ABSTRACT

Instructional designers should consider students' expectations and needs in order to design effective learning environments. No matter how perfect the instructional design is, the effectiveness of the developed environment will be low as long as the expectations and needs of the students cannot be met. Learning environments developed using Semantic Web technologies and ontologies can offer intelligent solutions for individualized instruction and rapid access to accurate instructional content on the Web. However, the expectations and needs of the students for such learning environments are not known adequately. Purpose of this descriptive study was to reveal student opinions on Semantic Web-based learning environments. The study was carried out with the 34 attendants of 8th grade students in Türdü 100. Yıl Secondary School of Muğla in the fall semester of 2012-2013 academic year. An open-ended question form was utilized as data collection instrument and data were examined through content analysis. For students' opinions on the learning environment, the themes and sub-themes related to the favorable features in the environment, the unfavorable features, the feelings they felt in the learning environment and what they wanted to change in the learning environment were determined. Findings suggested that students generally liked animations and presentations, while they disliked content types of text and sound, they felt curious and nervous during the process of learning, and the changes they wanted to make emphasized that teachers were an essential component in the learning environment. The study results indicated that the centralized examination system negatively affected the students' use of learning environment, students did not have self-regulation skills and adopted teacher-centered approach.