The Investigation of Preparatory School Students’ Attitudes towards Learning Management System

Abstract

Learning Management Systems, which are used in the field of education and considered as one of the effective learning tools (LMS), have a great importance especially in higher education and in the last decade, they have been used by almost all educational institutions. Because of its widespread use and increasing importance, the overall aim of this research is to investigate İstanbul Zaim University, English Preparatory School Students’ attitudes in terms of writing course towards Cambridge Learning Management System. The target population of the study, which was carried out on the basis of survey design, consisted of İstanbul Zaim University, English Preparatory Program students in spring term, in 2015-2016 academic year. The sample of this research, which was selected by using stratifies sampling techniques among students who studied at four different language levels of English Prep. School Program, consisted of 313 students. 166 students (53%) were female and 147 students (47%) were male. The age distribution of students was in the range of 17 to 25 years old. In this study, a learning management system attitude scale, which was prepared by the researchers by conducting a validity and reliability study on 305 students and a writing course achievement test, which had convergent validity with Cambridge Publishing Company’s standard achievement test, were used as a data collection tool. In the analysis of data, which was collected through face to face applications, SPSS was used. In terms of overall aim and sub goals of the study, percentage, mean, standard deviation, independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance and simple linear regression analysis were used. The findings showed that English Prep. School students had positive attitudes towards learning management system. In addition, the gender of the students, age, the type of high school they graduated and their concluded that “students’ writing course achievement” was a significant predictor of attitudes towards learning management system. Recommendations towards the further dissemination of the learning management system, which continuously increases the quality of education especially in terms of e-learning, were put forward.