Students’ Metaphoric Perceptions Regarding Online Education Process and Praxis

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to investigate the perceptions of prep-class students regarding online education along with English instructors, English language and their future life. For this purpose, metaphors were used as a data collection tool to gather information from 80 prep-class students. The findings indicated that more than half of the participants (52.5%) have a negative attitude towards online education and the metaphors such as “computer, screen, artificial learning, imaginary education” are the most popular ones generated by students for online education. In terms of English instructors, it was concluded that a considerable number of students (73.7%) have a quite positive perception of English instructors, which is supported by metaphors as “mothers, flowers, a precious person” and “angels”. When it comes to the participants’ perceptions of English language, the words including “universal language, new world, new people” are among the most preferred metaphors created by students. Lastly, results indicated that 66.3% of the students can be said to be pessimistic about their future life, which is apparent in their use of metaphors of “darkness, black hole” and “a dead luck” Hence, it is important to highlight that students are not in favor of online education even though it is flexible and comfortable, which implies that online education should be a secondary option only when face-to-face education is impossible to implement for students or it should be used in collaboration with face-to-face education.