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This study aims to know the opinions of pre-service teachers on their digital competence and to determine whether these opinions vary according to gender, branch and perceived level of digital competence. In this study, a cross-sectional survey model was used. In such a context, the study was conducted with 518 pre-service teachers who were studying in different provinces of Turkey. The study used a digital competence questionnaire as a data collection tool. When the results were evaluated, it can be said that the digital competence of pre-service teachers is moderate and that it varies significantly according to gender, branch and perceived level of digital competence. It is thought that the results of this study will guide the researchers as they reveal the needs of the pre-service teachers and contain information about what should be focused on the training or activities to be organized to meet these needs.

There have been various studies on developing the efficiency of the e-learning environment, as these environments have become more prevalent in recent years (O'Neil, 2008; Reiser & Dempsey, 2012). Despite the benefits of education in these environments, the communication problem due to physical separation of the tutor and the learner is one of the main issues discussed in the literature. In order to overcome this problem and to ease learners' communication with others, e-learning environments are enriched with social communication tools (Sung & Mayer, 2012). Because of the fact that social presence is a problematic term, it is described in various ways by different researchers (Annand, 2011; Cui, Lockee, & Meng, 2012). Short, Williams, and Christie (1976) define social presence as the salience of the other in mediated communication and the consequent salience of their inter-personal interactions. Gunawardena and Zittle (1997) describe it as a Ebru KILIÇ ÇAKMAK, Ph.D., is currently an associate professor of Computer Education and Instructional Technology. Her research interests include e-learning, instructional design, multimedia design, human-computer interaction and scale development.

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