Evaluation of a content management system prepared according to transformative learning theory within the context of lifelong learning

Instability of the information today and its fast changing nature have also changed the human profile. Information society of the 21st century expect individuals to learn the information, absorb the learnt information, use them in real life and renew them according to changing conditions. This is possible with the spread of lifelong learning activities. Individuals with lifelong learning skills can become the qualified labor force that the market needs and have an effective role in global development. Lifelong learning activities are mostly being continued by various courses given by Public Training Centers under Ministry of National Education. Participants of the courses are adults who have passed conventional age of education and reached a physical and mental maturity. Purpose of this study is to study the effect of education given with the support of Moodle Learning Management System (LMS) customized according to transformative learning theory from adult education theories to trainees being trained at computer operating opened within Public Training Centers on academic success of trainees, on motivations towards training materials and to evaluate customized LMS. In line with this purpose, integrated evaluation in which direct and indirect evaluations are made together was carried out in this study. Research design is a pretest - posttest control group design. Study group of the study is 69 course students participating in "Computer Operating" course given by Bingöl Public Training Center during 2015-2016 educational year. To create research and control groups in the study, 69 people were divided into two groups as 32 people (research group) and 37 people (control group) considering having internet access at home and their educational levels. The students in control group were given training only face to face on computer lab setting while research group students were given on computer lab setting and also customized Moddle LMS. The implementation lasted for almost four weeks. During the conducted study, four data collection tools were used. First data collection tool was the questionnaire page in which eight items containing demographic information are located. Second data collection tool was the "Academic Achievement Test" consisting of 48 questions developed by Elçiçek (2015). Third data collection tool was "Training Materials Motivation Questionnaire (TMMQ)" consisting of 24 items, adopted to Turkish by Kutu ve Sözbilir (2011) and developed by J. M. Keller. Forth data collection tool was "Educational Website Evaluating Scale" consisting of 41 items and developed by Ateş (2013) to be applied only on research group at the end of the study. At the end of the study, it was found that both method increased the academic success of the students and their motivation towards learning materials; however, academic success and motivations toward learning materials of students in training supported with customized LMS were higher than the ones who received the training only face to face on computer lab setting. It was also determined that students mostly gave answers between "Good" and "Very Good" to items of the scale applied to research group students to evaluate LMS. So, customized LMS can be said to be an Keywords: Transformative learning theory, lifelong learning, content management system, Moodle, learning materials motivation.