The Effects of Turkey’s Level of Socioeconomic Development on the Open Education System*

Abstract

Provinces that vary by socioeconomic levels in Turkey are among the main starting points of planned development. Meanwhile, one of the most important indicators considered in determining differences in development is education. Anadolu University clearly has a very important place in Turkey’s higher education system with its Open and Distance Education System. Therefore, we aim in our study to investigate how socioeconomic development affects provincial demand for an open education system. First, we perform analyses over 81 provinces. However, we thought the demand in Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir to have a special place and excluded them to perform analyses over the remaining 78 provinces using the developmental index of 2012. We evaluated 48 different regression models statistically and, using four different regression techniques, created these models by dividing them into four classes: linear, nonparametric, generalized linear, and generalized nonparametric. The relations in the models between education and development are examined not only as a parametric and linear relationship but also as a nonparametric and nonlinear relationship. We found a positive, nonparametric, and nonlinear relationship for the demand for the Open and Distance Education System with the provincial socioeconomic developmental levels.