “Cognitive Absorption Scale”. Findings have shown a weak positive correlation between cyberloafing incidence and cognitive absorption in pre-service teachers. In addition, a statistically meaningful relationship between cyberloafing incidence and academic success has been shown, while no meaningful relationship between cognitive absorption and academic success was displayed. Furthermore, statistically significant differences between cyberloafing levels of pre-service teachers grouped by gender, number of technological devices owned, having a social media account and number of social media accounts have been found; whereas cognitive absorption has also been discovered to significantly influenced by having a social media account and number of social media accounts of preservice teachers.

Keywords

• cyberloafing
• cognitive absorption
• pre-service teachers