University Student Perspectives Towards Distance Mathematics Education in the COVID-19 Process

Introduction

In the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic and social problems have made it necessary to reorganize health services, social assistance, and especially educational activities. Individuals have been affected in many areas of life as a result of the restrictions applied with the protective measures. The restrictions made in the field of education, in particular, have directly caused different individual needs and demands, which has brought out the necessity of including individuals, children, and families in learning systems such as distance education. This change has also caused educators and students to experience online education.

Along with the technological developments of the 21st century, the lives of societies and humanity have changed, and all political, social, and economic fields have been under the influence of these developments. One of the most affected fields has been education which is one of the fields where learning activities are carried out the most.

The task of providing the necessary information for a certain purpose in education is expressed as teaching (Turkish Language Association [TLA], 2020). Today's education system is shaped by the information technologies in teaching, which has the function of organizing activities, providing materials, and guiding that will facilitate learning. While information is facts obtained through learning, research, or observation, technology is defined as all the tools and information that people develop to control and change their material environment (TLA, 2020). According to these definitions, technology provides information transfer in education. In short, technology replaces old or classical learning and teaching methods with new teaching methods. This view is supported by Döger (2016), who explains that the use of educational technologies has expanded, and the effective use of technology in education contributes to increasing the quality, richness, and impact of education, raises generations using technology and creates new learning opportunities for adults.

The rapid development of technology has supported and popularized individuals’ habits of using developing technologies for educational purposes and meeting educational needs. The use of these technologies for educational purposes has revealed concepts such as distance education and mobile learning. Besides, it is an effective solution to offer an education model in which the sustainability of education is provided by distance education in pandemics, disasters, and extraordinary situations. Distance online learning has become an educational method to resort to, especially as we adapt to the new conditions presented by the COVID-19 pandemic. While 6.6 million students enrolled in distance learning in 2017, this number jumped to over 400 million students due to the spread of the pandemic (https://www.techsmith.com/blog/distance-learning/). Therefore, the sustainability of the right to education, one of the most basic rights of people, has been ensured by using the distance education model during the pandemic process.