Özet:

The use of distance education in formal and informal terms increases day by day. The effect of internet and technology developments can be emphasized in this increase. The pandemic period significantly has increased this use. This research aims to determine the factors affecting the distance education preferences of pre-service teachers. This study, which is qualitative research, is in the phenomenology research design. In this context, data were collected with a semi-structured interview form from 132 teacher candidates who studied at the faculty of education in the 2018-2019 academic year and had formal or informal distance education experience. The data were analyzed with content analysis. In line with their experiences, teacher candidates stated that distance education has the most advantages, such as time-saving, independence from space, flexibility in course hours, and economy. Possible problems or criticisms they bring can be grouped as technical, educational, and system-based problems. The most critical factors affecting their preferences in distance education systems were the most expressed preferences with an effective and applied lecture with expert trainers. These were followed by many factors such as rich interaction, technical support, the modernity of materials, and control mechanism. The research contains significant practical findings on distance education.

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