This study investigated the validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory. The sample of the study consisted of 607 university students. Results of language equivalence indicated that the correlations between Turkish and English forms of the MAI were quite high (r = .93). As a result of a series of factor analyses eight subscales have emerged under the knowledge and regulation of cognition. These subscales were declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, conditional knowledge, planning, monitoring, evaluation, debugging, and information management. The internal consistency of the entire inventory was .95. The item-total correlations ranged from .35 to .65 and test-retest reliability coefficient was .95. According to these findings, the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used in the field of education.

This study is part of a larger ongoing Project. In this project, the documents (video recordings and transcripts) which were collected by the recording of history lessons that were taught in different countries, have been analyzed in order to identify ways in which children are involved in historical enquiry rather than didactic teaching, as a basis for comparison, discussion and development. According to the project aim, in this study, history lessons taught in a primary school in Turkey and in England were comparatively analyzed. In the Turkish lesson, pupils work in groups to interpret information in texts, maps and pictures, in order to reconstruct events surrounding the Battle of Ankara in poetry, art, drama and music. In the English lesson, children found out about Ancient Egypt's ways of daily life, also working in groups. The data gathered from these lessons -through a case study in England and an action research in Turkey- were recorded via video and the video recordings were transcribed.The documents were analyzed through document and descriptive analyses. The analysis explores ways in which pupils extract information, transfer it to new contexts and express it from different viewpoints. It shows how, in discussing sources,pupils gradually become independent of adult support, spontaneously use special vocabulary introduced by the teacher in new contexts and use causal vocabulary. It is concluded that pupils are engaged in the process of historical enquiry to the extent that, in an embryonic way, they explore the past, interrogate sources to construct interpretations which include presenting the information from different perspectives and developing arguments, using specialised vocabulary. The significance of classroom organisation and ethos in developing historical enquiry is considered.

A complete success in implementing a curriculum mainly depends on teaching activities at schools and the parents' support of the curriculum at home. Therefore, it can be claimed that the views of parents on the implementation of a curriculum play a very vital role. Nevertheless, there is a great gap in curriculum evaluation studies that scrutinize the parents' views on the curriculum implementation. The main purpose of the present study was to figure out the parents' views on the primary school curriculum (1-5) started to put into practice during the 2005-2006 academic year. Within the context of a qualitative research method, a critical case sampling technique was used in the present study. The sample was consisted of 226 (206 mother and 20 father) middle class parents who have similar socio-economic and cultural background and whose children were enrolled in a primary school in the city center of Eskişehir, Turkey. The data of the research were gathered through a questionnaire, consisting of four open-ended questions, at the end of the 2005 - 2006 academic year. Analyses included descriptive statistics. In view of the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that the current curriculum received more negative comments,especially on its incompatibility with the secondary school placement exam(OKS), deficient information in its course books, and its ineffectual enforcement of handwriting. In terms of a few positive feedbacks, parents stated that it facilitated their children to become eager to learn, forced them to inquire, and helped them gain self-confidence. Moreover, parents believed that the current curriculum was more practicable when it is compared to the previous one based mostly on memorization.With reference to the gathered views of the parents, it can be claimed that parents could support and ratify the current curriculum as long as its unavailing secti ons are emendated.

This study examined the perceptions of teachers on the effectiveness of organizational communication in their schools and whether the perceptions differed between teachers in primary and junior high schools as a function of gender, age, marital status, seniority, and rank. Data were collected from a sample of 334 teachers in 63 schools, working in primary and junior high schools in the centre of Afyon and Usak in Turkey during the fall and spring semesters of 2002-2003.A questionnaire developed by Gürgen (1997) was used in data collection, after minor modifications for teachers working in compulsory schools. Data were analyzed by percentages, means,t-tests for equality of means, analysis of variance, and Chi-square tests. Results showed that teachers scored high in the effectiveness of organizational communication, in general. Additionally, there was not a significant difference in teachers' perceptions between primary and junior high schools as a function of gender, marital status, or seniority. However, older teachers scored higher than the young in the effectiveness of organizational communication. Furthermore, teachers with less educational attainment (i.e., undergraduate or graduate education of two-year-college) scored lower than those with more educational attainment (i.e., graduate of a fouryear college) in the effectiveness of organizational communication. Moreover, primary and junior high school teachers indicated that they were informed about what to do at work by their principals. They were informed orally (65%), meetings and workshops (27 %), or in formal writing (8 %). Finally, suggestions as to what should be done to reach effective organizational communication in schools, help younger teachers use effective organizational communication skills, and increase the communication channels by principals and teachers were suggested.

