University Instructors' Views on Distance Medical Education Activities

Introduction

Face-to-face educational activities were suspended, and distance education model was adopted in many countries including Turkey due to the COVID-19 epidemic starting in the late 2019 and turning into a global pandemic in a short time. As an approach used in situations such as natural disasters or global crises (Swartz, Gachago and Belford 2018), distance education has become almost the only alternative in this pandemic period. In this period, Turkey, like most countries around the world, has sustained the educational process through distance education by using digital technologies to provide effective education (Bakioğlu and Çevik, 2020). Dating back to about three centuries ago (Bozkurt, 2017), distance education has gained importance as an alternative solution for eliminating the learning loss of students and institutions during the pandemic period, which has led to the reduction of educational opportunities (Toquero, 2020; Westine et al., 2019). Distance education is a form of education in which learner and teacher are physically far from each other (Adıyaman, 2002; Odabaş, 2003; Horzum, 2003; Uşun, 2006). In other words, it refers to conducting educational activities without physical interaction through tools such as television, computer, tablet, and mobile phone (Moore and Kearsley, 2005; Clark, 2020). According to Alkan (1987), on the other hand, distance education is a teaching method in which communication and interaction between the planners and implementers of educational activities and students is provided from a specific center through specially prepared teaching units and various environments in cases where in-class activities cannot be carried out due to the limitations of traditional teaching and learning methods.

As can be understood from the definitions above, distance education is primarily a possibility offered by technology that emerged as a learning model, that exceeds the possibilities of existing learning processes and models, and that carries the learning process beyond time and space (Demir, 2014). The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the more effective use of e-learning technologies, social media, mobile technologies, online resources, and digital devices in the field of education (Mulenga and Marban, 2020). These technologies, which are used increasingly and intensively, should provide learners with features such as equal opportunities, flexible learning, and individual learning. This is because distance education has a different learning environment design compared to traditional education (Karakuş et al., 2020) and is a practice emphasizing that the individual, distinctive characteristics of learners should be taken into account (cited in Ekici, 2003). However, the transition from face-to-face education to distance education without preparation as a result of the rapid spread of the COVID-19 pandemic caused some problems in the adaptation process and turned out to be a transfer of the face-to-face educational environment to digital environment without creating adequate e-learning contents. Many instructors have had to adapt their personal curriculum to distance education (Galles et al., 2020). Bozkurt et al. (2020) state that teachers and institutions going through an unprecedented situation try to ensure that learners continue to learn at home through measures such as publishing printed materials, providing access to educational applications and websites. However, distance education involves offering numerous learning activities to learners and instructors in a planned, designed, comprehensive, and systematic way (Altıparmak, 2011; Bozkurt, 2020). Bozkurt and Sharma (2020) define distance education as an optional, planned activity based on theoretical and practical knowledge while they refer to emergency remote teaching as compulsory online learning conducted in times of crisis by use of all available resources. Many learners and instructors have experienced problems of adaptation, technological facility, access to interactive content, technical infrastructure, etc. in the COVID-19 pandemic distance education process, which started without adequate planning and e-learning content, since they had never used distance education tools before (Toquero, 2020; Keskin and Özer, 2020; Durak, 2020). This is because the preparations and changes that are normally supposed to take months or years have been tried to be put into effect within a few days due to the COVID-19 pandemic (Daniel, 2020).