Opinions of Middle School Students on Digital Materials Used in Science Classes in the Covid-19 Pandemic

Abstract

As a result of the spread of Covid-19, which emerged in Wuhan, China in the recent months of 2019, all over the world, face-to-face education was suspended in all countries. And the distance education over online tools such as TV, computer, tablet, etc. was continued. In this study, the reflections of online education spread by the Covid-19 epidemic are emphasized. In this context, it has been investigated which digital materials were used by students in science education, and how often they used them, and how efficient the use of digital materials was. The study was carried out with 20 middle school students studying in 8th grade science class in Afyonkarahisar. Five open-ended questions were asked to the students to determine the digital materials they used in the online education process. Since the epidemic period continued, open-ended questions directed to students were directed online via “Google Forms”. The data of the study were collected on “Google Drive”. The analysis of the obtained data was made with the content analysis method, which is one of the qualitative data analysis methods. In the case of evaluating the results of the research, the students stated that they frequently used digital materials during the epidemic period, which they used very little before. However, it has been revealed that it causes difficulties in adaptation and effective learning in the new (distance) education system. At the same time, the opinions of students who stated that processing science subjects using digital materials made it easier to comprehend the subjects were also obtained.

Keywords

• covid-19
• distance education
• digital material
• technology supported teaching
• education in an emergency