1 Introduction
2 Literature review
3 Methodology
4 Results
Category | Description | Percent agreement | Cohen’s Kappa | Frequency |
---|---|---|---|---|
Support for moving to distance education | Tweets support distance education either (1) because there is no other/better option than distance education during Covid-19 crisis; (2) to show support for the Turkish government about the decision. | 97.1 | 0.87 | 13% |
Poor institutional infrastructure | Tweets tell that universities have no technical capability/infrastructure to provide distance education | 97.9 | 0.821 | 6% |
Digital inequality | Tweets underline specific inequalities in the society in terms of accessing distance education (e.g. having computers, internet connection). | 96.8 | 0.874 | 15% |
Negative attitude towards distance education | Tweets state that distance education is inferior to face-to-face education, inefficient, and have no benefit for future career. No justification is provided for the negative attitude. | 94.9 | 0.811 | 16% |
Pedagogical issues | Tweets criticize distance education from pedagogical aspects including low interactivity between teachers and students, poor quality instructional materials, and problems with course planning and management. | 97.4 | 0.679 | 4% |
Concerns about applied courses | Tweets talk about inapplicability of distance education to applied courses | 98.7 | 0.689 | 2% |
Assessment issues | Tweets show worries about fairness of exams/assessment and objective grading | 98.7 | 0,791 | 3% |
Offering alternatives | Tweets suggest specific alternative(s) to distance education | 95.3 | 0.857 | 16% |
Discarding students in decision-making | Tweets claim that students’ views have been ignored when switching to distance education and decision makers should pay attention to the concerns of students | 96.9 | 0.76 | 7% |
Protesting the decision makers | Tweets criticize government and/or other decision makers (e.g. Higher Education Council) about their inability in handling the situation. | 99.8 | 0.92 | 1% |
Physical and mental health issues | Tweets say that current physical and mental health issues in the society hinders distance education | 98.4 | 0.754 | 3% |
Financial issues | Tweets mention financial concerns (e.g. dormitory fees, course fees, and rents) about halting face-to-face education.¨ | 99.3 | 0.806 | 2% |
Social consequences | Tweets express dissatisfaction about social/school life consequences of distance education | 98.5 | 0.556 | 1% |
Emotional expressions | Tweets include explicit expression of emotions about distance education (e.g. sadness, anger, crying) | 96.5 | 0.648 | 6% |
Humor | Tweets that include humour/jokes/memes related to distance education | 96.6 | 0.725 | 5% |
Go to school [i.e. university], and die then.Why, do you want to get sick?It was observed that higher education students further expressed support to distance education because they did not want their courses to be postponed to a future date or their graduation to be delayed.…What do you mean #wedontwantdistanceeducation? Are you nuts? What do you want? Attend courses the whole summer? I don’t understand you… I wont…The ones who say #wedontwantdistanceeducation, what are your suggestions during this pandemic then? For example, would it fit you if this terms is cancelled, you take all the courses [for this term] next year, and seniors students’ education is extended one more year?I will graduate [this year]. I would take that course even if offered in Wuhan. Continue with #distanceeducation.A significant amount of posts under Support for moving to distance education theme regarded #wedontwantdistanceeducation hashtag as a criticism to the government. Thus, some tweets displayed support to the government officials about their decision in switching to distance education.Then, don’t accept the [government] stipends/loans given during this period. No one is doing this [i.e. switching to online education] for pleasure. Do not act as if it is only the students who suffer. This is the first time we experience such a situation. It can’t be foreseen.F*** off then! The government is always regarded with disfavor, whatever it does.Opening this tag is pertness, when all the government agencies are now mobilized [to deal with the Covid-19].Poor institutional infrastructure theme formed % 6 (n = 1319) of tweets. Tweets in this theme have revealed that higher education students had severe problems in accessing online courses. This was mainly because universities did not have sufficient technical infrastructure to provide online courses for big masses of students.No reliable access has been provided to the distance courses. We still can’t access to the course that started on Monday.For the first time, I follow a course like watching silent motion pictures. There is no voice coming but the slides are moving [on the screen]. It’s like a joke!The lesson ends before we manage to log in to the system. The screen is always frozen. Please fix the system!Digital inequality theme consisted of % 15 (n = 3084) of the tweets. It has been observed that some higher education students did not have basic necessities (e.g. computers, and internet) to access online education. Thus, online education has been criticized for leaving disadvantaged students out.What will happen to those who don’t have internet at home? No one cares about them…My friend does not have a computer, forget about the internet.… There are even villages with no cell phone connection in this country. Please first provide equal conditions, or stop giving education like this.Negative attitudes towards distance education theme comprises (%16, n = 3331) of all the tweets. Higher education students have stated that distance education is inferior to face-to-face education in terms of overall effectiveness.Because it is inefficacious.It can’t be a substitute for face-to-face education.What? No to superficial education.You can’t throw a whole education year to the garbage like this. This system you apply [i.e. distance education] will not give any benefit to the students.
