Parent views on distance education at the K12 level during the COVID-19 pandemic process

During the COVID- 19 pandemic, which has affected our country as well as the whole world, the face-to-face education system has changed and left its place to distance education. With this sudden change, one of the factors affecting student motivation and success in distance education is parents. In this study, it was aimed to examine distance education based on the views of parents. The research was designed as a case study from qualitative patterns. The participants of the research were 21 parents of students studying in Amasya in the 2020-2021 academic year. While determining the parents interviewed within the scope of this research, parents status of the students who were studying with distance education during the COVID- 19 epidemic pandemic was taken into account and the study group was formed based on this criteria. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to examine the views of parents on distance education during the pandemic process. Interview questions were created in such a way that parents could evaluate distance education within the framework of students, student success, school management, teachers, parents, assessment and evaluation activities, and technological infrastructure. Data were collected through interviews with parents via Zoom for approximately 15 minutes. The data obtained from the interviews were analyzed with content analysis. With the results obtained from the research, it has been observed that the participation of parents has a strong effect on increasing the school success of K12-level students studying with distance education applied during the pandemic process. It was stated that with distance education, parents could not manage the process well and children were insufficient in their emotional and social skills. Based on the findings, suggestions were made to parents, teacher's and other stakeholders regarding the efficient use of the distance education process.