30 (4), 2015
PREFACE
CONTENTS
INNER COVER
REFEREES/REWIEWERS
REFEREES/REWIEWERS (ALL FOR 2015)
PUBLICATION POLICY AND RULES
The Examination of Competency Level of Counselor Trainees in Reflection of Content and Reflection of Feeling Skills
Betül MEYDANThe purpose of the study was to determine the competence of counselor trainees in discriminating effective and ineffective reflection of content and reflection of feeling skills and whether those vary with respect to take pre-practicum, practicum, and supervision courses. Participants were 809 counselor trainees. Data were collected by using Microcounseling Skill Discrimination Scale and Demographic Information Form. Results showed that students were moderately competent for discriminating effective and ineffective reflection of content and feeling skills. There was a significant difference in reflection of content skill between students who had taken a pre-practicum course and those who had not this course. There was a significant difference in reflection skills between students who had taken a practicum and supervision courses and those who had not these courses. However, competence in discriminating effective and ineffective reflection of feeling skill did not differ significantly whether or not counselor trainees had taken a pre-practicum course. The results were discussed in the light of counseling skills training literature and some suggestions were proposed regarding future studies.
Keywords: reflection of content, reflection of feeling, counseling skills, counselor education.
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Servant Leadership and Voice Behavior in Higher Education
Hakan ERKUTLU & Jamel CHAFRAThis study examines the relationship between servant leadership and voice behavior and the mediating roles of psychological empowerment and psychological safety on that relationship in higher education. The study sample encompasses a total of 793 faculty members along with their deans from randomly selected 10 state universities in İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Kayseri, Konya, Bursa, Samsun and Gaziantep during 2012-2013 spring semester. Faculty member’s perceptions of psychological empowerment, psychological safety and voice behavior were measured using the psychological empowerment scale developed by Spreitzer (1995), the psychological safety scale developed by Edmondson (1999) and van Dyne and LePine’s (1998) voice behavior scale respectively. Ehrhart's (2004) servant leadership scale was used to assess faculty dean’s perception of the servant leadership. The results revealed a significant positive relationship between servant leadership and voice behavior and mediating roles of psychological empowerment and safety on that relationship.
Keywords: servant leadership, voice behavior, psychological empowerment, psychological safety
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Evaluation of The Conflict Causes and Conflict Management Approaches of The State Lycee Teachers
Esen SUCUOĞLUThe aim of this study is to evaluate teachers’ conflict reasons and their conflict management approaches. Within this scope, the research makes an attempt to determine on what issues teachers have conflicts with each other as well as the reasons for such conflicts, whom they conflict with, and to what extent they use their conflict management strategies. The population for the study is composed of the teachers working at public lycees in the academic year 2012 – 2013. In this descriptive research, “Personal Information Form”, “Questionnaire about the Teachers Facing Conflicts in School” and “Scale of Conflict Management Strategies” were applied to 423 teachers. Also, the LSD test was applied to the data analysis in order to determine percentage, arithmetic average, standard deviation, chi-squared test, t-test, one-way analysis of variance and source of differences. As a result of this research, it is concluded that the lycee teachers involved in the study were found to be mostly in conflict with students and the other teachers, where student behaviours is the primary subject of conflict, and the primary reason for this conflict is the lack of communication and/or communication disorder and the mostly used conflict management strategy by those lycee teachers is collaborating.
Keywords: conflict, strategies of conflict management, lycee teachers
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European Policy and Practices in Training Foreign Language Teachers
İsmail Hakkı MİRİCİCouncil of Europe aims to disseminate a common European education system based on common practices in every member state. In this dissemination policy, there exist such issues as foreign language teaching, learning and foreign language teacher training practices based on a common system as well. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, CEFR as a common framework; the European Language Portfolio, ELP as a tool for recording and reporting the language competencies of language learners in a standardised manner; and the European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages, EPOSTL as a self-assessment tool for student teachers to evaluate their own achievements according to common standards in their education process have been developed. The Council of Europe Language Policy Division in Strasbourg, France and the European Centre for Modern Languages in Graz, Austria have been pursuing their works in order to disseminate and standardise this common European system successfully and fruitfully. In this study, the issues on how to reflect the common European standards on to professional achievements of the prospective foreign language teachers have been discussed.
Keywords: Foreign language teacher training, the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). the European Language Portfolio (ELP), European Portfolio for Student Teachers of Languages (EPOSTL)
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The Evaluation of Secondary School Biology Curriculum in Terms of Wildlife Components
Kalender ARIKAN & Salih Levent TURANThe main purpose of this study was to determine the presentation, situation and adequacy of wildlife component in secondary school biology curricula and 9, 10, 11 and 12. classes biology textbooks in terms of images and contents. To achieve this goal amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species were identified in images in secondary school biology textbooks. Presence of statements in context related to the identified species were analysed. In addition, the name of the species whose images are given in textbooks, are investigated in terms of naming accuracy and names. Also, the texts, educational attainment and activities in textbooks and in secondary school biology curriculum were determined with regard to wildlife components. According to study results: 110 species demonstrated in 135 images in species level, 13 component in genus, family or ordo level were identified in secondary school biology curricula and textbooks. 48 mammals, 40 birds, 14 reptiles and 8 amphibians are in 110 species. The terms of species, endemic species, endemism and population were misused in textbooks and curricula. It is determined that textbooks have no standard in the naming of species and there are 79 unnamed wildlife component in textbooks. It has been determined that there are not issues directly related to wildlife in textbooks and also there are not outcomes directly related to wildlife in the curriculum. Secondary school biology curricula and textbooks need to be rearranged in the point of naming species and using of biological terms.
