The purpose of this study was to explore and describe training levels related to careers, employment, and influences of “new economy” in small and mid-sized firms. The organizational side of career development behaviors was also a focus of this study. Interviews related to company policies and practices were conducted with 26 employers or managers of small and mid-sized firms located in the OSTIM Organized Industrial Region in Ankara, Turkey. This research found it is rare in small and mid-size companies to offer structured workplace training or career development activities for workers. Managers had more interest in workplace training if their companies were required to have quality assurance certifications, or if the company participated in exporting, was involved in customs procedures, or was in a business that required foreign language skills. Managers indicated very low interest in training related to social, cultural, personal development, and esthetical issues.

In this study it was aimed to i) diagnose the topics that are perceived as difficult at the level of 6-8 science classes and ii) find out the reasons behind of these difficulties as well as propose suggestions to remedy these difficulties. Eighteen science teachers and three hundred students attending different types of secondary schools participated in the study. In the study in which qualitative and quantitative methods were used 114 science topics were listed to diagnose the topics that are perceived as difficult. Participants were noted their ideas regarding the topics as “easy”, “moderate” and “difficult.” Topic difficulty index (TDI) was used to determine the level of difficulty. To find out the reasons behind the difficulties, five teachers and ten pupils who indicated the topics of the highest difficulties were interviewed. The results of the study showed that i) the topics that have the TDI value over % 25 are mostly related to physical processes and they are followed the topics about living organisms and life, matter and change, The World and the Universe, respectively, ii) there is not an exact overlap between the topics that are perceived as difficult both by teachers and the students, iii) there are several reasons (e.g., the level of abstractness of the concepts, overloading of the content, mathematical skill, language etc) behind the difficulties. The possible effects of these results on science education and their importance regarding learning, teaching, assessment as well as curriculum development are critically analyzed and some suggestions are made to remedy the difficulties.

Advance organizers activate the most suitable schema to learn new material. Poetic images are signified in schemata and the elements which are not expressed may be called by advance organizers. The purpose of this investigation is to discern the effectiveness of advance organizers on the signification of poetic images. Pretestposttest experimental design with a control group was used in the study. The two sophomore groups from the Social Sciences Teaching department at Dokuz Eylül University formed the sample for the study. 74 students (36 in the experimental group, 38 in the control group) participated in the study. The experimental group was given advance organizers. Data were collected by the Achievement Test, measuring the signification of poetic images. There was a statistically significant difference (p<0.01) between the groups in the signification of poetic images after the treatment. The difference was in favor of the experimental group.

The purpose of this study is to design a constructivist learning environment that helps learning the limit concept. The study is a pretest-posttest quasi-experimental research. The control and the experimental groups were chosen from the students attending a calculus course. Worksheets were used to assess students' learning of the limit concept. As a result of data analysis, it was found that the constructivist learning environment provided positive contribution to learning of the limit concept. It was determined that the experimental group was more successful than the control group in seeing the relations between the limits and the real world. At the same time, experimental group had lesser difficulty in understanding the limits. However, both the experimental and the control groups had difficulty in applying the deltaepsilon approach. It is concluded that this study would guide when learning environment is design to construct mathematical concepts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate validity and reliability of Short Form of The Family Sense of Coherence Scale's which was developed originally 26 items by Antonovsky and Sourani (1988) and 12 items short form by Sagy (1998). The scale measures individuals' perception of Family Sense of Coherence and it can be applied to adolescents and adults. The sample was consisted of 328 female (58%) and 234 male (42%), totally 562 undergraduate students who attend Education Faculty, Cukurova University. After translating the FSOC into Turkish, exploratory factor analysis was performed on samples of undergraduate students. In addition item analyses, convergent, divergent scales validity and test-re test, Cronbach alpha coefficient reliability were examined. The results have shown that Short form of Turkish Family Sense of Coherence Scale has satisfactory reliability and validity.

