ABSTRACT
Distance education has popularized rapidly with the COVID-19 epidemic, especially in the higher education levels. When face to-face education became impossible for a while during the pandemic, distance education provided spatial conveniences, but also brought some ethical problems. The aim of this research is to examine the opinions of teachers and students regarding the ethical problems experienced in distance education during the pandemic and to propose solutions to these problems. The study uses the phenomenological design, a qualitative research method. The sample of the study is comprised of 10 public school teachers and 10 public school students who were identified using easy-access sampling, a purposive sampling method. We analyzed the data acquired using the descriptive analysis technique. According to the study’s findings, we determined teachers and students to have experienced ethical problems in the distance education process. As a result of the analyses, we specified the categories related to ethical problems to be communication problems, behavioral problems, digital distrust, and technical problems; the categories related to ethical violations to be violations of personal privacy, injustice/inequality, and dishonesty; and the categories related to ethical principles to be trust, honesty, personal privacy, responsibility and equality. In order to eliminate these problems, we recommend the necessary attempts be made for creating and adhering to ethical principles in distance education.