The analysis of visually impaired individuals’ expectations and tendencies of using digital media in the process of education in Turkey

Abstract

Together with the development of technology, we know that our lives have changed in many ways. One of the most affected and the changing process is education. In the education process, it is important to make sure that all members of society benefit from it. We also know that visually impaired individuals are an important part of our society. In Turkey, the use of virtual platforms in terms of education by this segment and improving themselves is considered important. The evaluation of the tendency of visually impaired individuals to use virtual environments is specially required for developing software applications the identification of these tendencies, evaluation and use in virtual applications is a remarkable work. Therefore, it is important to identify the difficulties and expectations that may occur while accessing information with virtual platforms. In this research, first visually-impaired individuals’ tendencies to use technology was identified and later, the expectations and difficulties they face while using electronics and computer-supported platforms have been analyzed. Data was gathered through survey model in this research. During data collection phase, resulting from the tendency of impaired individuals to hide themselves. Snowball sampling method with 41 participants was applied through face to face and online query. The findings were analyzed with the Statistical analysis method and presented in the form of a table.

Keywords: Education, visually impaired people, e-learning.