Emergency Distance Education Process from the Perspectives of Academicians

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic, which was effective all over the world in early 2020, has deeply affected educational institutions. As a result, universities in Turkey quickly began their emergency distance education applications. Faculty members are the most important executors of this process. In this respect, the purpose of this study was to examine the views of faculty members about emergency distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this qualitatively designed study, the views of 18 lecturers from a state university were determined. As the data collection tool, an online questionnaire form made up of open-ended questions was used. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method, and the themes were formed. According to the results, the academicians generally expressed their high level of dissatisfaction with the distance education policies of their university and with the distance education system used in the 2019-2020 Spring Term. In the 2020-2021 Fall semester, the university took these criticisms into account, changed their distance education policy, and succeeded in gaining the satisfaction of the academicians again by choosing Microsoft Teams, a more integrated system. Although the academicians were generally satisfied with the features of Microsoft Teams, they also reported some criticisms regarding the software such as the deficiency in its exam feature, connection problems, design deficiencies and difficulties in following the students. To conclude, all the academicians participating in the study stated that they wanted to continue to use distance education tools in an integrated manner in their lessons after the pandemic.