This study aimed to determine the rater behavior in the evaluation process of student electronic portfolios used to measure student achievement in higher education, and thus to evaluate the usability of the electronic portfolio system. Considering that rater behavior adversely affects both validity and reliability in determining the performance of individuals, it is important to identify the effect of this factor and evaluate the related results in line with this effect. The data of the study were collected from the students enrolled in an English language teaching program at Gazi University Gazi Education Faculty within the scope of the measurement and assessment course in the fall semester of 2017-2018. An analytic rubric developed by the researchers was used in the evaluation of the student electronic portfolios. The study included two participants groups consisting of three raters and 61 students (11 male, 50 female). In the analysis of the data, the many-facet Rasch measurement model was used as an analysis method since it was appropriate for the nature of the current data set. When the findings of the study were examined, it was found that one or more rater behaviors interfered with the performance of the individual in the use of non-objective measurement tools, and consequently negatively affected the validity and reliability of the measurements. In conclusion, it can be stated that the individual’s performance related to electronic portfolios in higher education is generally affected by the rater behavior in the evaluation process independent of the measurement tool. In addition, it has been confirmed that electronic portfolios can be used to determine individual performance in higher education.

This study aims to determine the effect of prediction, observation, explanation supported project based environmental education (POESPBEE) on the attitudes and behaviors levels of eighth grade students compared to teacher-centered environmental education. The study used a quasi-experimental research design including pre-test, post-test and control group. The application step of the study was carried out by the researchers in a ten-week period in 2018-2019 academic year. The study group consisted of eighth grade students attending a state secondary school in Turkey. The study group included 62 students, 34 of whom were in the experimental group and 28 of whom were in the control group. The experimental group was applied the POESPBEE and the control group was applied teacher-centered environmental education. Attitude Scale toward Environment and Behavior Scale toward Environment were administrated as pre-test, post-test and follow-up test to evaluate the attitude and behavior levels of the students in the experimental and control groups toward the environment. Data were analyzed using the independent samples t-test and repeated measures ANOVA. The study found that the POESPBEE provided a significant development on students’ attitude and behavior; however, teacher-centered environmental education could not provide a significant development on the students. Based on this result, it can be claimed that the methods like the POESPBEE, which can change individuals’ attitudes and behaviors toward the environment in positive way, should be used in environmental education.

Bu çalışmada, öğretmenlerin, okul yöneticilerinin, velilerin ve öğrencilerin görüşlerine dayalı bir okul mutluluğu teorisi geliştirilmesi amaçlanmıştır. Bu çalışma nitel temelli bir teori modelinde tasarlanmıştır. Çalışma grupları 18 öğretmen, 14 okul yöneticisi, 13 ebeveyn ve 20 öğrenci idi. Çalışma gruplarını belirlemek için kartopu örnekleme yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Okulun mutluluğu ile ilgili on iki ana nitelik belirlenmiştir. Bu temel nitelikler fiziksel donanım, okul ortamı, öğrenme ortamı, iletişim ve işbirliği, eğitim politikası, sosyal etkinlikler, okul yönetimi, öğretmen nitelikleri, okulda farklı, öğrenci merkezli olma, öğrenme etkinlikleri ve öğrenci nitelikleriydi. Sonuçlar, ana niteliklerin öncelik seviyesinin bir katılımcı gruptan diğerine değiştiğini göstermiştir. Öğretmenler öncelikli okul ortamı, okul yönetimi ve fiziksel ekipman verir. Öte yandan okul yöneticileri okul ortamına, fiziksel ekipmana ve okul mutluluğu için eğitim politikasına öncelik vermektedir. Ebeveynler okul mutluluğu için fiziksel donanıma, okul ortamına, işbirliğine ve iletişime öncelik verir. Ek olarak, öğrenciler öğrenme ortamına, okul ortamına ve fiziksel donanıma daha fazla öncelik verirler. Bu sonuçlara göre, okul toplumunun etkili okul ortamı için işbirliği ve iletişim içinde olması, yetenek eğitimi için fiziksel ekipmanın koordine edilmesi, okul mutluluğunu artırmak için öğrencilerin çok yönlü gelişimi göz önünde bulundurularak öğrenme ortamının düzenlenmesi gerektiği önerilebilir.

