Preservice Teachers’ Personality Traits and Social Network Use Purposes

Abstract

Facilities provided by social network sites allow individuals to use social networks for variouspurposes such as communication, entertainment and information sharing. These purposesvary depending on the social networks individuals use and on their personality traits. Thepresent study examined preservice teachers’ social network use purposes with respect totheir personality traits. The participants of the study were 660 preservice teachers attendinga Turkish university. For data collection in the study “Scale of Social Network Use Purposes”and “Basic Personality Traits Inventory” were used. The research data were analyzed usingPearson Correlation Analysis and Multi-Linear Regression Analysis. The findings revealedthat among the personality traits, conscientiousness, openness to experience and negativevalence were predictors of the sub-factors of social network use purposes. As for otherpersonality factors, neuroticism and extraversion were not significant predictors of the totalsocial network use purpose score or its sub-factors.