As it is seen in Table 1., 30.8 % (370) of the participants’ writings about motivating factors of online course is
related to the “learning-teaching process. Primary three factors increasing motivation in the learning-teaching setting of the online courses such as freedom of the learning-teaching setting, giving feedback, sharing and resolution of
learning problems. Obviously, these factors are the characteristics that improve the quality of the teaching. 27 %
(324) of participants’ statements with regard to the motivating factors of online course is about the “roles of
instructors” and this is the second theme related to the motivating factors. In terms of the roles of the instructors,
three primary factors increasing motivation are put forward such as system encompassing two instructors with
different roles, facilitation of students learning collaboratively and continuously counseling the students’ studies.
These are the instructors’ characteristics related to their roles in the lesson. “Participation and attention”, with 23.5
% (282), is the third important motivating factor of the online course Simultaneous expression of students’ ideas,
well planned and supported participation and use of clues that encourages participation comprises the primary three
factors increasing the motivation in online courses. These results point out that the most important factor increasing
the motivation is the participation. 11 % (131) of the statements about the motivating factors of online course is
related to “online learning environment/technical infrastructure” and with this percentage this factor is the fourth
one. Freedom of access and easy participation to lesson from everywhere, written and oral communication in the
virtual class is indicated as the primary factors increasing the motivation in the online courses. 7.7 % (92) of the
statements of students comprises of the last motivating factors related to “time management.” Only the two ideas
such as “well time management in the lesson and effective time use for the virtual classroom”
Students’ writings show that five important motivating factors of online courses, learning-teaching process, roles
of instructors, participation and attention, online course environment/technical infrastructure and time managements
are very important in motivating students during the online course studies. All of these factors can be defined as
extrinsic motivation factors for the students in the online learning environment.