Students’ satisfaction with applications implemented in distance education process during the pandemic period

Abstract

Since the COVID-19 epidemic outbreak, which occurred in December 2019 and resulted in profound changes and transformations in our lives, was declared to be a pandemic, our country has also faced numerous restrictions in a large number of areas. The differences that have emerged in all spheres of our lives also reveal themselves in the field of education and training. The gates to a brand-new digitization-focused era have opened for both instructors and students. Individuals who spend their time during the pandemic period at home are involved in the distance learning process and experience the education field on the digital world. At this juncture, education and training institutions have preferred implementing various applications. One of these most preferred applications is Teams, which is tailored for security-based teamwork and collaboration, providing audio- and video-based chat and communication opportunities. In this study, one of the quantitative research methods, the survey method, was used. Due to the pandemic, the survey was conducted over the Internet, via e-mail, and social media channels. The study population consisted of 519 students studying at Istanbul Medipol University Faculty of Communication. Due to the size of the population and the pandemic, students were selected through convenience sampling method. The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between the current satisfaction levels of the participants with using the app “Microsoft Teams” and the solution proposals to enhance the current level of satisfaction. Various hypotheses were tested within the scope of the study. Differences were particularly observed between the departments in which the students study and the medium they used most frequently to log into the Microsoft Teams application and the subheadings (customization, convenience of use, and possibility to select) that lead to student satisfaction. Differences were found between the departments that are particularly prone to online training and other departments that prefer online training (computers) to a lesser extent. Similarly, differences were also observed between users who use the Microsoft Teams app on a desktop or laptop computer and participants who logged into the application using a smartphone or tablet.