Examining the relationship between self-directed learning levels of teachers and readiness for online learning

The spread of online learning has brought the need for self-directed learning. Due to the pandemic conditions, teachers had to actively use online learning platforms. It has become essential for teachers to improve themselves in online learning. In today's society, where the use of technology in education has become widespread, different teaching methods have found their place and individual learning has gained importance, teachers need to advance on the way to become lifelong learners by managing their learning-teaching processes well. For this reason, it is thought that it is important for teachers to adapt to the online learning process by managing their own learning. In this research, the relationship between teachers' self-directed learning levels with their readiness for online learning, and the relationship between teachers' self-directed learning levels with their readiness for online learning was determined by age, gender, branch, marital status, professional seniority, education level, school, and such as participation in online training level is aimed to examine in terms of various variables. The relational survey model, one of the quantitative research designs, was used to achieve this aim. The universe of the research consists of 2104 people who continue to teach at various levels in a city in the Black Sea Region in the 2021-2022 academic year. The sample size was determined as 325 people by simple random sampling method. The research data were used by using the "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher, the "Self-directed Learning Inventory" adapted into Turkish by Çelik & Arslan (2016), and the "Online Learning Readiness Scale" adapted into Turkish by İlhan & Çetin (2013) has been collected. SPSS 25 program was used to analyze the collected data. When analyzing descriptive statistics; standard deviation, arithmetic mean, and minimum-maximum values were checked. However, since it was seen that the data were not normally distributed as a result of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, the data were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests, which are non-parametric tests. When the findings obtained in the study were examined, it was concluded that both the self-directed learning levels of the teachers and their readiness for online learning were high. It has been determined that gender, marital status, age, educational status, and professional seniority do not cause differentiation in teachers' self-directed learning, but participation in online training, type of school, and branch affect the level of self-directed learning. It has been concluded that there is no difference between teachers' readiness for online learning and gender, marital status, professional seniority, and school type, but there is a difference between participation in online training, age, branch, and education status. In addition to these results, it was determined that there was a high level of a positive relationship between teachers' self-directed learning levels and their readiness for online learning. In addition to all these, it has been concluded that the online learning process is more self-directed, and having self-directed learning is an important factor in readiness for online learning.