Attitudes of Teacher Candidates towards Values Teaching via Distance Education

Overview & Synopsis

It is possible to reach millions of people regardless of time and place through distance education; this brings up the issue of values education being carried out by distance education. This research aims to investigate the attitudes of teacher candidates towards value education via distance education. The research was designed in accordance with the descriptive survey model. Gazi University Faculty of Education constitutes the universe of the research with the departments of foreign languages education, Turkish and social sciences education, mathematics and science education, and primary education. Research data were collected by using one of the non-probability sampling methods convenience sampling. Within this scope, data analysis was realized with 698 students and in the meantime, the "Attitude Scale towards Distance Education" developed by Demir and Çetin (2022) was applied in the research. During the data analysis, descriptive statistics, Mann-Whitney U test, and Kruskal-Wallis test were implemented. It has been revealed that teacher candidates have positive attitudes about value teaching via distance education and they consider it to be a necessary, useful, and feasible result of the research. Female prospective teachers' attitudes towards the feasibility of value education via distance education are more positive than males. Students studying in the primary education department have more positive attitudes towards teaching values via distance education since they find it necessary and useful compared to the students studying in the fields of mathematics and science. The results obtained as a result of the research indicate that prospective teachers who already possess an affective readiness need to be supported in terms of developing themselves in the field of teaching values via distance education so that they can contribute to values education at a higher level.