The purpose of this study was to examine how early childhood pre-service teachers developed professionally through reflective journals. The study focused on the quality of reflection and the effects of reflection on pre-service teachers' professional development.Thirty-two students, majoring in early childhood education, were participated in this qualitative research study. Data were gathered through documents and semi-structured interiews and analyzed through content analysis techniques.The results of the study indicate that pre-service teachers demonstrate three stages of reflection “routine, technical and critical” in professional development themes named “evaluation, problem solving and consciousness.” Technical and critical level reflections indicated that pre-service teachers were in the process of professional development and change.

The present study examined the effect of a 10-session couple communication program developed by the researcher on passive conflict tendencies among married couples. The research was carried out with 28 married couples, 14 participants in the control group, and 14 participants in the experimental group. The design of the research was an experimental, pre-test post-test and a follow-up model. Married couples' tendency of passive conflict was measured by the Tendency of Passive Conflict Subscale of the Conflict Tendency Scale (Dökmen, 1986). Mann Whitney U Test,Wilcoxon Matched - Pairs Signed Ranks Test and One-Way Anova for Repeated Measures were used to analyze the data. The results showed that the tendency of passive conflict among married couples who attended the program were lower than those who did not attend the program (p < .001). It was found that there is no significant difference between the pre-test and post-test scores in the control group. Followup administrations were conducted three and six months after the program had finished. There was a significant difference between post-test passive conflict subscale scores and the first follow up test scores in favor of the first follow up. It was found out that there was not a significant difference between the second follow up test scores, conducted after six months, and the first follow up test scores. It can be argued that the couple communication program has positive and permanent effects in lowering the tendency of passive conflict among married couples.

In this study, with selecting the focusing point of the problem as the availability of cartoons, the teaching of global environmental problems according to the constructivist theory is investigated on the 7th graders in rural areas. This study is restricted with the global warming (G), ozone depletion (O) and the acid rain (A) problems. In the study, a pre-test post-test control group design was used. There are 40 students whose ages range from 13 to 14 years. While experimental group was taught by means of problem based learning (PBL), traditional teaching methods were applied to the control group. Data were collected with the pre-test, post-test, and the interviews after the study. The validity of the experimental method is analysed with a ttest. Data collected by the methods of interviews were evaluated by content analysis. According to the results of statistical analysis, it can be seen that the experimental method is much more effective than the traditional method for teaching global environment problems. As a result of the content analysis, the experimental group students (70 %) and the control group students (15 %) evaluated that global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain (GOA) were accepted as global problems. Students in the experimental group emphasized that GOA, global warming-ozone depletion (GO) and G affected their living areas; on the other hand, students in the control group determined that they were affected by only G. Students in the experimental group pointed out that a person should do something to solve the global environmental problems. Both experimental group (89.4%) and control group (10.6%) suggested that technology has a vital role to solve global environment problems. Finally, the students in the experimental (85%) group think that method is amusing. From these results, it is seen that students' knowledge and consciousness about global environmental problems increase with the using of this experimental method, and at the same time it is seen that with this study they can realize their share of improving environment easier than before.

This research was conducted in order to determine the relationships between levels of indecisiveness and their self-esteem among Turkish university students. The study was designed and implemented in 2006 with 320 voluntary university students of whom 170 were females and 150 males in Giresun, Turkey. The Personal Indecisiveness Scale (PIS; Bacanlı, 2005) and the Self Esteem Scale (SES; Bogenç, 2005) were used to gather the data in the research. Significant negative, low level, relationship was found between self-esteem and indecisiveness. According to the results of the present research, the levels of exploratory indecisiveness were higher among females than males. Gender was not a significant predictor on neither impetuous nor overall indecisiveness. Although the levels of self-esteem was higher among female students than male students, this difference was not statistically significant. Higher significant positive correlations were found within the sub-scales of the PIS, as expected.The relationship between the exploratory PIS and impetuous PIS was positive, slightly above intermediate level, and meaningful. Impetuous, exploratory and overall indecisiveness altogether were significantly related with students' self esteem scores, even thought the combined effect was low level. These variables altogether explained approximately 18% of all the total variance. According to the findings, gender was not a significant variable for indecisiveness in Turkish sample of university students. The results also showed that female Turkish students were more decisive than women in other countries (such as the USA or Austria) and than Turkish adolescents. The fact that the number of girls with university education is small in Turkey makes those girls privileged, decisive, and highly self esteemed. According to another finding, female students are more decisive than males within the sample of university students. Additionally, in the case of indecisiveness, when a guidance counselor is contacted, interventions toward increasing self-esteem is suggested.

