People learn how to behave in a specific situation. But it’s always possible to encounter new or unwanted stations which our previous experiences couldn’t be enough to overcome. Tension and pressure people feels as a result of the changes in the environment is called stress, and in today’s world stress is regarded as a part of the daily life. Avoiding exposure to environmental stressors and avoiding or minimizing other changes during periods of time require significant adaptation or readjustment. This study is about university students’ stress sources. Although there are tens of defense mechanisms, in this study, 10 best-known, or most commonly used defense mechanisms, are investigated. The research was conducted with the students taking the course of “psychology” thought by the researcher. After the researcher taught the subject of “defense mechanisms” found in the scope of this course, the students were asked to note down the defense mechanisms them “constantly”, “occasionally” and “never” used. In order to help the students remember the 10 defense mechanisms investigated, they were provided with an informative booklet explaining these defense mechanisms briefly. A total of 587 students participated in the study. The mechanisms the most frequently used especially by the female participants were “repression”, “denial” and “displacement”. The male participants’ use of the mechanism of “projection” was twice higher than the female participants’ use of the same mechanism. As for the mechanism of “sublimation”, the female participants used this mechanism with rate twice higher than the male participants. With respect to the mechanisms most frequently used, the difference between the female and male participants was found significant only for the mechanisms of “projection” and “regression”.

The purpose of this action research was to help the students to identify professions appropriate with their abilities, interests and personality traits and to guide the students to technical and vocational training especially at upper secondary level with their own will. Action research strategy in which qualitative methods and quantitative methods were used was selected for this study. As a result of this action research there was a promising difference in terms of the proportional change between the number of the students who graduated from junior high school in the sample and attended to technical and vocational upper secondary schools last year and the number of the students in the sample who has graduated from junior high school and then who will attend to technical and vocational high schools this year. The findings of this research have important implications about how vocational and technical secondary education can be updated, improved, increased the quality and attractiveness, well-organized according to market needs and thus more preferred in Turkey based on the perceptions and preferences of the students who preferred or did not prefer vocational and technical education.

In this research, ninth grade mathematics learning environments’ coherence with constructivist learning approach was examined according to teachers’ and students’ views. Thirty-four schools were included into the sampling from the seven regions of Turkey. 208 teachers and 1830 students from these schools participated to the study. Data was collected with “Constructivist Learning Environments Questionnaire” and “Learning Process Questionnaire”. The one-way ANOVA, Welch and independent samples t-test was employed to analyze data. According to results of the study there is no significant difference between teachers’ and students’ views p > .05. Students’ views, on the other hand, are significantly different according to deep learning levels p < .05 but between surface approach levels there is no significant difference p > .05. In addition, teachers’ views do not differ significantly according to teaching experience and educational level p > .05. Based on these results, it can be concluded that developments in our education system started a positive change in classroom implementations.

Classroom management takes account of students and their environment and is intended to increase student achievement by the process of planning, assessment, and evaluation. Reports have indicated that student disruptions may consume much of the instructional time on daily basis. The purpose of this quantitative study was to focus on classroom management self-assessment of middle school teachers and number of discipline referrals written in one academic school year in western part of the U.S. The participants of this study included 237 teachers including 79 teachers at grade 6, 79 teachers at grade 7, and 79 teachers at grade 8 levels. As data collection tool, a questionnaire called Self-Assessment - Classroom Management (SACM) was used and discipline referrals written in one academic school year were collected. The findings the study indicated that teachers, who are inadequate in classroom management, tend to have more disciplinary problems in their classrooms, thus writing more discipline referrals than those who are effective in classroom management.

Problem posing which a way of analytical thinking is a process which is based on mathematical experiences and in which interpretations which are created by moving from concrete situations are transformed into meaningful mathematical problems. Problem posing which helps teachers about to what extent the learning is realized informs us about the problematic fields that needed to be improved and emphasized in teachinglearning environments. For this reason, it is necessary for teachers to have a deep understanding about problem posing activities. In this sense, the aim of this study is to evaluate semi-structured problem posing cases of prospective mathematics teachers about Ratio and Proportion Subject’, to determine the experiences of the prospective teachers during problem posing process and to elicit suggestions regarding the experienced difficulties (if any). For this purpose a data collection form was created by the researchers. This data collection form has three parts which were i) The task of posing semi-structured problems, ii) The experiences during problem posing process (for example, the difficulties faced) and iii) Suggestions for solutions. The data collection form was carried out with 59 prospective primary mathematics teachers. The prospective teachers were given 40 minutes to fill in this form. ‘Problem Posing Evaluation Form (PPEF)’ which was developed by the researchers was used during the analysis of the data obtained from first part of the data collection form. This evaluation form is consisted of four main dimensions and three sub-dimensions for each dimension. The main dimensions are as in the following: i) Problem text (language and expression), ii) The compatibility of the problem with the mathematical principles, iii) The type/structure of the problem and iv) The solvability of the problem. The first part data was evaluated with this evaluation form by the researchers separately and then the results were compared. The differences appeared were discussed and an agreement was reached between the researchers. At the end the evaluation results created regarding the each subdimension were given on the basis of frequency (f) and percentage (%). Content analysis was used for the analysis of the data obtained from the second and third parts of the form, and the program which is called as NVivo 10 was used in content analysis. In conclusion, it was concluded that prospective mathematics teachers posed clear and understandable problems which were compatible with the mathematical principles and which were in the form of simple and easy problem types. Besides, it was concluded that posed problems had solvable problem features. The experiences/difficulties faced during problem posing process determined as, inability to construct the problem, finding the data as insufficient, inability to pose creative problems, in ability to provide a whole number for the solution and inability to arrange the level of problem according to the levels of the students. The solutions which were proposed for the difficulties faced were determined as in the following, no data limitation, carrying out problem solving and problem posing studies, having a sound content knowledge and using additional sources.