The purpose of this study is to find out whether the humane values education program has produced any changes on the students' level of humane values. The research was conducted with the first-and second-grade students in Konya Meram Science High School in the 2006-2007 academic year. Thirty students participated in the study. Half of the participants were assigned to the experimental group and the other half to the control group. The research period spans April & May. Having prepared the education program and the scale, the experimental and control groups were formed objectively. The experimental group, consisting of 15 students, was provided with the Humane Values Education Program lasting 14 sessions. Two sessions were held in a week. Statistical methods were used to balance the control and experimental group. The control group didn't receive any program. Findings of the research can be summarized as follows: Between the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group, a significant difference can be seen in favor of the post- test. There is no such a difference for the control group. According to the post-test results of the control and experimental group, there are meaningful differences in favor of the experimental group in the sub-dimensions of responsibility, friendship, amiability, respect, honesty, and tolerance. Thus, these results show the effectiveness of the program presented. The sub-dimensions of the Humane Values Education Program given above show that this study is effective with regard to affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes. Suggestions are made in the light of the findings and it has been concluded that the program is effective in the development of secondary education students' value acquisition

This study aims to investigate preschool children's family functions. To fulfill this aim, mothers' viewpoints and characteristics (e.g., educational level, age, number of children, time spent in Istanbul, relations with spouse, employment status, relatives living in the same house, and perceived economic level) have been considered. The study sample consists of the mothers (n = 897) of 416 girls and 481 boys aged 5 years old (60-72 months) attending 16 preschools in Istanbul. The findings show that less healthy family functions are displayed by young mothers than older ones; primary school graduate mothers than more educated ones; mothers with three children than those with fewer children; mothers who have lived in Istanbul for 20-29 years than those who have lived longer; mothers who have other relatives living with them than those who do not; non-working mothers than working ones; and mothers who stated that they were satisfied and moderately satisfied with their jobs than those who stated they were very satisfied. Other noteworthy findings are that the better the mother perceives her relations with her spouse and the better the economic situation, the healthier the family. The results also reveal that as the number of relatives living with the family increases, family functions become less healthy.

The purpose of this study is to determine the guidance and counseling needs of middle school (i.e., sixth, seventh, and eighth grades) students from their points of views by using qualitative research techniques. In addition, while collecting the data, semi-structured interview technique is used as a method of data collection. The study was conducted with 7th and 8th graders at public primary schools in the district of Selcuklu/Konya, during the 2006-2007 academic school year. The data obtained were coded into Nvivo2 and the following themes are established: Educational guidance and counseling, career guidance and counseling, and personal/ social guidance and counseling. The findings emerging from this research are discussed and the recommendations are developed with regard to these results.

This paper aims to develop the Reflective Thinking Tendency Scale (RTTS) for teachers and student teachers. Survey was the research method used in the study. In this research, there were 599 cases and 456 of these cases were the students of the departments of the Turkish language teaching and primary school teaching within grades of 2nd, 3rd and 4th at Fırat University. The total number of students who attended the classes mentioned above was 960. The ratio of the population to the sample was 47.5%. The rest of the cases were composed of 143 primary school teachers (6th, 7th, 8th grades) who worked in Çermik in the city of Diyarbakır. The total number of teachers who worked in Çermik was 194. In this case, the ratio of the population to the sample was 71%. According to the factor analysis results, KMO value of the RTTS was 0.91 and the value of Barlett test was 6811.46 (p < .05). In this scale, there are 7 factors: Continuous and intentional thinking, open- mindness, effective and interrogated teaching, responsibility of teaching and science, foresighted and sincere, researcher and looking professional. The results of the RTTS show that total correlation of items changed between 0.31 and 0.61 and it was found that the test-retest correlation was 0.74 (p < .01) and split half correlation coefficient was 0.77 (p < .01). The correlation between the scale and the 51 item the California Critical Thinking Scale (Kökdemir, 2003, 80-82) was 0.69 and the correlation coefficient between Semerci (2000, 23-26)'s Critical Thinking Skills Scale was 0.61 (p < .01). Cronbach alpha coefficient of the RTTS was 0.91. The scale consisted of 20 negative and 15 positive items. These results indicate that the scale had validity and reliability. The scale can be used with teachers and student teachers.

The science of education has focused on alternative educational approaches for years with a view to meeting the needs of wide student audiences in classes. One of the sources of the differences in learning performance at class environment is the learning styles. This study has been conducted to develop a learning styles scale for students at the secondary education level. Within the scope of the study, a learning styles scale for the secondary education level tailored to the conditions in Turkey has also been developed. The study was started with 223 items and implementations were carried out on 909 high school students. After the study, Cronbach's Alpha coefficient was determined as 0.95. Furthermore, it was determined that item-total and corrected item-total correlations were significant and items were discriminative. The factor analysis has yielded that the items group under a total of 8 factors, total variance amount described was around 0.56 and that significant correlations were present between the factors.