Much of the recent literature in the field of SLA research has a primary reliance on experimental design and quantitative analysis. Since SLA is so complex and multidimensional a phenomenon, it is difficult to study in an unnatural experimental design. In such a setting, some of the variables that affect the very nature of language learning may be missed or eliminated within experimental design. Furthermore, the complexity and elusiveness of SLA often make it difficult to formulate the appropriate questions or to identify the relevant variables. At the same time, the profession is becoming more socially responsive and more politically involved, and the facts that language pedagogy is context sensitive, and it is not just about cognitive factors have been well documented. These new developments are in contrast with some concepts such as objectivity, generalizability and idealization that we have in our research orientation. The purpose of this paper is to show that research orientation in SLA does not match with the new developments that we have had in the profession, and to shed more light on the core assumptions underlying qualitative research, proposing it as an alternative and a more relevant way of doing research in SLA.
Full-text of this article is available at http://www.academicjournals.org/ERR2/PDF/Pdf%202010/Mar/Tholen%20et%20al..pdf This paper uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative evidences to assess the ways and extent to which, by 2007/2008, higher education graduates in the South Caucasus capitals were, and were not, deriving labour market benefits from their higher education. The quantitative evidence is from representative samples of approximately 200 in the age range 31 - 37 who were living in each of the three capital cities (Baku, Tbilisi and Yerevan) in 2005 - 2007. The qualitative evidence is from 10 followup interviews in 2008 with selected higher education graduates from the preceding quantitative surveys. The evidence shows that the benefits of higher education were: much superior chances of having been continuously employed since entering the labour market, being in full-time employment in 2007/2008, and holding a non-manual job. Graduates were also more likely than non-graduates to have jobs in the public sector. However, the earnings of graduate employees were not consistently (across all three cities and among males and females) higher than the earnings of employed non-graduates, there was considerable under-employment among graduates in all three capitals, and graduate females who had married (between 70 and 76% in the three capitals had married by age 30) had nearly all withdrawn from the workforce. The paper explains how family and housing practices in the South Caucasus were requiring female graduates to prioritise marriage rather than employment careers in their life plans. We conclude that while higher education was conferring definite labour market benefits for both males and females, and in all three cities, these benefits varied by gender. Moreover, graduate under-employment had not been eliminated, and looked unlikely to be eliminated despite the strong economic growth that was continuing in all three countries.
Working memory plays a key role in supporting children’s learning over the school years, and beyond this into adulthood. It is proposed here that working memory is crucially required to store information while other material is being mentally manipulated during the classroom learning activities that form the foundations for the acquisition of complex skills and knowledge. A child with a poor working memory capacity will struggle and often fail in such activities, disrupting and delaying learning. The aim of this review is to present the case that working memory makes a vital contribution to classroom learning. Following a brief introduction to working memory and its assessment, links between working memory skills and scholastic progress is reviewed and illustrated. Next, the classroom behaviour of children with very poor working memory functions, and in particular their characteristic failures in learning activities, is described. Finally, the implications of this research for classroom practice is considered; this includes an intervention programme designed to improve learning outcomes for children with poor working memory function that is based on the theoretical analysis of working memory and learning advanced here.
The purpose of the study was to explore the perception of secondary school heads and their managerial roles. The sample of the study consisted of 56 school heads including 34 males and 22 females. A five-point scale was designed by the researchers for data collection. One of the researchers personally collected and recorded the information from the respondents. The analysis of data revealed that the school heads in Pakistan had better than average managerial behavior. Female school heads had better managerial behavior than their male counterparts. (Contains 2 tables.)
This study is conducted to investigate whether restrictons applied during Covid-19 process caused positive gains in individuals’ lives or not. In this study, data collection method used was questionnaire
to reach more number of participants in a short time. Questionnaire form prepared in accordance with purpose of study was designed through “Google Forms”. During the data collection process, due to the
restrictions applied globally, the link sharing with the research questions and the text containing the information about the research were sent to the e-mail addresses of the potential participants. Prior to
questionnaire questions, information transmission was made in relation to purpoes of study. Data collection period covers dates of 1st of June, 2020 to 31st of March 2021. Questionnaires sent after
these dates were not evaluated. Mail was sent to 871 participants in order for them to take part in the research and among them, 682 participants (78.3%) have returned back. Frequency and percentage
distributions of data obtained from participants were calculated. When the results obtained from the research are evaluated in general, it is seen that the pandemic process has an important effect on the
realization of interests that have been postponed due to lack of time, in the process of self-discovery of individuals and in having new experiences, and in breaking the prejudice against the use of technology.