Individuals in the middle adulthood period might encounter many personal, social, professional and economic problems as they do in other developmental periods. The important point in this case is the ability of the individuals to create alternative solutions to deal with these problems and use their social generativity effectively without depriving themselves of their general psychological well-being. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychological well-being and social generativity levels of 40-60-year-old individuals in the middle adulthood period depending on different variables and to shed lights on similar further studies. The participants of the study are 151 40-60-year-old individuals with different socio-economic levels in different cities. In this study based on a descriptive research model, the Short form of the Scales of Psychological Wellbeing and the Loyala Generavity Scale were used as data collection instruments. As a result of the regression analysis, it was realized that the psychological well-being variable predicts social generativity. In addition, it was found that while the psychological well-being and the social generativity scales do not differ significantly depending on the gender variable, both of these scales differ significantly depending on their educational background and whether they work or not. Furthermore, while psychological well-being differ significantly depending on socio-economic level, social generativity doesn’t.

This study examined students’ characteristics needed by companies according to cooperative education: the case of Muang District at Suratthani Province, Thailand. The sample was 370 respondents in companies. Data collection was obtained through a questionnaire. The statistics used in this study were frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and testing hypotheses by using t-test, F-test and a chi-square. The results were found that most companies required fourth year students from state universities, majoring in business administration. Students’ characteristics which most companies needed from students the most were morality and ethics. Characteristics of entrepreneurs and companies were important and had an effect to students’ characteristics in terms of the Thai Qualifications Framework for Higher Education (TQF) and characteristics of entrepreneurs and companies were related to students’ basic information significantly at p<0.05. In addition, this study suggested that universities should focus on appropriate students’ development, particularly by developing proper curricula in order to enhance competence and readiness before working according to cooperative education with companies.

In a country like Pakistan (and similar developing countries) where teachers are not represented in decision making bodies and perception of the profession itself is low, a broader question which needs to be deliberated upon is how is it possible ‘to produce’ teachers/teacher-educators who ‘think they are able’ to make a difference? A case study of a Masters in Education program at one of the private universities of Pakistan was carried out in order to explore the link between teacher education and their level of self-efficacy. One would expect that with the systematic exploration of school improvement related issues and concerns, the graduates understanding of what makes teachers/teacher educators more efficacious will grow and so will their faith in themselves. With this premise the specific purpose of the research was to assess whether the Masters in Education program at the university had changed the perceptions of teacher graduates about their own ability to effect educational change? The data for the study was collected at two points in time, i.e., entry into the program (Time 1) and exit (Time 2) and consisted of responses to the six subscales of Bandura’s teachers’ self efficacy scale. The pre-test provided a base against which the post-test scores were measured. The findings suggest that the two year Masters in Education program at the university did bring about changes in the perceptions of graduating students about their efficacy as change agents. Implications of the findings for teacher education are also discussed.

The current exploratory study investigates the acquaintance of teachers’ information in communication technology (henceforth, ICT) and its integration in teaching-learning process at private higher secondary level in Pakistan. The study adopts a quantitative technique and a variety of variables pertaining to the familiarity with computers in teaching-learning were examined. Subsequently, using a purposive sampling, 200 questionnaires were disseminated to the teachers. Total 169 instruments were returned and 133 were keyed into SPSS after filtering and cleaning the data. Descriptive means, percentages, crosstabs, and rank order were computed to report findings. The study revealed that 75% teachers had been formally trained for ICT, 67% teachers had access to computers and 53% had access to internet at their institution as well as home. Results show that ‘use of Email’, ‘internet browsing’, and ‘word-processing’ were most familiar tools. On the other hand, ‘collection of teaching/reference material’, ‘preparing papers’, and ‘teaching materials’ were being used for teaching purposes.

