Examination of students' and academic's opinions on non-thesis master's education in higher education

Purpose: In this research, it is aimed to determine the opinions of the academics who teach non-thesis master's courses through distance education and non-thesis master's students who take courses with distance education in non-thesis master's degrees on distance education in higher education. Method: In this study case study design which is one of the qualitative research methods was adopted. The study group of the research consists of 17 students who getting non-thesis master's education through distance education in Eskişehir in the 2021-2022 academic year, and 8 academics giving lectures through distance education in non-thesis master's programs in Eskişehir. Semi-structured interview form was used to collect data in the research. The obtained data were analyzed using content analysis.According to the results of the analysis, themes, categories, and codes were created. Results: It was determined that most of the participant students made their department preferences for personal development in their master's education. Students mentioned the advantages of distance education and most of them emphasized especially the time and recording of the lessons. Similarly, majority of the academics stated that distance education is advantageous in terms of time and recording the lessons. Participant students pointed out that the disadvantages of distance education are mostly lack of interaction, technical problems, communication problems. Participant academics emphasized the lack of interaction, communication problems, and assessment and evaluation process as the disadvantages of distance education. The majority of the students and some of the academics prefer face to face education in non-thesis master's education. Participant students thought that content of the course is useful and adequate. Most of the academics remarked that the content of the course is appropriate. It was reached the majority of the students encountered technical problems. On the other hand, it was determined that most of the academics encountered classroom management problem. Conclusion and Suggestions: Most of the academics and students stated that the advantages of distance education are the time and recording of the lessons, the disadvantages of distance education are lack of interaction and communication problems. The majority of the academics and students declared positive opinions on the content of the course. Both students and academics mostly made suggestions about handling the course. It can be suggested to use the platform actively by communicating with students and academics via e-mail and bulk mail through the course management system.