A STUDY ON THE APPLICABILITY OF THE HYBRID LEARNING MODEL IN EARLY CHILDHOOD

The hybrid learning model is an educational approach that combines online and offline elements and emerged especially after the COVID-19 pandemic (Ma, 2023). In this approach, traditional face-to-face education and online education were combined and it was aimed to provide more accessible, flexible and student-centered experiences ( Kamsin , 2024). With the COVID-19 pandemic, serious changes have occurred in education systems on a global scale. Schools were closed in many regions, and when they were opened, it was not possible to continue face-to-face education. During this process, a total of 1 billion 575 million students in 188 countries around the world were affected by school closures due to preventive measures (UNESCO, 2020a ). Traditional face-to-face education practices have therefore given way to online and hybrid learning models. ( Carr , 2021). However, this transformation has not always been beneficial in the early childhood period, which is a developmentally critical process, and has brought with it some disadvantages. For this reason, the suitability and sustainability of the model, especially in the context of pre-school education, is being discussed by researchers and educators.