University Students’ Technology Skills For Social And Learning Objectives

This study investigates 569 undergraduate students` habits of using technology for social and learning purposes in three universities in Turkey. The universities were selected according to the date of establishment; relatively old, young, and brand-new. The students took the survey of the “Technology Expectations and Experiences of Students” (Gosper et al. 2009) adapted to Turkish by the researchers. Technology use differences for social and learning purposes are compared by the universities. According to the findings; for social purposes, the students most frequently used instant messaging applications (e.g. Whatsapp), SMS, mobile phone and social networking sites; however, for learning purposes, students frequently used internet search engines. There were similarities between the students of the three universities in terms of the levels of technology use for learning technology. The level that the students use these technologies for social purposes is nearly two times more than that of educational purposes. This difference is greater in young and newly established universities when compared to that of the relatively old university. This study can be considered in the planning and adapting the learning technologies for universities