Investigation of vocational and Technical Anatolian High school teachers and students' attitudes towards distance education

The aim of this study is whether the attitude levels of Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School teachers and students towards distance education studies and whether these levels differ in terms of various variables (age, gender, marital status, educational status, professional seniority, branch, competence in using information technologies, etc.) to determine. In the research, scanning model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used. The universe of the study consists of the teachers who work in the Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School affiliated to the Sakarya Provincial Directorate of National Education in the 2020-2021 academic year, and the students studying in these schools. The sample of the study is 244 teachers and 970 students. The "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher and the "Distance Education Attitude Scale" developed by Ağır (2007) were used as data collection tools. The analysis of the data was carried out with the SPSS 24.0 package program. Cronbach Alpha coefficient was calculated for the reliability of the scale used, and Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed for construct validity. In the analysis of the research data, descriptive statistics were used first to determine the scores that students and teachers got from the scale. Scale items are shown with frequency and percentage tables. Arithmetic mean, median, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values of the scores were calculated for the scale and its sub-dimensions. Parametric tests were used in the analysis of the data found to be normally distributed as a result of the Shapiro-Wilk normality test and Q-Q graph analysis. In the study, independent groups t test was used in the sub-problems related to teachers 'gender, educational status and branch type, and students' gender variables; in the related sub-problems such as seniority, proficiency in using information technologies, distance education experience, internet connection disconnection problem and having information tools; with variables such as the class level of the students, the field of education, the income level of the family, the ability vii to use information technologies, the distance education experience, the problem of internet connection disconnection one-way analysis of variance (One Way ANOVA) was used. In the study, it was determined that the attitude levels of teachers and students towards distance education are below the medium level. It has been concluded that there are significant differences in the attitude levels of teachers towards distance education according to their professional seniority variable, their level of competence in using information technologies and the problem of internet connection disconnection, there were no significant differences according to the variables of gender and educational status, the status of being a profession or culture lesson teacher, distance education experience, and possession of information tools; there are significant differences in the attitude levels of students towards distance education according to gender variable, class level, field of study and internet connection disconnection, and there are no significant differences according to the income level variable of the family, the level of competence to use information technologies, distance education experience and possession of information tools. It is important for the countries' education system and development to determine the reasons affecting the attitudes of teachers and students towards distance education, raising the attitudes of teachers and students towards distance education to a positive level and taking the necessary steps to ensure that education is not interrupted, distance education is seen as a strong option when face-to-face education is not available under extraordinary circumstances.