Attitudes of student teachers towards distance education within the context of COVID-19 pandemic

Attitudes of student teachers towards distance education

Abstract

This study aimed to determine the distance education-oriented attitudes of the students attending the Faculty of Education of the Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University. The participants of the study consisted of a total of 236 individuals, 140 female and 96 male, who were studying in five different departments of teaching (Turkish Language, Elementary School Mathematics, Science, Physical Education and Sports, Psychological Counseling and Guidance) at the Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University. The data were obtained through an online questionnaire, which was sent to students who were taking part in courses on the distance education administration system of the Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University. The data obtained were analyzed through the SPSS 25.0 software. During the analysis, the independent samples T-test was employed for independent variables with two sub-levels, while the one-way ANOVA was used for variables with more than two sub-levels. In order to determine the differences between the groups, however, the Tukey test was employed, and the level of error was taken as 0.05. As a consequence, the attitudes of the participants were found to be high in general ( =3.63; SS= 0.68). It was also observed that the attitude scores did not create any significant differences based on the gender of the students, whether they had previously been trained on computers, whether they had equipment, such as smart phones, tablets, computers, etc., or the area of residence. Considering the distance education-oriented attitude scores by departments, however, it was determined that significant differences occurred in favor of the departments of Turkish Language Teaching and Psychological Counseling and Guidance teaching.