If we wanted to study from distance, we would have gone to the Open Education [Faculty].I don’t accept the system that obliges me to study in Open Education although I won formal education.If I wanted to have a degree by watching videos, I would have studied Open Education.Pedagogical issues constituted % 4 (n = 899) of the tweets. The theme revealed that higher education students were not satisfied with the pedagogy applied in online classes during Covid-19 crisis. For example, a common pedagogical issue reported in the tweets was the low interactivity between teachers, students and the content.There is no teacher answering our questions. What kind of education is this?The teacher who gives non-stop lectures for 2,5 hours [in face-to-face education] ended the lesson in half-hour [in online education]We don’t want to have [online] lessons that is all about uploading slides to the systemSo, I paid 9000 Turkish Lira to read pdfs at home?Teachers send pdfs and show no effort at all!Another pedagogical issue observed in the tweets was the planning and management of online courses. It seems that higher education students were not happy with how some teachers organized their online classes.So, online education about giving lots of homework and pinning down students?What the hell is giving an assignment in the morning and asking it to be returned by the evening? I will eat the assignment because of anger.… when we open [our] microphone [during online classes] they [teachers] try to scold us like kids.I think teachers misunderstood the distance education. The aim is to give education not punishment.Concerns about applied courses theme consisted of % 2 (n = 373) of the tweets. Higher education students have posted that distance education was not suitable for applied courses.You can’t teach Medicine with distance education.In order to attend the Piano classes we have to have a piano…I study gastronomy… I don’t understand how applied courses will be taught.Assessment issues theme included % 3 (n = 677) of tweets. Higher education students have expressed a variety of concerns regarding the possibility of cheating and unfair grading in online education.I`m a freshmen in the faculty. Everyone will cheat in the exam. Please don’t allow this.All those problems that will happen during the [online] exams will impact my grade point averag. How this is gonna be compensated? How will many things like noise in the house, electric black out will affect my grades?… Grading will be a fiasco. Everyone will pass with AAs. No one can know who is successful who is not.…Online exams scare us. There will be lots of injustice and we don’t want this to happen.Offering alternatives theme represented % 16 (n = 3352) of the tweets. In this theme, higher education students suggested decision makers to organize summer courses or delay the courses until the pandemic is over.We even accept delaying of courses to summer. At least we won’t be subject to this [online education] system that has no benefit at all.Isn’t it better to come to the school in the summer? I can’t follow this [online] education.Courses should be taught face-to-face when the pandemic is over.Discarding students in decision-making theme included %7 (n = 1401) of tweets. Tweets in this theme has shown that decision makers switched to online learning in a top-down manner without considering students views, expectations and conditions. In addition, many higher education students complained about the chronology of decisions that lead to switching to online education. Higher Education Council first announced a three-week holiday and underlined that there wouldn’t be any teaching during this period. After this announcement, most of the higher education students have returned to their homes leaving their course materials behind. While students were on holiday, Higher Education Council switched to online education. For many students, it was not possible to go back to their universities and pick up course materials. Thus, students ended up having no books, no notes and even no computers to participate in online education.…If you really want to make up for face-to-face education, pay attention to what students say.Why can’t universities make their own decisions in collaboration with their student councils? Have you ever asked formal education [i.e. face-to-face] students, even once, about what they want? Or to the academic staff?...None of our thoughts about education is considered. We are the students, the decision directly effects us, but no one pays regard to students. We send e-mails, write petitions but we can’t reach. The issue ends up in Twitter...It was announced that there will not be distance education. People returned to their homes at a moment’s notice. Everyone left their notes, books at the dormitories.Protesting the decision makers theme was observed in %1 (n = 251) of the tweets. Under this theme, higher education students raised their voices against the government and the other decision makers such as Higher Education Council.Now I will sit and watch how much you will make a hash of this [i.e. online education] while sometimes feeling shame and sometimes pleasure.Wrong decision. You messed up the education.You are too distant to education…You can console yourself with the thought that you offered distance educationPhysical and mental health issues theme comprised %3 (n = 687) of the tweets. It was observed that higher education students have found it challenging to focus on their education under mental and physical health stressors caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.No one can adapt to distance education with this psychology. Every one is concerned about their health…Don’t expect us to study while getting death news every day.