MASTER’S DEGREES IN DISTANCE EDUCATION IN TURKEY AND OPINIONS OF STUDENTS

Year 2018, Volume: 2 Issue: 1, 91 - 107, 30.06.2018

Gülsen Serap Çekerol

Abstract

The number of undergraduate students who want to specialize in their own
fields or in others are increasing. For this purpose, they do master’s degrees.
However, graduate students who also work cannot achieve their purpose, because
of reasons such as class hours clashing with working hours, or long distance
between work and school. Some who enroll programs cannot complete them, and
some others cannot attend master degree programs since the programs they want
to enroll are in other towns, or since they lack foreign language skills. Master’s
degree programs in distance education eliminate the time and distance
constraints for graduate students who work. The aim of the present study is to
get the opinions of master’s degree students on distance education system via a
questionnaire by which they can evaluate it. The questions revolving around
success factors of distance education were sent to students through social
media online. It is difficult to determine clear limits of success factors of
distance education models, however the study focused on rather general
criteria. Specific missions of each and every university may well imply new
criteria and exclude some others. The questionnaire of the present study
includes questions on comprehensive criteria in institutional management, assessment
and improvement of education, technical service, educational mediums,
educational designs, etc. The questionnaire with 32 sections was conducted with
the students enrolled in 2016-2017 spring semester. A random sample of 247
volunteers participated the questionnaire and the data were presented in tables
with their frequency and percentage. The findings include suggestions for
practitioners and researchers. 

Keywords

Distance Education, Distance Master Degree Education, Student Opinion

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