The effects of emergency remote teaching on learner autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions of high school EFL students

COVID-19 pandemic has changed people's lives dramatically, the way people socialize and go shopping, the way teachers teach, and students learn. Because of the necessity to reduce the physical contact among people and thus stop the spread of the virus, many people were obliged to stay at home. Accordingly, this resulted in giving a pause to schooling made up of bricks and moving to emergency remote teaching (ERT) made up of internet connections and online social networks. However, that movement was not like a planned transition from face-to-face education to hybrid or online, but it was a sudden, temporary and, most importantly, unplanned change. This unplanned nature of ERT created a substantial academic, social, and mental space that needed to be fulfilled mainly by students themselves. Therefore, the characteristics like autonomy and self-efficacy gained much importance for students to take their responsibilities for learning English. They also enabled students to know their strengths and weaknesses in learning English. For that reason, this study aims to discuss the effects of ERT on learner autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions of high school students and the relationship between autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions of students in the ERT context in addition to the ERT with the advantages and disadvantages of the students' point of view. This study focuses on students' autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions for fifteen weeks before and after the ERT process. It compares the results acquired through the questionnaires before and after the ERT to determine whether there is a significant change in high school students learner autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions. The current study also focuses on describing participants' views and feelings concerning ERT. In this study, the research is framed with the sequential explanatory design of the mixed-method design concepts. In order to investigate students' autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions, two questionnaires were distributed to 109 Turkish high school students (purposive sampling): the Autonomy Learner Questionnaire (ALQ), composed of 33 five point Likert-scale items in eight autonomy dimensions to investigate autonomy levels of students, and the English Self-Efficacy Scale (E-SES) to analyze self-efficacy perceptions of students in learning English. In addition, 20 students (extreme case sampling) were chosen on the bases of the participants' responses given to the ALQ, and E-SES were interviewed at the end of the process to gain a deeper understanding. In order to analyze the quantitative data in the study, SPSS 25.0 was taken into practice. For the qualitative data, on the other hand, content analysis was employed. The detailed data analysis indicated that the ERT process had positive impacts on particular items on students' learner autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions, considering the pre-and post-test results. Furthermore, learner autonomy and self-efficacy were strongly correlated with each other. Alongside of limited positive opinions, Participants mostly expressed their opposing views regarding ERT. This study provides a deeper understanding of the effect of the pandemic on the learner autonomy and self-efficacy perceptions of EFL high school students. Thus, it may provide several implications for teachers/instructors, material developers, and The Ministery of Education in Turkey. Keywords: Emergency remote teaching, learner autonomy, self-efficacy perceptions, EFL classes, high school students.