The aim of this research is to examine the digital literacy of social studies teachers, their roles and
competencies in distance online education and to reveal the relationship between these variables.
In accordance
with this main objective, the study inv
estigated whether there are statistically significant differences between
the personal characteristics of social studies teachers such as gender, age, in
-
service training, and their digital
literacy and roles and competencies in online distance education.
The study employed a correlational
descriptive research design. Data were collected through the "Digital Literacy Scale" and the "Online Teacher
Competency Scale" in addition to the personal information form. Due to the pandemic conditions, data were
colle
cted from 244 social studies teachers reached through the form created in Google documents. The obtained
data were analyzed by transferring them to SPSS 22.0. T
-
Test and one
-
way ANOVA were applied to determine
whether the variables of gender, age, and in
-
s
ervice training they received caused a statistically significant
difference in the participating social studies teachers' roles and competencies in online distance education. The
relationship between the effect on the social studies teachers' roles and com
petencies in online distance
education and their digital literacy levels and any significant difference between them were determined using
correlation analysis. It has been found that the digital literacy status of social studies teachers differs
significa
ntly in favor of men in terms of gender, there is no significant difference in terms of education level,
professional seniority, and internet use, and there is a significant difference in favor of those who take courses
in a distance education program. The
data obtained on the online teacher roles and competencies of social
studies teachers indicated no significant difference between female and male teachers. However, online teacher
roles and competencies of social studies teachers differed significantly ac
cording to their education level and
professional seniority, in favor of those who received postgraduate education and those working in the range
of 10
-
15 years, respectively. Their online teacher roles and competencies also had a significant weak
relation
ship with the variables of duration of internet use, taking courses related to distance education
program and teaching time in online education.
