The Effect of Teachers' Cognitive Flexibility on Attitudes towards Compulsory Distance Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The period when education services were tried to be provided remotely due to the COVID-19 epidemic enabled teachers to be intertwined with technology-supported teaching platforms. The acquisition of the technology required to use the platform, adaptation of the existing teaching strategies, methods, and techniques to the platform, and the need to stay in touch with all stakeholders related to education in this process have led to new experiences for teachers and many challenging situations. During this process, it was predicted that teachers frequently use their cognitive flexibility, which enables them to think about different solutions and make functional changes for different or problematic situations. The research is a survey study. Data were collected from teachers with the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory and the Attitude Scale towards Compulsory Distance Education. Their validity and reliability were retested within this research's scope. The results of this study, in which the data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, show that the cognitive flexibility of the teachers participating in the research was high during the epidemic period. They had attitudes that could not be evaluated positively or negatively regarding compulsory distance education. Although there is a relationship between teachers' cognitive flexibility levels and their attitudes towards compulsory distance education, it is low. The cognitive flexibility of teachers can predict a very small part of their attitudes towards compulsory distance education. The findings obtained from the research are discussed with other research results.