21st century skills in pre-service physical education and sports teacher education in Türkiye: is it sufficient?

The aim of the research is to investigate pre-service physical education and sports teachers' perceptions of their proficiency in 21st century skills and the level of importance of these skills according to them. A total of 338 voluntary participants—162 women and 176 men—participated in this research which was carried out with a survey design. As data collection tools, "Importance of Having 21st Century Skills Scale" and “21st Century Skills Competence Perception Scale”, which were developed by Aydın and Tan Şişman (2021), and “Demographic Information Form” were used. Frequency tables, descriptive statistics, skewness-kurtosis analysis, independent samples T-test were applied with SPSS 25. The study's findings revealed that pre-service physical education and sports teachers considered 21st Century skills sufficiently important and perceived themselves as competent in this field. Additionally, no significant difference was found according to gender, grade and cumulative grade point average variables. In order to carry 21st century skills a little further, it is recommended for further research to create greater awareness in this field with a mindset transformation, to increase the acquisition and use of these skills through various seminars and trainings.