Online Learning Readiness Level and Perceived Social Presence of The Teacher Candidate’s in The Online Learning Environment an E.M.U Example

Recent developments on the ICT’s have led to the emergence of major changes not only in people’s lives but also in educational environment. It is observed that distance learning programs are being very popular from many institutions. It is known that evaluation of the quality of the learning environment is very important for the distance education program’s achievements. The aim of this study is to investigate the online learning readiness level and perceived social presence of teacher candidates in terms of gender and branch. The research group of the study is consisted of, 94 students who’s registered at the online pedagogical formation program at the 2014-2015 academic fall term of the Eastern Mediterranean University. Online learning readiness scale developed by Hung, Chou, and Chen and Own (2010) which is translated into Turkish by Yurdugül and Alsancak Sirakaya (2013) and social presence scale developed by Arbaugh (2008) which is translated in Turkish by Kilic Cakmak, Cebi and Kan (2014) were apply for data collection. The result of this research identified that major numbers of teacher candidate’s online readiness level is relatively high and the online social presence level of the teacher candidates is medium. Although, there was some significant differences among males and females students in terms of social presence in the online learning environment. Keywords: Online Learning Readiness Level, Online Social Presence Level, Teacher Candidates