This study reinvestigates the systems approach, which is, among educators, a wellrecognized approach reflecting the fundamental discourses of the industrial order. The pervasive discourses of the industrial order that failed to invite a holistic view for students have led to a conceptual division. This systemic thinking has thus started viewing schools as factories, teachers as workers, and students as mere products processed to promote production in the workplace. This manipulative discourse was scrutinized with its relation to such historically interrelated concepts as positivism, behaviorism, scientific management, and bureaucracy. The changing roles of schools and teachers were also discussed in light of those concepts. It has further been argued that, in the information age, individuals shaped by this mindset are more likely to fall prey to the bombardment of advertising and propaganda, and thus, to contribute to the wealth of the affluent by excessive consumerism. While discussing the previous and current logics of this mindset rooted in Frederick Taylor's “scientific management” approach, this study emphasizes the need to strip educators of their prescribed roles as passive information deliverers and to position them as active subjects who, in solidarity with their students, can actively produce knowledge.

In this study, the levels of hopelessness and state-trait anxiety among teacher candidates before taking the State Employees Selection Exam (KPSS) were investigated. The research was carried out with 403 volunteer teacher candidates. Of them, 271 seniors who were attending classes at Çukurova University in 2005-2006 Spring and 132 were newly-graduated teacher candidates from various other universities. The data collection tools in the study were the Personal Information Form prepared by the researchers, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and the Beck Hopelessness Scale.In the data analysis, t-test, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and stepwise regression analyses were used. After the analyses, significant differences were found as in the following order: a) the hopelessness levels among the teacher candidates on gender and major, b) the trait anxiety and the hopelessness levels regarding to previous KPSS experiences and attendance to a KPSS preparation course and, c) the hopelessness and the state-trait anxiety levels in terms of the contribution of the educational training courses offered at teacher candidates during their pre-service education. As for the results on among the new graduates, it was seen that state anxiety was the first factor in predicting their hopelessness levels followed by trait anxiety levels and gender. The rank of the predictors for the seniors were found to be trait anxiety, state anxiety and, the last KPSS experience.

The purpose of this study is to compare vocational school students' success at basic mathematics subjects with regard to their entrance to the university. The data were obtained by administering a “Personnel Information Form” and “the Mathematics Test” prepared by the researcher to 617 vocational school students and 26 two-year degree programs at the Open University in Turkey. After analyzing the data, a considerable statistical difference in basic mathematical knowledge and skills among students was found based on students' entrance ranks to the programs. The results of the research indicated that there is a significant difference in success on mathematics courses taken at high schools and universities. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between men and women on mathematics tests.

The necessity of the foundational courses that take place in teaching courses in teacher education programs is a much-debated topic. Some writers argue that these courses are important since they help teachers and teacher candidates understand the dynamics in the process of teaching and learning and assist teachers in thinking extensively about the problems encountered while teaching so as to find rational solutions to the problems. On the other hand, some writers claim that there should not be any foundational courses in teacher education programs since teaching can be learned only by practice. Opponents argue that foundational courses cannot help teacher candidates. Since the 1950's, foundational courses have been taught in teacher education programs in Turkey. However, foundational courses were eliminated from teacher education programs, except psychology courses, by the Higher Educational Council (HEC) in the process of restructuring educational faculties in 1997.Even though there were not any scientific data supporting this decision, the decision has not been criticized. The HEC decided to bring new arrangements to teacher education programs in 2006. The foundational courses have been added back to teacher education programs with this arrangement. In this study, after examining the opinions and practices that are for and against the foundational courses, these courses have been evaluated in the light of the arrangements done by the HEC.