Evaluation of Students' Opinions Regarding Distance Learning Practices in Turkish Universities during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify hether students at Turkish universities are having difficulties in the distance learning process and to reveal their opinions regarding the system. Using a cross-cultural survey design, data were collected from 5052 students. Based on the collected data, 58.5% of the students have asynchronous distance learning classes in their universities. Access to distance learning classes is one of the problems, and it is attributed to computers, internet, and connectivity issues as well as with starting the lessons too early or late. A majority of participants (73.7%) found class materials uploaded by lecturers to distance learning systems to be sufficient or partially sufficient, and 36.7% stated that they had problems accessing resources regarding their homework. Students' satisfaction level with the distance learning system scored 4.4 out of 10. According to the evaluation regarding whether the level of satisfaction of participants varied across the type of university, the satisfaction level of students in public universities is generally low (score of 4.3 out of 10) compared to satisfaction in foundation universities (4.9 out of 10).