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. [For the full proceedings, see ED630893.]