Postgraduate students’ attitudes towards distance learning (The case study of Gazi University)

AbstractThe study examined postgraduate students’ attitudes towards web based distance learning. For this purpose, web-based distance learning (WBDL) attitude questionnaire and demographic survey are applied to Gazi university information technology distance learning postgraduate students. 64 postgraduate students were attended the study. Students could mark questionnaire options such as strongly disagree, disagree, neutral (neither agree nor disagree), agree, strongly agree. Descriptive statistics, independent- sample t test, correlation, one-way ANOVA techniques are used for analyzing data. The statistical significance level was accepted as 0.05 in the study. Results revealed that there is a general positive attitude towards distance learning. The attitudes of females towards web based distance learning were found to be significantly more positive than males. The majority of students found themselves more comfortable in distance learning than traditional learning and they also found that distance learning was more efficient than traditional learning. However, the majority of students found that they felt bored while they are studying over the web. On the basis of results, some proposals are made for postgraduate distance learning. It is considered that the evaluation results obtained from study would be beneficial for postgraduate distance learning studies