Abstract
EXAMINING PRESERVICE TEACHERS’ VIEWS ON DISTANCE EDUCATION IN THE COVID-19 PROCESS IN TERMS OF VARIOUS VARIABLES
The aim of this study is to learn the views of the education faculty students about the distance education applications, which are becoming more widespread and important day by day during the Covid-19 pandemic period, and to evaluate these views in terms of various variables. The survey method, which is one of the quantitative approaches, was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 406 students who received distance education at the Faculty of Education of Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University due to the Covid-19 epidemic in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the research, the 'Views of Distance Education Students towards Distance Education' scale developed by Yıldırım, Yıldırım, Çelik and Karaman (2014) was used. The collected data were analyzed with Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests, since they did not show normal distribution in the statistical program. Some of the results obtained from the research are as follows: pre-service teachers have difficulties in adopting distance education. Depending on the age variable, a significant difference was determined in the opinions of the teacher candidates about distance education. It was concluded that male teacher candidates are more interested in distance education. Mathematics department teacher candidates have a positive view towards distance education according to all sub-dimensions. Pre-service teachers expressed positive opinions about distance education according to their academic achievements, the technological tools they use, the years of use of these tools and the rate of having a continuous internet connection.
Keywords
Covid-19, distance education, teacher candidate.