Views of Students about Technology, Effects of Technology on Daily Living and their Professional Preferences

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study is to examine the views of students about technology and their professional preferences and put forth the correlation between professional preferences and views about technology. For this purpose, in a private school in Ankara, 109 students from 6th and 7th grades were asked about their views on what technology is, the benefits and harms of technology and also about the professions they would like to perform in the future. The study was designed with phenomenological method, which is one of the qualitative research designs, and it was found as a result of the study that technology is defined under three main categories as an instrument that makes things / people’s lives easier, a technical advancement and improvement tool, a tool for production / an instrument of production. Students explained the benefits of technology as facilitating communication, making life easier and acquisition of information / providing the sharing of information, whereas they expressed its harms as addiction, wasting of time and cyber threats. Lastly, considering the correlation between the professional preferences of students and their views about technology, it was found that there is an existing correlation where the quality of the profession is coherent with the views about technology. From this perspective, suggestions were developed for future studies.