…Psychologically, no one is feeling good. While everyone is thinking about their families, how are they gonna successfully learn, attend exams?…How can you keep teaching at this time? You don’t consider students’ psychology.Our balance is upside down. We lost our bearings.Financial Issues theme formed %2 (n = 381) of tweets. Higher education students have reported that they have kept paying school fees, rents and other costs about on-campus education although they do not receive it anymore.Give us back our tuition fees.Who will pay for the contracts we signed for the flats, dormitories and studios? Are we gonna pay for houses we don’t stay? We left all our books at the dormitories. Are we gonna buy them again? You can’t study without resources. Find a solution to this.We are paying to private dormitories for nothing.If I can’t get a face-to-face education in this city, why am I paying rent, bills, dues, and heating fees?Social consequences theme was consisted of % 1 (n = 207) of the tweets. Students have mentioned that online education has ceased their social life at campuses and their graduation ceremony dreams have come to naught.Man, our [time in school] canteen has oozed away.Maybe there are some people we would like to see at school.We would like to say goodbye to our university with a cap and academic gown.So, I won’t be enjoying my school in my senior year and throw a cap?Emotional expressions represented %6 (n = 1243) of the tweets. The theme showed that higher education students displayed a variety of negative emotions with regards to online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. These emotions included anger, frustration, longing, and sadness.Missing schools?... Seriously, this made me upset…We are depleted.We don’t want we don’t want we don’t want!!I will break the keyboard on my head because of anger. What the hell is this?I swear I will cry.The final theme, Humour, represented %5 (n = 1133) of tweets. It was observed that students were expressing their thoughts, feelings and experiences regarding online education through sarcastic posts that sometimes included funny photos and memes.It’s a shock to the lovers who study in same university but live in different cities. There is no spring term, but only distance education [face with tears of joy emojis].From now on, we will look for free Internet under the Coca-Cola caps to attend [online] classes.2019–2020 graduates. [A montaged photo of classmates in hazmat suits with a graduation cap on their head]
5 Discussion
The purpose of this study was to explore Turkish higher education students’ views about online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. For this aim, we explored tweets posted under #wedontwantdistanceeducation hashtag that became a popular topic in Twitter after all the Turkish Universities switched to online education with a top-down decision from the government. Based on thematic analysis of tweets, our study revealed that Turkish higher education students did not unanimously approve online education. The students who support online education stated that there is no better option than online education since Covid-19 virus can easily spread during face-to-face education. Students further stated that the end of the Covid-19 pandemic is unforeseen. Thus, delaying of courses might not be a sustainable solution and have consequences such as postponing of graduation date.Our findings show that Turkish higher education students have an overall negative attitude towards online education. Historically, distance education programs in Turkey had very low admission requirements (Latchem et al., 2009), and many people see distance education as a low quality alternative to on-campus education (Cekerol, 2012). Based on this general view in the society, Turkish higher education students were concerned that distance education would not help with their learning or serve to their career development. It is worthy of noting that Turkish Higher Education Council framed online education during the Covid-19 pandemic as distance education. This framing might have also triggered negative conceptions about online education in time of Covid-19. Nevertheless, the current finding indicate that online education still faces a negative attitude barrier among the higher education students despite its fast diffusion in higher education contexts. Thus, universities should put more effort in changing conceptions about online education in the society in order to attract more online learners.It is important to develop a solid technical infrastructure for online education (Zheng et al., 2018). Our