Primary school students of 1980s’ Turkey remember their teachers in various aspects. Uncovering their reminiscences lets researchers see what factors become decisive in recontructing primary school teachers in the memories of their students. The priority of this paper is to discover the reasons why the 1980s primary school students remember their teachers and find out if the place (center-periphery as a variable) where they got their primary school education has any effect on their remembrances. The method of the study is oral history methodology that has a unique power because it allows the researchers to reach the experiences of masses whose voices have been hidden, excluded and living on the margin of power relations. The research group of the study is the primary school students of the 1980s in different regions of Turkey. The people chosen for the research group were receahed by the snow ball method used in oral history. The structured interviews were performed with 15 men and 15 women via a recording device apart from two trial interviews in order to collect data for the study. During the formation of the text, despite using the original forms of the interviews, the original names of the interviewed people were changed. According to the findings, the students are able to recall their teachers in their narratives due to simply being their teachers, disciplined, punished, loved and discriminated by them. Moreover, even though the findings display that where they got their primary school education did not have direct effect on remembering their teachers, the contents of their narratives do differ to some extent because of the place where they got their primary school education.
Key words: Primary school students, oral history, educational experiences, primary school teachers.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the amount of time spent on homework in all subjects (HTAS), the time spent on mathematics homework (MHT), confidence in doing mathematics homework (HCM) and the mathematics achievement of students in Turkey, based on data from the programme for international student assessment (PISA, 2003). According to the results of the multiple regression analysis, the positive variable which best predicts mathematics achievement is the students' HCM. The next best variable for predicting mathematics achievement is a negative one, which is MHT. There is no significant relationship between HTAS and mathematics achievement. The negative relationship between MHT and mathematics achievement can be explained by the fact that, in Turkey, the same amount of homework is given to all students, without taking their individual differences into account.
This study aims at assessing the importance and use of technology in geography courses, what the 2005 geography teaching program changed in terms of technology and some of the factors preventing the effective use of technology from teachers' perspectives. The research outcomes suggested that, despite the fact that there is a common consensus among geography teachers that the use of technology is highly beneficial for teaching and learning processes and the use of technology must be maximized for ideal geography education, there are some gaps that must be addressed by all shareholders in geography education; about half of the respondents suffer from a lack of technological infrastructure in their schools and almost one-third of them disagree with or are noncommittal about the suggestion that they have enough knowledge to integrate the necessary competences in the use of technology. The results indicated however, that the 2005 program affected geography education in a positive way, by encouraging the use of technology in geography courses especially in the public schools. Additionally, increasing English level of the teachers also affects their beliefs about the importance of technology use in geography courses and their competence in using technology in an affirmative way.
No nation can develop beyond the quality of its education system, which depends on the quality of teachers. Much of what teachers need to know to be successful is invisible to lay observers leading to the view that teaching requires little formal study. On the contrary, teachers seek answers to questions to enable them help students learn. They learn about literature and appropriate technology, curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, evaluation and measurement. What they offer remains a secret and their key to success is a mystery. This paper argues that 21st century teachers requires new initiatives in their preparation to adequately meet the new challenges and that we would need stronger, all inclusive globalised teacher education, training curricula and global teachers council to strengthen the teaching profession for easy mobility of teachers in the 21st century.
Collaboration is a hard and challenging endeavor. It takes all the key players to make it happen. This paper discusses our current thinking about school-university collaboration. In it, we define what collaboration involves in the context of universities and schools. Next, we discuss what we believe are the essential benefits of effective collaboration to both universities and schools. Further, we explore the major areas of collaboration, principles of effective collaboration and road blocks to and the necessary conditions for successful collaboration. Finally, we present a theoretical framework relating to schooluniversity collaboration in the context of university and school partners which reflects the overall results in terms of student success. The paper concludes that collaboration is a shared endeavor by the partners involved to initiate and to sustain the partnership. This relationship must be built and nurtured on mutual trust.
