Determination of the relationship between university students' attitudes towards distance education and their levels of technological literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic

Due to the Covid-19 epidemic that affected the whole world and our country, distance education was mandatory in our country in the 2019-2020 academic year. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between university students' attitudes towards distance education and their technology literacy levels during the Covid-19 epidemic. Relational screening method was used in this study. The study group consists of 240 students studying at different universities and participating in the distance education process. The Attitude Scale Towards Distance Education developed by Er (2021) and the Technology Literacy Scale developed by Yiğit (2011) were used to collect the data. Google Forms were used to apply the scales during the Covid-19 epidemic, as face-to-face communication was not possible. After data collection, normality test was performed for both scales. After determining that the distribution was normal, t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and correlation analysis, which are among the parametric tests for the research questions, were performed with the SPSS 24 package program. According to the findings obtained within the scope of the first sub-objective of the research; University students' attitude scores towards distance education are positive. In addition, according to the findings obtained within the scope of this sub-objective, it was concluded that there is no statistically significant difference between university students' attitudes towards distance education and their gender, GPA and class levels. The second sub-objective of the research is to determine the technology literacy levels of university students. According to the results of these sub-objective findings, the technology literacy levels of university students are close to high levels. Additionally, within the scope of this sub-objective; It was concluded that there is no statistically significant difference between the technological literacy levels of university students and their gender, class level and GPA variables. Within the scope of the third sub-objective of the research, the relationship between attitude scale scores towards distance education and technology literacy scale scores was investigated. Accordingly, it was concluded that there was a positive, low-level significant relationship between university students' attitudes towards distance education and their technology literacy levels during the Covid-19 epidemic. Improving the technology literacy skills of students is important to further increase their attitude levels towards distance education in a positive direction. Since the development of technology literacy skills along with other 21st century skills positively affects university students' attitudes towards distance education, it is recommended to increase technology literacy training, especially in higher education. Keywords: Distance Education, Technological Literacy, Covid-19, University Students