The Opinions of Prospective Teachers on the Design and Use of Digital Educational Comics as a Technological Teaching Material in Science Education

In this study, it is aimed to examine the opinions of prospective teachers about the design of digital educational comics designed within the scope of science education and their use in educational environments. This study, conducted with 129 prospective teachers determined by purposeful sampling method, is suitable for a case study. After the prospective teachers received a four-hour training on digital educational comics, they designed their digital educational comics for two weeks. After the design process, their views on design and applicability of these designs were determined with structured survey forms. The collected data were analyzed in four stages with the MAXQDA-20 program in accordance with content analysis. In the study, it was determined that the prospective teachers had difficulties at the point of designing visual and graphical elements in digital environment during the digital educational comic design process and that they were negatively affected by technological insufficiencies. In addition to this, the prospective teachers expressed the views on the need to pay attention to the digital educational comic's subject-acquisition relationship, scientific knowledge and the relationship of this knowledge with daily life. It is recommended to increase the use of technology-oriented alternative teaching materials such as digital educational comics in science education from preschool to undergraduate level instead of traditional teaching materials.