ABSTRACT
MOOCs can be considered as a powerful alternative in extraordinary situations where people cannot reach formal education. In recent years, the widespread use of the internet worldwide and especially the CoVID-19 has increased the need of people for MOOCs. However, in order to increase the effectiveness of MOOCs, and to provide a better learning environment, the need to evaluate MOOCs has arisen. One of the indicators of quality in online learning is student satisfaction. Accordingly, this research aims to reveal learner satisfaction in MOOCs. The most important indicator for measuring this satisfaction in MOOCs is user comments. In this study, 39101 comments of the participants in 960 MOOCs were examined by using text mining techniques within the framework of satisfaction.
ABSTRACT
This study purposes to examine the emergency transition to distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspective of university students. Based on this purpose, university students were asked open-ended questions about their distance education experience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Transactional Distance Theory was used as the theoretical framework to form the questions and interpret the findings. 441 university students from a state university participated in the study, and 1443 comments were analysed by using text mining techniques. The findings of the study have revealed that students acknowledge the rapid transition positively, but they have also indicated that the effectiveness of distance education is low. The reason for the ineffectiveness was observed as the lack of interactive elements in the content and the low level of communication between faculty members and students. As a result of the findings of the study, several recommendations on how institutions can take precautions are presented.