An investigation into quality standards for online courses towards vacational high schools

As a result of the integration of Information and Communication Technologies into Educational Sciences, new concepts such as blended learning, open learning, flexible learning, integrated learning, distant learning, distributed learning and online learning have been put forward. Depending on these developments, there have occurred an increasing number of online programs and online courses. In addition, academic literature point out that the issue of quality is quite important in online education. Institutions? lack of experience and their inefficient infrastructure the issue of quality. With this reality, educational institutions carrying out studies in the field of online education try to cope with the uncertainties regarding the issue of quality in online education, determine standards for quality assurance and establish control mechanisms for the application of the standards. Reviewing the related literature has revealed that unlike face-to-face education, there has not been enough focus on the issue of quality in online education in our country. With this problem in mind, the study was designed to determine the views of students - attending the Computer Programming Departments of Vocational High Schools where online courses are executed ? about the importance of quality standards and about their application.In this study carried out throughout Turkey, the singular and relational survey model was applied. The population of the study included 2345 second-grade students attending the Computer Programming Departments of public and private universities in Turkey in the Spring Term of the 2009-2010 academic year where online courses were executed at the time of the study. In order to help obtain clear results in the study, the population of the study was determined without doing any sampling. The data collection tool developed was applied to 1510 participants, and a return-rate of 64% was achieved. In order to collect the research data, the ?Quality Standards Evaluation Questionnaire for Online Courses? was used.As a result of the analysis of the research data, it was seen that the participants considered all the quality standards important. It was also revealed that the participants? views about the importance of quality standards in online courses did not statistically significantly differ with respect to such variables as gender, belief in the benefits of online courses, appropriateness of online courses to study habits, the ability to use the environment in which online courses are executed and the general academic averages.The views of the participants taking their courses on online basis revealed that most of the quality standards were applied. However, it was also found out that there were a considerable number of unsuccessful applications of quality standards. Although the participants? views about the application of the quality standards in online courses did not differ with respect to the variable of gender, they differed with respect to such variables as belief in the benefits of online courses, appropriateness of online courses to study habits, the ability to use the environment in which online courses are executed and the general academic averages.It was also revealed that the students taking online courses considered such basic areas as support to students, sources for learning and assessement and evaluation as more important than the basic areas of course activities and that the importance mean score regarding the basic area of measurement/evaluation was statistically significantly different from the importance mean score regarding the basic area of course activities. It was also found out that the basic area of sources for learning and assessement and evaluation in online courses were successfully applied; that the basic area of support to students was partly successfully applied; and that the basic area of course activities was not applied successfully.