This study aims to examine the effects of cheating tendency, academic goal commitment, and moral attitude toward cheating on academic achievements of teacher candidates. 486 teacher candidates were recruited. The moral attitude toward cheating was measured with the Moral Attitude subscale of the Scale for Attitude Towards Cheating. The cheating tendency was measured with the Cheating subscale of the Academic Dishonesty Scale. The academic goal commitment was measured with the KUT scale. Academic achievement was measured with the GPA. The data were analyzed with the independent t-test, Pearson Correlation test, and path analysis. While moral attitude positively and directly affected academic goal commitment, it negatively and directly influenced cheating tendency negatively. Academic goal commitment predicted cheating tendency negatively and GPA positively. The cheating tendency had a negative impact on GPA. Academic goal commitment positively affected GPA via cheating tendency; however, the direct effect of academic goal commitment on GPA was higher than the indirect effect. Moral attitude negatively predicted cheating tendency via academic goal commitment while it affected GPA positively. Moral attitude positively predicted GPA via cheating tendency. Consequently, cheating tendency affected academic achievement negatively. Moral attitude toward cheating and the high level of academic goal commitment reduced cheating tendency and increased academic achievement.

 

The profession of teaching is defined in Article 43 of the Fundamental Law of National Education no. 1739 as a specialized profession that undertakes education, training and other related administrative duties of the state, and the qualifications of teachers are evaluated under two sections as general qualifications and special field qualifications. Teacher qualifications are competencies that are required to be possessed by all teachers under training to achieve national education goals. In addition to this, teaching one's native language as a foreign language is a task that requires an additional area of expertise. The increasing interest in Turkish, escalating immigration rates and other reasons have caused the importance of teaching Turkish as a foreign language to increase. This growing interest caused certain problems. The lack of expert educators in terms of quality and quantity is one of the main problems. The Ministry of National Education assigns lecturers and teachers every year in order to meet the demand for Turkish educators from abroad. The aim of this study is to determine the field qualifications of teachers who are awaiting assignment after having passed the exam held by the Ministry of National Education to be assigned abroad. The study was designed as a case study. The random purposeful (purposive) sampling method and the purposive criterion sampling method were used to determine the study group. The study group consists of 10 teachers and lecturers awaiting assignment after having passed the foreign lecturing exam held by the Ministry of National Education. The data collection phase of the study was carried out using the interview method. Therefore, an eleven-question interview form was prepared, including questions on the awareness of teachers toward teaching Turkish to foreigners, their educational background and the educational process of teaching Turkish to foreigners. The data were transferred to the MAXQDA 12 qualitative data analysis program and the content analysis technique was used in the analysis of the data. Study results showed that most of the teachers in the study group had low awareness toward their assignment and a lack of knowledge on methods-techniques, material and planning, and that most of the participants lacked training in their fields.

Practical experiences in teaching settings are an important component of pre-service teacher education programs. Pre-service teachers advance what they learn and improve their science teaching (ST) skills as well as other subjects in early childhood education for the period of teaching practices. In addition, teaching science in early childhood education requires more practices for improving teaching skills. Mentor teacher (classroom teacher) is valuable as well as professors in teacher education programs to pre-service teachers while teaching science. The purpose of this study is to reveal mentor teachers’ mentoring practices in ST according to pre-service early childhood teachers’ views. The method employed method was descriptive study. The sample is composed of 96 pre-service early childhood teachers and their mentors (N=41). Data were collecting within MEST survey. The results showed that most of the pre-service teachers reported their mentor teachers demonstrated less mentoring practices on the system requirement about ST. The pre-service teachers also pointed out that their mentor teachers mostly showed mentoring practices on personal attributes, pedagogical knowledge, modeling, and feedback factors. Knowing and 7understanding the mentoring skills of early childhood teachers in system requirement, pedagogical knowledge, modeling, giving feedback, and personal attributes would have an important growing on preservice early childhood teachers science teaching skills. That will be helpful for shaping new teaching practices and field experiences in different majors for improving teachers teaching skills.

The main purpose of the study is to gain insight on to what extent taking a science methods course correlated with the science teaching pedagogical preferences of pre-service science teachers. The study recruited twenty K-8 teacher education students enrolled in lower division science courses at a large American public university, some of whom had completed a science methods course and some not. A sequential exploratory mixed-methods design involving both quantitative and qualitative parts was used. The quantitative data were collected using the POSTT assessment instrument to identify pedagogical orientations profiles of the participants. A subset of students was subsequently interviewed so that they could explain their responses to the POSTT items. The data points out that many participants whether they had taken a methods course or note tended toward an inquiry science teaching orientation. When participants chose similar instructional preferences, however, their reasons often varied. The data indicated that students having taken a methods course think more broadly about factors that should influence choices of instructional practice (e.g., grade level, prior knowledge, interest areas). The findings suggest that a science methods course can have a positive influence on pre-service teachers with respect to the development of an inquiry science teaching orientation. The POSTT items have potential use within science methods courses for the formative assessment of pre-service teachers’ orientations toward science instruction.

