TURKISH HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS' CONSIDERATIONS, EXPECTATIONS AND AWARENESS ON DISTANCE EDUCATION

Quality of distance education has been improving by technological developments, experiences of educators and feedbacks of learners. In order to improve the quality issues in distance education, considerations of target audiences are important to understand their expectations that might be clue for developers. Therefore, the purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate Turkish high school students' considerations, expectations and awareness related to distance education, especially e-learning, and its implementations. Totally, 1224 students studying at 8 different high schools from 6 cities in 4 different regions Turkey participated to the study. Majority of the students were from computer departments of Vocational High Schools. Researchers attempted to collect data representatively in order to draw a framework about the research questions for Turkish case. Results of the study showed that students associated distance education to e-learning. Additionally, although students have technological competencies which are critical factors for e-learning applications, they did not prefer taking their university education distance education programs. However, they have huge tendency in terms of taking some courses via the Internet.