Online Education Skills of Teachers: Four Axes of Gaps

Nazime TUNCAY * 1 1 Bahçeşehir Cyprus University, Cyprus, nazime.tuncay@gmail.com * Corresponding Author: nazime.tuncay@gmail.com Article Info Abstract There is a diversity in the teachers’ digital capabilities of online education skills and many research related this for decades. According to the literature review teachers were being discriminated based on numerous gaps. This paper seeks to assess the existence of gaps of teachers’ online education skills in the four axes: access, age, gender, and language. A research was carried out through an online questionnaire and the results of technology-based online education skills; web-based online education skills, and administrative online education skills were analysed statistically. There was a significant digital convergence among the teachers surveyed, which is important for their ability to deliver effective online courses. To bridge these gaps in the educational world of teachers, in-service training plans should be made, collaboratively with the online education experts and technology experts. This research study has some significant results compared to the studies delivered in the last decade. Received: 24 July 2020 Accepted: 30 December 2020


Gaps in Online Education
Educational research is very important for both developed and developing countries and societies, and it is the basis for development in all educational fields, as it keeps educational institutions away from arbitrary actions that may happen to be right in some cases but wrong in others (Elsayed & Abdelkader, 2019). The more that we research the more that we find Gaps in Online Education and the more that we work for finding solutions to it.
There are lots of information about gaps between teachers, students, online course designers in the literature and many researchers seek ways to narrow these gaps in the Online education for years (Arslan, Kutluca & Özpınar, 2011;Brown, 2016;Çoban, 2020;Gunga & Ricketts, 2007;. Its known that there are gaps in Online Education for decades in terms of teachers online teaching skills, in terms of students' online learning capacities, in terms of online technical availabilities and opportunities. With respect to these factors, earlier studies (Ahmed, 2007;Bhanji, 2008;Clarke et al, 2008) cited that the most-accepted gaps are Internet gaps, age gaps, digital gaps, knowledge gaps, access gaps, economic gaps, and performance gaps. Also, Hargittai (2003), Piskurich (2003), Papastergiou & Solomonidou (2005) and Uzunboylu &Tuncay(2010) studied the existence of access gaps and discussed being able to access Online Course Sources. Besides of all the gap researchers and the existent problems in Online Education, many researchers found using different approaches toward teaching and learning, both pedagogical and organizational can help achieve positive outcomes and narrow the gap .

Online Education Skills of Teachers
Literature consist lots of findings where teachers try to improve their own training needs. Most respondents use informal means of professional development to improve elearning expertise and most of them rate current programs poor or fair (European Centre for 3 teacher training programs started (Durak, Saritepeci & Çakır, 2016;Gill, Dalgarno, & Carlson, 2015;Gudmundsdottir & Hatlevik, 2018).
Digital competence training, pre-service teachers have improved in using information searching strategies, accessing information, evaluating the validity and reliability of information, organizing and storing information (Çebi & Reisoğlu, 2019). Digital competence trainings improved preservice teachers' skills of searching for information on the web (Ramírez-Montoya, Mena, & Rodríguez-Arroyo, 2017). The purpose of this study is to find out if there is any gap of teachers between their Online Education skills. We are residing in a planet where technology is contemporary in our life routines. Online Learning is one of the vastest revolutions in individuals' lifespans. They give mobility and excitement to its users that these modern technological devices become most significant part of many people's lives.
From online banking to watch the news on TV, we are confronting the progressions and affects that convey to our lives. Schools couldn't stay out of these online progressions and a wide range of classrooms had been altered, giving its place to virtual classrooms, from special spaces for the perusing of scholarly messages being delivered via social media platforms to sight and sound spaces, where the utilization of data and correspondence innovation had accomplished incredible significance in Online learning.

Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study is to find out if there is any gap of teachers between their web-based online education skills, technology-based education skills and administrativebased online education skills in the four axes: Access, Age, Gender and Language.

Problem and Research Pattern
Teachers having online education skills is essential for an effective online course.
What is more, their skills may differ on the technology based, web-based and administrative based issues. There may also be access difference, age difference, gender difference and language difference among online education skills.
Some offline application as well as online learning applications white boards has found to have positive effects both on learning and quality of teaching and there are some researchers who claim Project-Web Learning Approach may be very effective in online

Journal of Computer and Education Research
Year 2021 Volume 9 Issue 17 1-15 4 education (Elsayed & Abdelkader, 2019). Not only the usability but its applicability and effectiveness has been subject of many research papers for years and it will still continue to be one of the most popular subjects in the education, especially after the Covid-19 Pandemic days.
In this research scan pattern from the quantitative research methods and literature

