Challenges experienced during online learning in the COVID-19 era: Teacher and student opinions

In this thesis, determination of challenges confronted by students and teachers during online learning which was compulsory due to the COVID-19 pandemic and decision of whether these determined challenges vary according to the demographic characteristics are aimed. The screening model is used in the research to detect the current situation. By using this model, it is tried to make generalizations to explain the results of the quantitative data collected by means of the scales and surveys, and a specific profile is taken from these generalizations. 342 students studying at Sariyer Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School in Istanbul and 100 teachers working in the same school in the spring term of 2021- 2022 academic year were selected as the sample. The form of demographic information, the scale of problems experienced by the students in online learning, and the survey for teachers to evaluate the online learning mechanism were used as the data collection tools. The data collection tools were applied to the participants face to face. According to the results, among the perceived online learning challenge factors; only the factor of internet access/prices is more perceived as a challenge in terms of gender variable, no factor is perceived as a challenge in terms of age variable, the factor of administrator/instructor subjects is more perceived as a challenge in terms of department variable, administrator/instructor subjects and student motivation are more perceived as challenges in terms of grade level variable, and finally, the case of having a personal computer is less perceived as a challenge compared to the case of not having a personal computer in terms of having a personal computer variable. Considering the participant teachers' perceptions about online learning challenge factors, student motivation and internet access/prices are the main subjects having been perceived as the learning challenges.