This study empirically investigated learning approaches of management graduate students in China. The representative sample consisted of 208 MBA students in a professional accreditation business program in careers, namely the part-time MBA program, provided by Zhejiang University (ZJU) during the 2010/2011 academic year. The instrument used to collect the study data was the Revised Two-factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F), developed by Biggs et al. (2001). The data was fed into SPSS 16.0 version for analyses using t- test, correlations and ANOVA. There were no significant differences in the scores of the R-SPQ-2F questionnaire between the studied groups (gender and age groups) in the part time MBA program, ZJU. The deep approach to learning was found dominant among the participants regardless their age and gender differences. The results had an outstanding importance, with regard to some earlier studies stereotyping Chinese students as a "rote learners" using knowledge assimilation for the mastery of principles instead of critical analysis.
This research was conducted to analyze play and playmate preferences of preschool girls and boys during free play time. The study group consisted of 48-66 months old preschool children. There were ten girls, seven boys and a preschool teacher in the study group. They were all selected from a public preschool in Cukurova, a district of Adana a city in the south of Turkey in the fall semester of 2014 to 2015 academic year. For two weeks children were observed during their free play time. In addition, the children and teacher were interviewed to determine the play and playmate preferences of the children. An interview with each child took approximately 5 to 6 minutes, whereas the interview with the teacher took 20 minutes. In this research, content analysis method was applied at the data analysis phase. The outcomes of the analysis indicated that there were differences between play area, type of play and
playmate preferences between girls and boys. Research indicated that girls usually opt for dramatic (pretend) play such as playing house, role play and gets in role as doctor, mother or kid; while boys prefer to play with blocks and lego for construction and building purposes (block center). The research results show gender effects on girls and boys play behaviors.
The aim of the present study is to compare the values in the songs of 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade primary education music classes students’ workbooks according to the value categorizations proposed by Rockeach and Akbas and which values among the categories mentioned are taught to the students in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade primary education music classes students’ workbooks. The study sample consists of 102 school songs included in the 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade primary education music classes students’ workbooks. Data are collected through the international prominent Rockeach Value Survey and Akbas Value Classification System. Content analysis was made from the data collected and the values of the songs are presented in tables. Upon determining the frequency of the values expressed in the books, they have been compared with Rockeach and Akbas value classification lists. The results of the present study reveal that the values present in the students’ workbooks do not confirm with the majority of the values expressed in the lists of both value categorizations. The study is in line with qualitative research design and aims to determine a present condition. It is based on 102 school songs in the students’ workbooks published by Turkish Ministry of Education.
Key words: Music, music education, values education, value
The purpose of the study is to determine the effects of using writing activities with different learning purposes by the secondary school 7 th grade students on their academic achievement and attitudes towards the course. The study was carried out in a secondary school located in the centre of Erzurum in 2012-2013 academic year; the study is a quasi-experimental with pre-test-post-test design. 97 students from 3 classrooms formed the sampling of the study. These classes were divided into three groups randomly: letter writing, journal writing and control groups. This study was conducted with the 7 th grade force and motion subject such as introduction to springs, labour and energy, simple machines, energy and friction force. Before starting the force and motion unit, all the students in the groups took achievement test and attitude pre-test; five-week teaching time was spared for force and motion subject. The participating science teachers taught force unit to all 3 classes by using the same instructional material and pedagogical approaches. Equal time on each task was provided for both groups. Upon completion of final version of the writing assignment post-test was implemented. The analysis of data revealed that journal writing group is more successful than letter writing and control groups. Also letter writing group is more successful than control group statistically. On the other hand, it was found that attitude towards science and technology course did not show a statistically significant difference according to groups.
The purpose of this study is to examine the writing anxiety levels of primary school 6, 7 and 8th year students in terms of several variables using the "writing anxiety scale" developed by Yaman (2010). The study group is composed of 1407 students enrolled at the 6, 7 and 8th years of 10 primary schools in arkila district of Sivas province. The higher scores obtained from the "writing anxiety scale" are interpreted as the writing anxiety levels of the students in their native language are lower. According to this, it is determined that the writing anxiety levels of the students significantly differ in terms of their gender, their status of enjoying Turkish language courses, the number of the books they have read in the last month and the status of their keeping diaries.
The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which each of the three types of instruction (authentic, where, differentiated) engages 9th grade high school students in achieving language proficiency. The paper examines the features of these models of instructions and teachers’ opinion about them. It includes a descriptive research in survey model. The sample in research consists of 291 students and 95 teachers selected from 9th grades of 5 different high schools selected randomly in central province of Ankara. Questionnaires, attitude scales and assessment tests are used as data collection instruments, in elicititing opinion of 9th grade students and their teachers on types of instructions. The data obtained were later analyzed with SPSS. The results of the study revealed that 9th grade students’ success levels in relation to models of instruction are in general higher. It was also discovered in the research that students with less interest in Turkish Literature course could construct knowledge by application of these models of instruction. It can be said that the teachers who used the methods dealing with ‘authentic’, ‘where’ and ‘differentiated’ instructions were able to construct knowledge to engage students in language course.