Studies in L2 listening, unlike those in other language skills, mostly focus on the product of the skill instead of defining the process itself. Recent studies are far from going beyond basic experimental research designs most of which aim to find out the differences between the two groups in terms of the product of listening. The listening literature is full of such product-oriented experimental studies. However, it is obvious that qualitative research has a key role in understanding and uncovering listening as a cognitive process which is not susceptible to direct observation. More research is needed to find out the relationship between personality traits of effective and ineffective listeners and L2 listening success, a topic of interest for scholars since it was first asserted by the early middle of 20th century. From this point of view, this study is devoted to reach beyond stereotypical listening research. Aiming at investigating and exploring the characteristics of language learners as listeners according to the strategies they use in EFL listening, this study is expected to contribute to the field with its method, procedure, findings and concluding remarks. There are two phases in the study: a) the application of the Oral Communication Strategies Inventory (OCSI), which was developed to measure ‘active listening strategies’ and ‘less active listening strategies’ of EFL learners, to 123 freshman students of English Language Teaching (ELT) Department of a state university in Turkey, b) semi-structured interviews with 10 students selected from the participants of the first phase. After the qualitative analyses of OCSI scores, the topranking 10 students were included in the second phase of the study and invited as volunteer interviewees. The second phase, the main qualitative part of the study, was conducted with semi-structured interviews. The questions were designed to explore the participants’ personality traits in L2 listening. Qualitative data was transcribed verbatim and analysed with a content analysis method. The analysis revealed basic characteristics such as ‘being text-dependent, non-interruptive, judgmental, empathic’. In total, 30 characteristics were defined under 5 pre-determined themes and 11 categories. While most of the characteristics defined in the study are consistent with existing literature, there are also some newly explored ones such as ‘being respectful, being text-independent, and willingness’. Both the findings and the research design of the study have implications and suggestions for further research as well as L2 listening practice.

The main aim of the study was to evaluate qualitatively the portfolio process comprising of worksheets conducted as a case in the learning-teaching process of a measurement and assessment course at Anadolu University, Turkey. 42 prospective teachers participated in the study and the data was collected through an open-ended questionnaire. The principal results derived from the views of the participant prospective teachers were that prospective teachers fulfilled the requirements of the portfolio process, realized their learning drawbacks and revised their works, gained the objectives of the course. According to them, the process was useful for learning and retention. Blending the advantages of both worksheets and portfolio process worked almost well according to the prospective teachers.

The current study is conducted to evaluate the impact of stress and self-esteem and gender’s effect on students’ academic performance in selected private universities of Pakistan. Three hundred students from different private universities of Pakistan were surveyed using cluster random sampling technique by means of Rosenberg self-esteem scale and perceived stress scale questionnaires. Factor, regression analysis, correlation, and t-test were employed. The findings revealed that self-esteem and stress are strongly correlated with each other but gender has no significant impact on students’ GPA, level of stress and self-esteem of the surveyed students. Moreover, when impact of self-esteem and impact of stress on GPA were analyzed discretely, it was found that both of these cognitive factors did not significantly correlate with the academic performance of students. Hence, this study revealed that the level of stress and self-esteem are not as influential on academic performance of students in private universities as it is affirmed in the literature available on the subject matter.

The principle objective of the current study is to teach variance and degree of freedom by means of computerassisted instruction. Variance is regarded as one of the most important topics to learn, degree of freedom is a concept considered as one of the most difficult concepts to teach and learn. The preliminary results on 15 faculty members showed that they had limited knowledge related to these concepts. Based on this need analysis, we developed a video tutorial to teach these concepts using Flash and Camtasia Studio software. We also considered visual design and instruction principles when developing the tutorial. The tutorial is made up of three parts: population variance, degree of freedom and sample variance. The effectiveness of our tutorial was tested on these 15 faculty members. The findings revealed substantial improvement in their knowledge about these two concepts. They were very satisfied with the tutorial and gave us valuable insight into what can be done to promote the instructional value of our tutorial. We strongly believe that the video tutorial we developed has a great potential to help learners of statistics to grasp these concepts.

The employer expectations for recent graduates working in the computer industry are generally not taken into account during the curriculum development of computer-related departments of the Turkish universities. In consequence, when the graduates enter the work force, there is a dissatisfaction between the employer expectations and the technical and/or social abilities of the new graduates. As a guide to the departments offering degrees in computing, an employer expectation survey has been conducted among senior professionals and managers from the government and private sectors to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of their junior engineers. The results indicate significant differences in government and private sectors in terms of perceived competencies to some extent. In addition, some significant relationships between employer expectations from new graduates and perceived competencies focusing on graduates’ performance in different work environments are expressed.

