Methodological Trends of the Distance Education Theses Published in Turkey from 2005 to 2014: A Content Analysis

Abstract

Distance education is an important research subject in Turkey like it is in the world, and there are many master’s and doctoral theses exist that deal with distance education. The aim of this study is to reveal current research trends in distance education theses published in Turkey between 2005 and 2014. In this direction, 380theses that are open to access on the Council of Higher Education (CoHE) national theses database were reviewed. The theses were entered by using “Distance Education Theses Examination Form” (DETEF) which contains thesis type, thesis subject, publication year, university, institute, department, research method, research design, sampling method, sample population, data collecting tool and data analysis. The method sections of the theses were analyzed with descriptive content analysis. The results indicated that while the number of theses in the field of distance education were on the rise until 2010, the number of thesis started to decrease within following years. In addition, it was determined that institutes employ different research methodologies. Another result is that the most used research design is survey in quantitative methodology theses, case studies in qualitative and mixed methodology theses. It was determined that the sampling method is not expressed in most of the theses based on the quantitative methodology. On the other hand, purposeful sampling is most used in theses based on the qualitative methodology. The most commonly studied sample population were undergraduate students and adults for all methodologies. With regard to the data collecting tools used in the distance education theses, surveys and scales are mostly used in the quantitative methodology while the interview method is mostly used in the theses based on the qualitative methodology. Besides, it was determined that basic statistical techniques were used in distance education theses. From this results, in order to conduct more scientific and qualified studies related to distance education, all research methodologies, which are not adequately and effectively used as the findings show, should be encouraged.