Process of Data Collection
Process of data collection took place between February 2019 and April 2019. It was in 2-fold: 1. Schools were visited, and paper questionnaires were distributed. 2. Online questionnaires were distributed to teachers from their Social Media accounts, mostly from Messenger and WhatsApp. Distribution of paper questionnaires was not an easy job; lots of travelling and explanation was needed and reminding calls were necessary, some schools were visited 3 times: one for distributing questionnaires and others were for collecting them.
Messenger and WhatsApp messages were easier, but they also had their challenges like messages were sent to the teachers in the friendship. People at social media network was also helpful sharing the messages by sending them to teacher groups. Teachers were also reminding each other to fill the questionnaire. Feedback about the meanings of the questionnaire items and confirmation about their personal data will not be used was given when needed. Teachers mark their own skills or knowledge as excellent, very good, good, basic and needs to be improved.

Data Analysis
Descriptive statistics, frequencies and graphics were used to analyse and to report the data gained from the questionnaire. For data analysis, IBM SPSS Statistics 25 was used. The mean values of the online questionnaire item scores are interpreted as: Values from 1.00 to 2.99 reveals that there is "online education training need" and the values from 3.00 to 5.00 reveals that there is "online education training is not need". The mean and standard deviation of the questionnaire items, which were arranged in three factors, was found by IBM SPSS

Findings and Discussion
The results and discussions will be explained in five sub-sections. In the first section, descriptive studies of questionnaire items will be given, Access Difference among Online  In the research study delivered by with respect to these factors, earlier studies (Acar, 2020;Ahmed, 2007;Anderson, et.al, 2007;Bhanji, 2008  These statistics shows that the limited and unlimited access does not make an important difference in teachers' web-based, technology based and administrative based skills. Teachers who want to learn, like students can find a way to learn things. Difficulties does not make things impossible in education. Always there is a way to achieving goals when there is enough motivation for it. There is not any Age Gaps between Online Education Skills of Teachers. This result is also contradicting with the research study delivered by Uzunboylu and Tuncay (2010), in 2009, a decade before.

Age Difference among Online Education Skills
Web-based, Technology-based, and Administrative-based skills of Teachers above 30 and below 30 are shown in the Table 4. We can see in the Table 3   There were 242 teachers who were below 248 and Table 4 shows that the online education skills of teachers. Although there were differences between two groups, statistical analysis of Independent t-test shows that results for older (above 30) and younger (below 30) teacher groups shows that there were not significant differences between their web based, technology based, administrative based online education skills. There is not Age gap between Online Education Skills of Teachers. This result is also contradicting with the research study delivered by Uzunboylu and Tuncay (2010), in 2009, a decade before.

Gender Difference among Online Education Skills
The means of the female (n=246) and male(n=244) Web-based, technology based, and administrative based skills are shown in Table 4. Values from 1.00 to 2.99 reveals that there is "online education training need" and the values from 3.00 to 5.00 reveals that there is "online education training is not need".

11
According to Table 4 and Table 5, the descriptive statistics and the Independent t-test between female teachers (M=2.47, S.D.=0.5) and male teachers (M=2.64, S.D.=0.5) shows that there is a significant difference between "Administrative Based" Skills of teachers and males were more confident with their skills. This result is similar to the research study delivered by Uzunboylu and Tuncay (2010), in 2009, a decade before.

Discussion, Conclusion and Recommendation
The aim of this study was to find Online Education Skills of teachers in the four axes: Access, Age, Gender and Language. Key point of online education is teachers; the more skilled that the teachers are the more successful are the distance educations. Teachers have evaluated their own skills in the online questionnaire and values from 1.00 to 2.99 interpreted as there is "online education training need" and the values from 3.00 to 5.00 interpreted that there is "online education training is not need". There is not any Age Gaps, Access Gaps between Online Education Skills of Teachers. There were not significant differences between their web based, technology based, administrative based online education skills of teachers. This result is also contradicting with the research study delivered by Uzunboylu and Tuncay (2010), in 2009, a decade before. However, there were significant differences between Bilingual teachers and Monolingual teachers Administrative based learning skills and also Female teachers and male teachers (p<0.05). Moreover, it was interesting to find that teachers don't have training need of Web-Based Skills; but they have training need of Administrative-based Skills and Technology-based needs. In conclusion, it is found that the first 2 gaps of teachers' training needs were bridged in 10 years. This research study was about four axes of gaps and as a result of statistical analysis 2 gaps of teachers training needs, language and gender, is found to exist in 2020.
On the other hand, this research study is limited with 490 teachers who have accepted to participate in the research by solving online questionnaire. In parallel to current study to bridge the bilingual and gender gap between Administrative-based skills of teachers, it is recommended to deliver Second Language (Preferably English, due to its being commonly