The aim of the research is to improve the writing skills of students with procedure-based gradual writing training practice by positively changing their writing perception, attitude and motivation, anxiety and fear, lack of education, writing difficulties, and writing process. The present research is considered to be significant in terms of affecting the writing perception, attitude and motivation, anxiety and fear, writing training and process as a result of performing the writing training with a gradual procedure. The research was conducted with action research model from the qualitative research designs. The study group consists of 15 first grade students, 7 male and 8 female, who were studying in the Turkish Teaching Program at the Faculty of Education in a university in the fall semester of 2018-2019 academic year. The criterion sampling method was used among the non-probability sampling methods in the determination of the study group. Data collection was performed with a semi-structured interview form. Two semi-structured interview form was used as before and after the application. The data of the research was collected in two stages from the students in the study group as before and after the application. The application consists of preparation, planning and forming a draft, writing, editing and reviewing, correction and presentation, and evaluation stages. The research data was analyzed with the content analysis technique. A code-category map of the obtained data was created by using a qualitative data analysis program, MAXQDA 12. Before the application, it was determined that students tried to write without planning, they were not willing to write and positive about writing, experienced writing anxiety and fear, their writing training was insufficient, they perceived writing as expressing emotions and thoughts, and didn’t know how to write. It was concluded that the writing perceptions of students were positively changed, their motivation increased and they were positive about writing, their writing anxiety and fear decreased/eliminated, they could write in a planned and prepared way, did not experience writing difficulties, their insufficiencies in writing training was eliminated and learned how to write.

The present study aimed to develop a measurement instrument to determine the perceptions of middle school students on their teachers' behavior. The draft scale, developed as a result of the review of the relevant literature, collection of expert views and a pilot scheme, was applied to the students attending different grades in state middle schools under Malatya Provincial Directorate of National Education during the second semester of the 2014-2015 academic year. It was considered that middle school students possessed the ability to make selections, could distinguish good and bad and right and wrong due to their age group. To determine the scale content and face validity, expert views were obtained and for construct validity, Exploratory Factor Analysis (AFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (DFA) were conducted. Teacher behavior were categorized as indifferent teacher and authoritative teacher behavior based on the revealed factors. Findings obtained with the implementation of CFA revealed that the perceived teacher behavior scale (PTBS) construct had adequate fitness indices. It was found that the Pearson Correlation Coefficient between the scores obtained with the test-retest method was 0.86. Thus, it was observed that PTBS was a measurement tool that produced valid and reliable measurements and it was adequate to use the scale with middle school students to measure their perceptions on teacher behavior.

Disasters affect individuals psychologically and some individuals take a long time to get rid of this effect. Psychological resilience is defined as the individuals having a psychologically strong structure, being affected by negative situations as little as possible and getting rid of stressful situations quickly. The aim of this study is to determine the psychological resilience level of individuals living in Çanakkale. Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale was used to determine the participants’ resilience level. Participants in the study are 412 individuals, aged between 18 and 60, who are determined by the simple random sampling method living in the Central District of Çanakkale. The data were analyzed using SPSS 21 software. Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient of the scale was found to be 0.92. The mean of the psychological resilience level was 3.75. Results showed that the most psychologically resilient people are males, high school graduates, individuals between the ages of 29-39, divorced, those who do not have children, those with a monthly income of more than 3001 TL, those with natural disaster insurance and those who are previously faced a disaster.

Having a significant role in communication, speaking skill is an inborn and improvable abilty.  Since their existence, human beings have consistently improved this ability in order to communicate with others. Besides, one of the most fundamantal keystones of making a healthy contact and living in harmony with different societies are no doubt being a proficient speaker of this language. Therefore, the need for speaking Turkish of Syrian refugees forced to migrate to Turkey, because some political reasons have also increased and Turkish instruction has started to be given accordingly. In this study, the evaluation of Turkish speaking skills of Syrian students through the views of instructors giving Turkish lessons is aimed within this study. The research data were obtained through the interviews with the instructors who teach Turkish to Syrian Students in Adana Turkish Education Centre. In these interviews, eleven instructors were asked to answer eight open-ended questions. The data collected from the interviews were analysed by content analysis method. According to the findings obtained, it was found out that instructors have some difficulties in improving speaking skills of Syrian students; facing some problems like mispronunciations of Syrian students during speaking activities, abstaining from speaking Turkish, regarding speaking Turkish as a difficult ability, and thus the instructors fail to asses and evaluate the speaking skill despite conducting various activities so as to overcome the problems.