The aim of the study is to improve the school-family cooperation, which may improve students’ achievement, by obtaining parents’ expectations from teachers and school administrators. A non-probability sample has been used. The participants of the research consist of 25 parents and 2nd grade 25 students from two low-socio-economic state schools. Qualitative approach was selected for his study. Semistructured interviews were used. Data were collected from October, 2013 through October, 2014. This included a 60-120 minutes recorded interviews with the informants with initial interview questions and documents. The results of the study suggest that parents should cooperate with teachers and students in the education process actively, to make cooperation effective, to plan school activities together with parents and then adjust the activities according to the environment. In addition, the study put forward the idea that parents’ involvement in the education process as a member of school improves the students’ achievement.

The value of using multiple means in assessment for decision making has been expressed for a long time. Different types of assessment have been proposed for a fair evaluation of student progress or achievement level. Even though undergraduate achievement in social sciences implies dependency on language proficiency, where medium instruction is a foreign language, it appears that it is more dependent on study habits, attendance, and language achievement scores rather than foreign language proficiency scores. Scores in language, portfolio, attendance and GPAs over three years of 1208 students who have been studying at different faculties have been analyzed to see the relationship between language test results, portfolios, attendance, gender, department and academic achievement in the undergraduate education. Portfolio, attendance and participation in prep school correlated with GPAs in an increasing trend and the predictive value of different means of language assessment on academic achievement with regard to faculties produced different results.

This study was designed to identify high school administrators' level of using scientific problem-solving techniques in organisational problems based on their own views. The population of the study comprised of administrators (principals, chief deputy principals and deputy principals) working at high schools in Kırklareli city centre in 2014-2015 school year. No sampling method was used since the whole population was reached within the study. Survey model was adopted, and the "Scale of School Administrators' Level of Using Scientific Problem-Solving Processes and Techniques in Organisational Problems" developed by Sağır and Göksoy (2012: 1-11) in 5-point Likert type was used as the data gathering instrument. The scale was adapted to the Kırklareli sample and the Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was 0,95. The findings revealed a difference in the administrators' level of using scientific problem-solving techniques based on various variables. The study showed that in overall, the school administrators "usually" used the scientific problem-solving process in the organisational problems they encountered, but stated that they did not have the ability necessary to solve organisational problems. It is suggested that policies such as requiring educational administrators to have a Master's degree, and organising in-service training should be developed to ensure that they have the ability to solve organisational problems.

As in every field of education, in foreign language teaching, homework can be considered as an essential part of learning which provides learners various opportunities to practice and improve their language skills both within and out of the class time. With the improvement and rapid emergence of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the world of education, using web tools in the classroom and assigning students through web-sites and software programs have become popular and it is evidenced that both teachers and students make use of these new tools in many ways. Regarding this fact, the present study aims to explore the role of such tools, specifically cyber-homework, on students’ success and outcomes in an EFL classroom. In order to find an answer to this question, total 201 students who enroll in 5th, 6th, and 7th grades in a private college were assigned with web-based homework, i.e. cyber homework, to see whether the use of cyber homework has an effect on their success in language learning. Throughout the experimental process, any attempt of students were recorded and logged automatically which also served as statistical analysis of the data. Additionally, participants’ exam results in their courses were compared with the use amount of the cyber homework of the students. Finally gathered data were analyzed through descriptive analysis. The analysis of the data revealed in general that roughly 39% of the participants showed interest to cyber homework and succeeded in the exams.

The world is facing with problems having three aspects which are energy, economy and environment. These problems are generally controversial. In recent years Turkey also encounters such a controversial issue and decision making on this issue seems difficult. The government is planning to construct a nuclear power plant on the south part of Turkey. Nuclear energy is considered as one of the science and technology issues for which there is a debate between specialists and public. Therefore in this study, we investigated the views and knowledge of preservice science teachers about nuclear power plant using a quantitative method. The instruments were developed by the researcher and both had a good internal consistency. The results showed that preservice science teachers had negative views about construction of nuclear power plant and were knowledgeable at a moderate level.

Translation has been suggested as a way of language teaching that addresses the need to clarify the inevitable role of translation in language learning. The present study attempted to have an understanding of the translation use by Turkish adult learners of English, specifically, in gaining English skills (i.e. reading, listening, writing, speaking) and in learning lexical items. The study also aimed to find out if the use of translation in these areas shows any variances according to proficiency levels of the learners. It was conducted with 118 students studying at three different proficiency levels in English preparatory school of a state university in Turkey. Data for the present study were collected in the fall term of the 2013-2014 academic year through the Inventory for Translation as a Learning Strategy (ILTS) (Liao, 2002). The findings were discussed in relation to the results of prior studies and practical suggestions on the use of translation were provided.