study has shown the students considered that Turkish universities were caught unprepared to the Covid-19 pandemic in terms of technical infrastructure. In Twitter, higher education students complained about a variety of technical problems with online learning such as crashing websites, log in problems, disconnection during online assessments, and missing audio. These complaints suggest that higher education institutions should invest more in their technical facilities to provide smooth learning experiences and increase learner satisfaction.The rapid advancement of Covid-19 across the world has pushed people into forced self-isolation. Consequently, digital tools have become a crucial means for the isolated individuals to access to the outer world. However, there are big gaps between and within the societies in terms of digital access to information and resources (Beaunoyer & Dup, 2020). Such inequalities can have serious consequences on people’s social well-being (Büchi et al., 2018). Extending this, the current study have found that the Covid-19 pandemic escalates inequalities in accessing education. Many higher education students did not have internet connection or computers to access education offered by the universities. As a mitigation strategy, Turkish Higher Education Council offered 6 gigabytes free internet connection to all higher education students to access some specific online education platforms (Anadolu Ajansi, 2020d). However, further efforts are necessary to support online learning of disadvantaged students in Turkey and across the world.Higher education students have reported several pedagogical issues that undermine their online learning experiences during Covid-19 crisis. These issues specifically include low interaction between instructors and students, poor quality course materials and problems in course planning and management. Based on these identified issues, it can be claimed that Covid-19 crisis have caught teachers off guard too. This can be expected since teachers faced a big workload demand to transform their teaching to fully online form. Online and face-to-face teaching are not identical. Online education requires a more thorough planning and a higher time investment in course design and management compared with face-to-face education (Baran et al., 2013). Further, teachers should develop new skills in creating meaningful relationships with students, monitoring student progress, and providing timely feedback in online learning mediums (Philipsen et al., 2019). Skills do not develop over the night. It is unrealistic to expect high quality online education from teachers without providing them training opportunities and support in competence development for online education. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Turkish university teachers were asked to start online teaching in a week after the suspension of face-to-face education. This was like throwing someone who does not know swimming into water and expect him/her to learn swimming by him/herself. Our findings revealed that teachers could not “swim” well, according to their students. Future studies should explore university teachers’ views about the challenges they have faced due to abrupt switching to online education.Higher education students were explicitly worried about assessment issues in online education. Cheating is a common phenomenon in Turkish universities (Yazici et al., 2011). Thus, students were concerned that it was not possible to detect cheating in online exams. Further, students displayed distrust against their universities’ technical capacity in conducting online exams. Lack of security in online exams is a universal challenge in online education (Xiong & Suen, 2018). Some universities use software that can track students’ facial expressions, voice, location and browsing behaviors in computers to avoid cheating. However, this raises serious issues in terms of students’ privacy. Therefore, it is common to evaluate student performance through individual assignments, question and answer sessions, and peer discussions in online education (Xiong & Suen, 2018). However, fast-track or automated grading cannot be applied to these assessment methods. Therefore, offering reliable and fair assessment to the learners without burdening the teachers remains a big challenge in online education (Akimov & Malin, 2020).The current findings revealed that switching to online education during the Covid-19 pandemic has hit students from several aspects other than education quality. For example, many students expressed worries about continuing financial burden of suspended face-to-face education. A considerable amount of students have also expressed their disappointments regarding the social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic such as missing friends and cancelled graduation ceremonies. In addition, students were not able to focus on their education due to mental and physical health issues in themselves or their family members. Students’ worries and disappointments are also reflected as negative emotional expressions in their Twitter posts. Considering this, we suggest that universities should support mental