Examination of the views of faculty members and staff on synchronous distance education applications

With the Covid-19 pandemic process, the importance of synchronous applications used in distance education has increased. The selection of these practices for educational institutions and teachers has become an important situation in terms of the efficiency of distance education. Different synchronous applications have been used in this process in universities in Turkey. It is an undeniable fact that distance education has had an important place in our lives during and will have after the pandemic. For this reason, it is necessary to examine the features of the applications used in distance education in terms of compatibility and adequacy. While conducting this examination, examining the experiences and opinions of the teachers/educators who use the applications will lead more accurate results. In this context, the aim of this study is to determine the limitations and superiorities of synchronous distance education applications used in different higher education institutions with the opinions of the faculty members and staff. The study was conducted with 113 faculty members and staff working in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education and the Department of Mathematics Education from 50 universities in Turkey. The survey model, which is one of the descriptive research methods, was used in the research. As a data collection tool, 'Academician Opinion Form on Synchronous Distance Education Applications' was developed. In addition to the list of questions, open-ended questions were also included in the developed questionnaire. The survey questions were delivered to the faculty members and staff Google Form. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used to analyze the collected data. The data are organized into codes, themes and categories. As a result of the research, it was seen that the most common applications used by faculty members and staff were Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Big Blue Botton. The majority of the participants found that the audio and image quality and sharing characteristics of the applications they used were sufficient. In terms of reliability, while most participants found the application reliable, they stated that they had had doubts about it, although they did not have any problems with some reliability that could be taken into consideration. Another important result of the research is that a significant number of participants did not find the applications compatible with their fields. In addition, the participants stated that the applications have advantages in terms of ease of use, technical and technological issues, connection and access, and reliability.