Examination of class teachers' attitudes and opinions on distance education

With the rapidly spreading pandemic in the world, various restrictions have been experienced all over the world. These limitations have also manifested themselves in the field of education and the distance education system has been started in schools. Undoubtedly, there were various problems in this system. In this research, which was conducted to examine the attitudes of classroom teachers towards distance education and their views on distance education during the pandemic period, a mixed method in which quantitative and qualitative methods were used together was used. While the primary school teachers constituted the universe of the research, the sample consisted of the primary school teachers working in Erzurum and Kırşehir provinces in the 2022-2023 academic year. In order to collect data, 300 classroom teachers were reached. "Personal Information Form" was used in order to reach the demographic information of the participating teachers. An attitude scale prepared by Ağır (2007) was used to collect quantitative data, and a semi-structured questionnaire consisting of 12 questions prepared by the researcher and his supervisor was used to collect qualitative data. Confirmatory factor analysis of the attitude scale used in the analysis of quantitative data was made and the scale was revised. SPSS 25 statistical program was used in the analysis of quantitative data. In the analysis of the data, the differentiation of teachers' opinions according to gender, seniority, class size, whether or not they took a course, the type of job and the type of settlement was examined. Normality tests, t-tests and ANOVA tests were used for the examinations. After providing the assumption of normality, confirmatory factor analysis was performed using the LISREL 8.80 (Linear Structural Relations 8.80) package program. Content analysis was used in the analysis of qualitative data. The answers given by the participating teachers to the questions in the semi-structured questionnaire were grouped under the headings and their percentage distribution was examined. As a result of the analysis of the quantitative data, it was concluded that there was no significant difference between the attitudes of the participant teachers towards distance education according to gender and the type of job, while there was a significant difference according to seniority, length of service, class size, whether or not they took a course, and type of placement. The attitude scores of the participating teachers with a service period of 1-5 years were higher than the teachers with a service period of 26 years or more. In addition, according to the results of the research, the attitudes of the teachers working in Erzurum to distance education were found to be higher than the teachers working in Kırşehir. As a result of the qualitative data, it was determined that while teachers have positive approaches to distance education, they also have negative approaches, the most common problem is access and hardware related problems, and the most difficult course is mathematics. It is seen that the attitudes of the classroom teachers participating in the research towards distance education are lower than that of face-to-face education. In order to successfully manage a possible distance education system in the future, teachers should be provided with necessary training on distance education, the use of technology in education should be increased, and the access-hardware problem for extended education should be resolved.