A multilevel analysis of the contextual effects in distance education outcomes during COVID-19

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TÜRK U.

EASTERN JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES, cilt.12, ss.149-169, 2021 (ESCI) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 12
  • Basım Tarihi: 2021
  • Doi Numarası: 10.47743/ejes-2021-si07
  • Dergi Adı: EASTERN JOURNAL OF EUROPEAN STUDIES
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), Scopus
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.149-169
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: distance education, multilevel models, city-effects, Turkey, FACE-TO-FACE, ONLINE INSTRUCTION, NEIGHBORHOODS, STUDENTS, PERFORMANCE, MOBILITY, SUCCESS, COURSES, DETERMINANTS, INEQUALITIES
  • Abdullah Gül Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The COVID-19 outbreak has forced countries to take extensive measures aimed at minimizing human contact. In this crisis period, distance education has played a crucial role in ensuring continuous learning. However, not all locations have had the same maturity level regarding infrastructure availability, and the city-level heterogeneity in socioeconomic structures might have impeded equal access to distance education. This paper focuses on the contextual dimension of distance education by a comparative approach between in person and distance education outcomes in Turkey. By a multilevel modelling approach, student outcomes are examined against a set of student-level and city-level determinants of academic success during the COVID-19 period compared to the same academic semester in the previous year. The findings support previous studies, discussing the long-term contextual effects on student outcomes and show that the digital divide between the rural and urban areas and income inequality are the main drivers of city-level variation in students' success during the pandemic.