HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS EMERGENCY ONLINE INSTRUCTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CONTEXT OF TURKEY

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.245672

Keywords:

Emergency online teaching (EOT); Covid-19 pandemic; higher education learners’ attitudes; context of Turkey

Abstract

This mixed-methods study aimed at investigating the Turkish higher education learners’ attitudes towards Emergency Online Teaching (EOT) under the Covid-19 pandemic in order to discover the benefits and drawbacks of it. The participants were 251 higher education learners who received the EOT during the Covid-19 crisis in Turkey. Both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered by means of a questionnaire in August 2020. Quantitative data were obtained via closed-ended questions with the response on a Likert-scale format. Qualitative data were acquired through open-ended questions. The results showed that the hurried shift to an online instruction by universities in Turkey was not fully satisfactory and the majority of the respondents (74.1%) preferred face-to-face learning to the online format, however, the participants also stated that they felt safer during this pandemic disease thanks to the availability of distant online education. The drawbacks they mentioned included inadequate technological infrastructure or facilities, lack of sufficient teacher-student and peer interaction, lack of learners’ attention and concentration, tediousness of online lessons, learners’ inadequate engagement in class activities, as well as the absence of comprehensive assessment procedure.

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Author Biographies

Mohammadreza Valizadeh, Department of Translation and Interpretation (English), Faculty of Humanities,Cappadocia University, Cappadocia, Turkey, mrvalizadeh2015@gmail.com

Mohammadreza Valizadeh holds a PhD in TEFL from Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey and is currently an assistant professor at Cappadocia  University, Cappadocia, Turkey. He has published several articles in different scholarly journals. His areas of interests include corrective feedback, psycholinguistics, learning strategies, learner autonomy, task-based language teaching and individual differences in language learning.

Fatemeh Soltanpour, Kar Higher Education Institute

Fatemeh Soltanpour holds an MA in TEFL from Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran. She is currently a University Lecturer in Kar Higher Education Institute, Qazvin, Iran. She has been teaching different courses at undergraduate programmes in TEFL and Translation Studies as well as General English courses in face-to-face and virtual English campuses in Iran since 2003.

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Published

2021-12-29

How to Cite

Valizadeh, M., & Soltanpour, F. . . . (2021). HIGHER EDUCATION LEARNERS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS EMERGENCY ONLINE INSTRUCTION DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: THE CONTEXT OF TURKEY. Advanced Education, 8(19), 123–132. https://doi.org/10.20535/2410-8286.245672

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