Digital Divide vs. Inclusive Thinking: The Educational Television in Turkey

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools closed down in many countries, and the students participate in virtual-only classes. However, as there is no equality in access to technology and connectivity among the populations, this has become a major problem for the millions, intensifying the digital divide. Thus, in order to mitigate this digital gap, many countries have taken several measures to use educational technology in different ways. Turkey is one of them and has supported distance education through the use of educational television. Therefore, this chapter explores the implementation of educational television by introducing its background, use, and contributions to foreign language instruction and contextualises it in a scholarly discussion of the digital divide and inclusive education within the local context of Turkey. Ultimately, the chapter provides recommendations for the policymakers to support inclusive education to embrace wide masses of learners. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Opinions of Secondary School Eighth Grade Students upon Distance Education and Preparation Process for High School Entrance Exam during the Pandemic

With the Covid-19 pandemic, the need for examining the effect of distance education process, where millions of students have been caught unprepared, on Turkish education has arisen. It is rather important to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the education in this process and to give the right direction to the process by overcoming the existing problems. In accordance with this purpose, the opinions of the students in secondary school eighth grade during the pandemic have been taken regarding the Turkish education and preparation process for high school entrance exam in this period. Case study, one of the qualitative research methods, have been used in this research. The data has been collected by using an interview form. The findings of the research have been examined by being categorized in line with the questions in the interview form and presented respectively. Distance education has some shortcomings due to certain reasons in terms of Turkish lesson. Many reasons such as the lack of technological knowledge of the students and teachers, the difficulty to access technological tools, communication difficulties in distance education, have reduced the students' interest in the Turkish lessons and negatively affected the preparation process for the high school entrance exam. It has been observed that the most important effect of the current situation is the loss of motivation of the students. © CRES 2022.All rights reserved.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF FLUENT READING SKILLS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS WITH READING COMPREHENSION, READING ATTITUDE AND ANXIETY DURING THE COVID-19 PROCESS

The covid-19 pandemic, which affects life in every way, has inevitably had repercussions on education. The fact that schools are closed for a long time and education is continued remotely has become a variable that affects the academic achievements of students. In this context, the impact of the covid-19 pandemic on reading and reading comprehension, which are language skills, has been a matter of curiosity. The research aims to determine the effect of fluent reading skills of secondary school students on reading comprehension and their relationship with reading attitude and anxiety during the covid-19 pandemic process. The target group of the study is 300 students who are at the level of the fifth and eighth grades. In the research, student recognition form, reading attitude scale, reading anxiety scale, informative and narrative reading texts, multidimensional fluency scale, reading comprehension test and audio recordings were used as data collection tools. The data of the research were collected in accordance with the scanning method, the obtained data were transferred to the SPSS program and analyzed. In the results section of students ' reading skills and fluency without the required level of reading comprehension, reading fluency and reading comprehension skills of the students to be more successful in Girl, eighth grade students were higher than the positive attitudes of fifth grade students, it was determined that anxiety and reading. The results obtained at the end of the study were compared with the literature and some suggestions were made. (English) [ FROM AUTHOR]

Experiences of Graduate Students in Turkish Education During the Covid-19 Pandemic Process

The aim of this study is to reveal the experiences of graduate students in the field of Turkish education during the pandemic process. Phenomenology design, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the research. The sample of the research consists of graduate and doctoral students studying at different universities. Easily accessible case sampling was used to determine the study group. The data of the study were collected with the interview guide prepared by the researchers and given the final shape after the expert opinion was taken. The study group was reached by using internet tools (Zoom) and data were collected. The content analysis of data was made. As a result of the research, it was seen that during the pandemic process graduate students experienced advantages such as increased technological opportunities, accessing to online materials easily, time saving and efficient studying opportunities. However, disadvantages such as inefficient lessons, lack of interaction, inability to focus on lessons, data collection problems, and inability to benefit from libraries were also revealed as problems experienced by graduate students. Students expect technological opportunities to continue, but to ensure normalization in some issues that cannot be resolved with these opportunities. They think that face-to-face education is more qualified, communication is better, and research can be done more effectively.