The training and learning activities for students are primarily conducted in closed environments. The symptoms resulting from living environments in occupied buildings are referred to as “sick building syndrome (SBS).” The aim of this study is to evaluate the SBS associated with the age of a school building. In this research, grounded research design, which is a type of mixed-method approach, was preferred because qualitative and quantitative methods were used to support each other. Four different schools were selected based on the ages of the school buildings by criterion sampling method. These schools were identified to be 1-, 5-, 10-, and 40-year old buildings. Thus, the research sample comprised a total of 423 students. The students were provided with a questionnaire and the data obtained were analyzed with IBM SPSS 25 software. At the end of the research, it was observed that 329 students experience symptoms in the school, and the most commonly experienced physical symptoms are headache (188 students), physical and mental fatigue (175 students), and concentration disorder (142 students). Moreover, a significant relationship was observed between the symptoms experienced by the students during their time in the school and the symptoms they experienced after school. It was revealed that the most uncomfortable places are corridors and washrooms. In general, it can be concluded that the SBS symptoms are observed in four different buildings, and they vary depending on comfort conditions such as hygiene, ventilation, and heating instead of the age of the school building. Furthermore, it was noted that school principals responsible for the administration of school buildings have an important role in the improving or deteriorating of SBS symptoms.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between social intelligence levels and communication skills of preservice social studies teachers. In the content of the study, the relational screening model, which is one of the descriptive survey models, has been used. The sample of the survey consist of the third and fourth year students who study Social studies Teaching at Faculties of Education at Muğla, Uşak, Afyon and Aksaray University in the academic year of 2017-2018. The sample of the survey has been determined by means of convenience sampling. In this study, the unpaired t-test, the one-way analysis variance (ANOVA), the Scheffe and Games-Howell test have been used. In order to reveal the relationship between social intelligence levels and communication skills of preservice social studies teachers, the Pearson product-moment correlation analysis has been used. As a result of the study, it has been found out that preservice social studies teachers demonstrate “high” communication skills, but “moderate” social intelligence. It has also been determined that there is a moderate, linear, positive and meaningful correlation between the communication skills and social intelligence levels of preservice social studies teachers. In addition to these, it has been observed that communication skills and social intelligence levels of preservice teachers differ to a meaningful extent according to factors such as gender, universities they attend and the number of books they read per month. On the other hand their age and grade caused any meaningful difference in the communication skills and social intelligence levels of preservice teachers.

The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of primary school teachers who received in-service training on robotic coding applications. For this purpose, descriptive study model, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was utilized. The study group of the research consisted of six primary school teachers who voluntarily gave opinions out of 30 teachers who participated in in-service robotic coding training in the first semester of 2018-2019 academic year. "Semi-structured interview form" was used as data collection tool. The data obtained from the participants were transferred to NVivo 12 program and analyzed by content analysis method and classified under certain categories. Direct quotations were included to reflect the responses of the participants in a striking manner. As a result of the research, participants stated that the in-service training period was inadequate and limited, and that a limited number of examples of robotic coding applications were covered. In addition, it was found that the participants generally did not incorporate such practices in their own classes after the training. They made various explanations about the reasons of this situation. In line with the results of this research, it is suggested that more time should be devoted to the applications related to robotic coding provided to teachers during in-service training, and that activities related to how to integrate them into classroom teaching practices should be organized.

The aim of this study is to test the model which explains the academic success suggested by the researchers by considering the theoretical explanations and the results of the studies in the literature. The hypotheses tested in accordance with this general aim are: The number of social media accounts and the duration of internet usage positively and directly affect internet addiction, internet addiction negatively and directly affects academic motivation, academic motivation positively and directly affects school attachment and school attachment positively and directly affects academic success. In the model explaining academic success, measurement tools were applied to 205 high school adolescents. Internet Addiction Test-Short Version by Young, Academic Motivation Scale, School Attachment Scale for Children and Adolescents along with personal information form prepared by the researchers were used as data collection tools. Analyses were performed using SPSS 20 and AMOS software. In the test phase of the model, covariance matrix and maximum likelihood method were used. As a result of the analysis, the proposed hypotheses were confirmed and the proposed hypothetical showed compliance [χ2=75.510, df=33, χ2/df=2.288, RMSEA=0.079, SRMR=0.078, GFI=0.93, AGFI=0.89, CFI=0.88; IFI=0.80, TLI (NNFI)=0.85]. According to the results of the research it has been concluded that the higher number of social media accounts and the increase in the duration of internet usage leads to internet addiction, internet addiction negatively affects academic motivation, low level of academic motivation affects school attachment negatively and low level of school attachment does not negatively affect academic success.