well-being of their students in addition to sustaining education at these exceptional times.Social media has been a popular civic and political engagement platform for higher education students (Cabrera et al., 2017; Mwangi et al., 2018). Supporting previous work, we have found that Turkish higher education students have been eager in reaching out government agencies (e.g. Turkish Higher Education Council and university administrations) about their expectations and concerns about the online education during the Covid-19 pandemic. Students made it explicit that they are ignored during the decision-making process and suggested some solutions to the ongoing problems with online education (e.g. applied courses). However, students were not united in terms of their demands from government agencies. For example, some suggested courses to be organized in the summer rather than having them online. On the contrary, some argued that organizing summer courses would be a terrible idea. Nevertheless, our findings show that listening to students’ voices in social media can provide valuable insights to government agencies about the impact of their decisions among the students and help to modify their decisions with regards to the multiple perspectives presented by the students in social media.Finally, the current findings indicate that higher education students’ use of social media is not limited to political or civic engagement. For example, entertainment is a common gratification sought from social media (Author). In the current study, a humor theme was evident in postings under the #wedontwantdistanceeducation hashtag. In these posts, students were making fun of their online learning experiences (e.g. posting gif pictures or memes about how they follow online courses, joking about girl/boyfriends living in different cities, and mentioning some funny nicknames seen in online classes). Thus, it can be concluded that Turkish higher education students use social media for entertainment purposes as well.The current study reflects Turkish higher education students’ initial responses to the online remote education at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, a plethora of studies have explored how the sudden switch to online remote teaching has impacted higher education community from various perspectives. Overall, the findings have showed that the remote online education challenges found in this study has had negative impact on students’ well-being (Holm-Hadulla et al., 2021; Lukacs, 2021). High stress, increased burn out and decreased organizational commitment were also observed among the teachers (Akartuna & Serin, 2022; Esici et al., 2021; Pressley et al., 2021). Drawing on this, research community and policy makers have come up with several remedies to tackle the challenges of remote online learning. These remedies included facilitating faster uptake of open educational resources (Stracke et al., 2022), emphasis on professional development of teachers for online education (İbrahim et al., 2022; Rowland et al., 2022), utilizing social media for just-in-time information seeking and knowledge sharing (Carpenter et al., 2021; Dindar & Yaman, 2018; Greenhow et al., 2021), sharing experiences about new ways of online teaching (Biasutti et al., 2022; Infante-moro et al., 2022; Nerantzi, 2020; Sadeck, 2022), and facilitating community building and inclusion in online platforms (Benson et al., 2021). We hope that the challenges faced and the lessons leant during the pandemic time will facilitate development of highly resilient education systems that will support human development and well-being in both physical and online settings.
6 Conclusion
Our study shows that the Covid-19 pandemic has been a benchmark to assess Turkish higher education students’ perceptions and experiences about online education, and Turkish universities’ readiness for offering it. By using thematic analysis on Twitter posts under the #wedontwantdistanceeducation hashtag, we have found out that higher education students have a general negative attitude towards online education, and rather prefer face-to-face education. Based on this, we suggest that universities offering online programs or degrees should have a thorough look at the historical and societal reasons underlying those negative attitudes. The current study further identified several challenges that undermine the quality of online learning in Turkish universities during Covid-19 crisis. Based on the challenges reported in this paper, we suggest that universities should develop their technical infrastructure for online education, support university teachers in developing their online teaching skills, and provide secure and fair assessment in online courses. Further, universities should provide support to their students in coping with the mental and physical stress caused by the Covid-19 virus. Our findings further revealed that digital inequality in accessing online education during Covid-19 has had negative impacts on learning of disadvantaged higher education students. Thus, governments should take actions to provide equal access to education among different socio-economical layers of the society.