Examining attitudes of preservice teachers` toward e-learning

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to determine preservice teachers? perceptions of E-learning. For this purpose, primarily, the attitudes of teachers towards E-learning weredetermined by using the thoughts of preservice teachers. 47 sophomores of Computer andInstructional Technologies Department from Buca Faculty of Education were selected forparticipation in the study. ?Use of Material in Education? class was given online to thepreservice teachers through a web site the address of which is emk.egitimi.com by using theE-learning model. The E-learning model was built by the researcher and the superviser of thestudy together. Activities of the E-learning modeled class lasted for one term during 2004Fall.79-item ?E-learning Attitude Questionnaire? was used to measure the level of attitutesand the rate of adoption of E-learning. Specifically, this study examined the demographiccharacteristics of preservice teachers who were enrolled in E-learning activity, perceptions ofcooperative study, use of E-learning and the internet use. A five-point Likert scale was used tomeasure the preservice teachers? responses on 36 questions about the uses of E-learning. As asecond questionnaire, ?Web Site Evaluation Form? was used for the evaluation of the web siteemk.egitimi.com which was built and used for the E-learning activitiy of this study.Data analysis for research questions included computing the frequencies, means,percentages, standard deviations and Post Hoc Tukey tests to determine preservice teacherperceptions of E-learning. This study found that preservice teachers? perceptions of E-learning is positive at the mean level of 3.80 (over 5). An average of 90% of the participantsperceived E-learning as a beneficial activity. Of the participants, 63.8% believe that the lackof face to face interaction is the limitation of E-learning. Of the questionnaire respondents98% indicated the importance of feedback in E-learning. Finally, a large majority (91%) ofthe participants claim that E-learning will be a more frequently used learning model ineducational activities in the future.