Usability Level of Distance Education Website (Sakarya University Sample)

The main goal of this research is to determine the usability of Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational TwoYear Community College’s Web Site. A scale was developed to the evaluation and applied to 1512 students. From the applied questionnaire only appropriate ones were selected to be evaluated and 1229 questionnaire were analysed. Finally, usability level of distance education’s web site was analysed according to the comments of the students of Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational Two-Year Community College and was analyzed whether there is a meaningful difference in based on their genders, ages, departments, university years and geographical conditions or not. Results of the research revealed that students feel contented with usability of distance education’s web site. In the analysis done according to the gender variable, when compared to the male students , female students; according to the age variable, when compared to the old students , the young students; according to the department variable, when compared to the students of other departments, the students of Mechatronics and Business Management Department; according to the university years variable, when compared to the senior students, the freshmen; according to the geographical conditions variable, when compared to the students of other regions, the students living in Mediterranean region are not content with usability of web site in some factors. INTRODUCTION The telecommunications technologies have affected the education and instruction processes. The fact that these new technologies are in a race against time has culminated in the evolution of certain issues such as all of the existing learning-instruction theories, instruction methods, environmental design in parallel to the technology. One of the concepts triggered by these evolving theories is usability. Usable websites enable the user to get the most efficiency from the websites by increasing the level of userwebsite interaction. Usability is an important concept for distance education sites as well because usable websites allow students to learn more effectively and attractively. The learning level will be enhanced in proportion to how efficiently the students use the website and how well the student-website interaction occurs. Then we ask, how usable are the distance education websites? In recent years, there has been an increasing volume of literature about usability in distance education but there has been little research into the usability. The purpose of the present study was to analyze what relationship occurred between students’ perception of distance education in relation to gender, age, department, geographic region of living and years spent in the university variable and was to determine the usability level of a website that is used for instruction purposes by an institution with a distance education division. Problem Statement Using the current literature as a guide, this study attempted to answer the following questions: 1. Do the students that receive the distance education services find the website useful? 2. Is there a meaningful difference based on gender variable? 3. Is there a meaningful difference based on age variable? 4. Is there a meaningful difference based on department variable? 5. Is there a meaningful difference based on geographic region of living variable? 6. Is there a meaningful difference based on years spent in the university variable? Significance of the Study The results can be used by distance educators to determine the benefit of the usability in distance education website systems. Several studies such as Ahlstrom & Longo (2001); Hutchinson (2002); Nielsen (2000; 2008), Mobrand & Spyridakis (2002) have stated that there may be differences in using web sites if the web sites designed in the terms of usability. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – January 2010, volume 9 Issue 1 Copyright  The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 244 Inferences In order to draw the outline of the study, various inferences have been made, which we can list as follows: 1. We think that distance education method will be the educational system of the future and is going to keep up with the advancing world. 2. We believe that distance education websites created with respect to the usability concepts will be beneficial to the students learning efforts. 3. We believe that the prepared distance education websites should be tailored to conform to the usability concepts by analyzing them with various methods. 4. We believe that the “gaining experience at the website” principle can be materialized when the existing distance education websites are habilitated to comply with the usability concepts. Scope & Limitations In this study, a sample size of 1512 students was used. These students were selected from 5,028 students who enrolled in Adapazarı Vocational Two-Year Community College Distance Education Department of Sakarya University in the province of Sakarya during the academic year 2006–2007. The study is subject to the following limitations: 1. The data was collected through the distribution and collection of a survey and was therefore limited by distance education provided by respond. 2. The study assumed truthful candid responses by respondents who understood the survey questions and directions and were not fearful of reprisal for their completion of the survey instrument. 3. The responses to the survey items by the respondents were subject to unknown personal biases and perceptions. 4. The study was non-experimental in that the investigator doesn't have manipulative control of the independent variables; therefore, no explicit cause and effect relationship can be determined. 5. It is also must be assumed that the students enrolled in a class delivered via the internet during winter quarter 2006 were representative of university students taking distance education courses. METHOD The study has been based on the descriptive and relational survey. In the course of conducting the study, descriptive survey has been used for the purpose of defining the existing situation as completely and carefully as possible. In this survey method, the perceptions of the students receiving distance education from Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational School of Higher Education regarding the distance education website have been examined. On the other hand, in the relational survey method, the study attempts to find out if there is any significant differences between the answers given to the student surveys and the students’ genders, departments, ages, years of enrollment at the university and the regions of living. Sample The universe of the study is constituted by all the students enrolled at Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational School of Higher Education during the 2006-2007 educational year. All of the 5,028 students enrolling at Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational School of Higher Education have been asked to fill in the survey, but only 1,512 of them had filled it. At the outset of the study, literary review had been held and topics such as the internet, the internet’s history, its utilization in education, distance education, history of distance education, principles of website design, usability and preparation of usable websites have been researched. Afterwards, the elaborated survey has been carried out on the distance education receiving students at Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational School of Higher Education. The data collected by the surveys have been reported by employing the descriptive statistics method, t-test and ANOVA. Instrument The survey used in the study to measure the usability level of the distance education websites had been prepared by the researcher by consulting professional advisors. During the preparation of the survey, the website usability surveys existing in the literature have been examined and 41 questions were carved out. These questions had been collected under 6 factors and then were presented for expert opinion. The survey that was evaluated in accordance with the expert opinions comprised of the following factors; “controllability”, “learnability”, “helping”, “appearance”, “effectiveness” and “satisfaction”. 5 questions measure controllability factor, 5 of them measure learnability, 5 of them measure helping, 5 of them measure appearance, 13 of them measure effectiveness and 8 of them measure overall satisfaction. TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – January 2010, volume 9 Issue 1 Copyright  The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 245 Data Collection The survey was sent to Directorate of Sakarya University Adapazarı Vocational School of Higher Education and it had been available for the students’ review for a full month between February 15th – March 15, 2007 on distance education website’s related section. Of the 1,512 total surveys filled in by the students, the inconsistent surveys had excluded and the remaining 1,229 were used in the analysis. After the assessment of the survey reliability; the total consistency reliability was measured at Cronbach α= 0,940. Regarding the factor based reliability readings; Cronbach α values for controllability, learnability, helping, appearance, effectiveness and satisfaction were found to be 0.614, 0.600, 0.633, 0.667, 0.667 and 0.859 respectively. FINDINGS The demographic characteristics of the students participating in the study are as follows: Table 1: Distribution of Participants by Gender Gender Distribution Frequency Percentage Female 807 65,7 Male 422 34,3 Total 1,229 100 When the distribution of participants by gender is examined through Table 1, it’s seen that the total is comprised of 65.7% (f=807) female and 34.3% (f=422) male participants. In general, it can be stated females constitute the majority of the participants. Table 2: Distribution of Participants by Age Age Distribution Age Interval Frequency Percentage 18-20 47