Key words: Turkish literature education, instruction, assessment, curriculum, language learning.
th grade students which aims to improve students’ reading and their understanding of complex literary texts. The sample is composed of 120 students selected from 9 th grade of 10 different high schools in central province of Ankara in Turkey. The schools are chosen with probability-based sampling methods. Students were asked to read a text which is proposed by Turkish literature curriculum. Data was gathered using “Miscue analysis form” and “Questionnaire” as the main research tools to understand the sources of students’ reading difficulties. The statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) program was used for data analysis. According to findings, it was seen that students have reading difficulties even though they are 9 th grade students. The results showed that students read inaccurately and they do not pay attention to punctuation marks. It can be also said students with low reading fluency have low competency. The result of this study indicates that most of the teachers who were participated in this study do not assess their students’ reading performance and they do not have any analysis form for assessing students’ reading performance.
This study aims to enhance inventive abilities for secondary students by using the Invention Learning Approach. Its activities focus on creating new inventions based on the students’ interests by using constructional tools. The participants were twenty secondary students who took an elective science course that provided instructional units integrated with the Invention Learning Approach for 40 h, over a period of 20 weeks. A mixed-method approach was used to investigate and analyze the data. The results of this study indicated a significant increase in their inventive abilities. The qualitative data reported that students benefited from learning by this approach. Findings of this study can be used to determine how innovation and creativity can be fostered through the Invention Learning Approach teaching students how to be more innovative while solving real world problems.
Key words: Invention Learning Approach, inventive abilities, invention course, mixed methods.
Mathematically promising students are defined as those who have the potential to become the leaders and problem solvers of the future. The purpose of this research is to reveal what problem solving abilities mathematically promising students show in solving non-routine problems and type of profiles they present in the classroom and during problem solving. The students participating in this study were chosen on the basis of mathematics contest scores. Accordingly, four students from an urban private school, taking the first, ninth, tenth, and fourteenth place on the contest formed the sample of the study. The data were collected through non-routine problem solving activities, administered to the participating students after school hours at their school. After examining the students’ responses to the questions, students were interviewed on those same questions.The results suggest that mathematically promising students were very determined, spent a long time in thinking, reflecting and planning. They attempted to solve the challenging problems multiple times, and looked for alternate ways if the one they tried did not work. They found an authentic solution when they do not know or remember the general algorithm.
The main objective of this study was improving university students' from different faculties creativity thinking through a creativity education process. The education process took twelve weeks' time. As pretest, Torrance test of creative thinking (TTCT) figural form was used. Participants were 24 university students from different faculties who attended the course of "Fostering of Creativity and Creative Thinking" in spring semester. In the beginning of the lessons, TTCT Figural Form A was completed by all the students. After completion of the sessions, TTCT Figural Form B was asked to be completed as the last test. Also, all the participants were requested to made verbal comments about the effects of the lessons on their creative thoughts. The results of this research indicated that creativity based educational activities have a positive impact on creative thinking of the students, and they mentioned that they gained how to think divergently in their daily life. The results of the TTCT indicated that students' perform better especially in originality and closure factors.
Descriptors: Creative Thinking, Creativity, College Students, Creativity Tests, Creative Activities, Thinking Skills, Teacher Attitudes, Higher Education, Quasiexperimental Design, Problem Solving, Pretests Posttests, Correlation, Scores, Student Attitudes, Semi Structured Interviews
Academic Journals. e-mail: err@academic.journals.org; e-mail: service@academicjournals.org; Web site: http://academicjournals.org/journal/ERR
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking
Modules in Computer Algebra Systems (CAS) make Mathematics interesting and easy to understand. The present study focused on the implementation of the algebraic, tabular (numerical), and graphical approaches used for the construction of the concept of absolute value function in teaching mathematical content knowledge along with Maple 9. The study group consisted of pre-service teachers attending Department of Primary Education Mathematics teaching at a state university. The pretest (open ended questions) achievement and the posttest (open ended questions) achievement of the group were compared based on their answers. It was concluded that CAS was influential on pre-service teachers’ usage of the said learning approaches.
