A DIAGNOSTIC STUDY OF OPEN UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' PERCEPTIONS ABOUT THE PROBLEM OF DISTANCE EDUCATION APPLICATION

Distance education is regarded as one of the means for educating people who have not had formal education chance or who have not preferred the formal education. Distance education, on the other hand, is quite difficult and requires the fulfillment of various conditions. When the applications of distance education are examined, it is seen that it provides one way communication and the students have various problems. The aim of this study, within this framework, is to examine the perceptions of Open University students in relation to the problems of distance education applications. The subjects of this study are the Open Faculty students (n=45) who attend to Open Faculty courses provided by Abant Izzet Baysal University. The data were collected through interviews. The results indicated that i) they preferred mostly the open learning as they worked at different offices, ii) they pointed out that most of the university and faculty students had positive attitudes towards them. However, they reported that i) they had difficulty in studying by themselves, ii) had some problems as open learning faculty students and iii) they believed they would have problems in finding a job in the future.