Determining science teachers' attitudes towards distance education during the pandemic period

The Covid -19 pandemic has caused significant changes in different areas of life around the world. One of the areas most affected by the pandemic process was education and face-to-face education had to be suspended at different levels from pre-school to higher education. The concept of distance education, which was generally applied in higher education levels before the pandemic, has become compulsory for other education levels with this process. Many teachers had to teach with this method, which they had never applied before in this process, which developed quite unexpectedly and suddenly. As well as students and parents, teachers faced some difficulties in adapting to this new system. Science is one of the courses that should be carried out practically. For this reason, it is thought that teachers who teach in this area face some difficulties in this process. In this study, which aims to measure the attitudes of science teachers towards distance education during the pandemic process, the survey model, one of the quantitative research models, was used. The sample of the study consists of 131 science teachers working in Antalya Province Kepez District. Personal information form prepared by the researcher and Distance Education Attitude Scale developed by Ağır (2007) were used as data collection tools. Data analysis was done using SPSS 21.0 package program. The Cronbach Alpha coefficient was calculated for the reliability of the scale. In the analysis of the data of the research, the frequency and percentage calculations taken by the teachers from the scale were made. Arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values were calculated for the scale and its sub-dimensions. Independent groups Mann Whitney U test was used for two variables, and Kruskal Wallis tests were applied for more than two variables. In the study, it was determined that the attitude level of the teachers was above the middle value. The years of job in the teaching profession and the type of institution to which they are affiliated were determined as the factors affecting the level of teachers' attitudes towards distance education. It was observed that there were significant differences in the sub-dimensions of the attitude scale in terms of education levels. It was determined that gender, department graduated, level of distance education knowledge, owning a computer, and having home or telephone internet did not have a statistically significant effect on attitude scores.