Keywords: biology curricula, textbook, wildlife, species, endemic.
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Pre-Service Teachers’ Online Reading Comprehension Practices and Beliefs about Their Future Classrooms
Mustafa ULUSOY & Hakan DEDEOĞLUThe purpose of this study is twofold: The first purpose is to investigate pre-service teachers’ online reading comprehension practices. Secondly, pre-service teachers' perceptions about the use of online literacy and comprehension strategies in their future classrooms are investigated. The subjects of the study were 495 voluntary pre-service teachers selected from the department of classroom teacher education in one of the major universities in Ankara in 2011. The pre-service teachers’ use of online reading strategies was measured by using “The Online Reading Comprehension Strategies Survey.” The results revealed that: (a) majority of the subjects selected online materials to read because reading, editing, and using online material is easier, (b) the pre-service teachers used 41 of the 46 online reading comprehension strategies most of the time, (c) there was no significant difference between pre-service teachers who preferred to read online and paper-based materials regarding practicing online reading comprehension strategies, (d) the fourth year pre-service teachers used the online reading comprehension strategies the most frequently, and (e) all of the interviewed pre-service teachers were willing to teach online literacy and comprehension strategies in their future classrooms.
Keywords: Pre-service teachers, online reading, comprehension, beliefs
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Examination of Measurement Invariance at Groups’ Comparisons: A Study on PISA Student Questionnaire
N. Bilge BAŞUSTA & Selahattin GELBALIn order to make a meaningful comparision, instruments must have similar measurement qualities across settings. Research on measurement ınvariance (MI) has typically focused on internal structure of multi-item instruments and external relations. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors of PISA student questionnaire’s items and assessing the measurement invariance of these factors across gender. This study examined the PISA data for Turkish students with the sample size of 4942 through the analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). First, it is designed a measurement model over the factors from student questionnaire with Structural equation modeling. It was understood that the designed measurement model’s goodness fit index output is good. Then four forms of invariance were assessed for each latent variables progressively and assessed MI. The variables were examined using comparative fit index (CFI). The MI results revealed that there were no invariance problems across gender in PISA.
Keywords: Measurement Invariance, Multi Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA), Comfirmatory Factor Analysis, Gender
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The Adaptation Study of Transactional Distance Scale
Ramazan YILMAZ & Hafize KESERThe aim of this study is to adapt the Transactional Distance Scale developed by Zhang (2003) to Turkish culture and to examine its psychometric properties. The research was conducted on 357 university students of Distance Education Programmes from Amasya, Anadolu, Bartın and Maltepe University. In the first phase, linguistic equivalence of the scale was analyzed and psychometric properties were examined after the first phase was confirmed. The construct validity of the scale was analyzed through confirmatory analyses and these analyses demonstrated that this version was in accordance with the original form. With regard to the reliability of the scale, Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient, corrected item-total correlations were measured and t tests between means of upper 27% and lower 27% points were used, as well. Results of these analyses prove that the fit indexes of the adapted scale are at an acceptable degree and Cronbach alpha coefficients vary between 0.76 and 0.95. Cronbach alpha internal consistency coefficient of the Turkish version of the scale was calculated as 0.92. According to these results, this scale can be assessed as a valid and reliable measurement tool.
Keywords: distance education, transactional distance, validity, reliability
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Who Is Innovative? Examination of Teachers’ Innovativeness Level
Semra DEMİR BAŞARAN & Süleyman KELEŞThe changing world has brought many innovations with itself. Teachers who educate children are wanted to be of a specific level within the context of innovativeness. According to literature, it is obivious that there are few studies about innovativeness. The aim of this research is to search teachers’ innovativeness levels, their categories and these categories’ differentiation according to some variables. This study was carried out in Sivas. By using stratified sampling, 370 teachers were reached in the city centre, county and countryside. As data collection vehicle, we used “Individual Innovativeness Scale” adapted to Turkish by Kılıçer and Odabaşı. Results showed that teachers have an average innovativeness level. Among the variables of gender, length of service, working school and working area, it was found that only the working area affects innovativeness levels of teachers.
Keywords: Teachers’ Innovativeness Levels, Individual Innovativeness, Teacher Innovativeness
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Teacher Candidates’ Views on Being a Good Teacher
Serdal IŞIKTAŞThe aim of this study was to examine qualitatively 262 third year teacher candidates’ views on being a good teacher. One open-ended question was posed to teacher candidates to be answered in writing. Although opinions about being a good teacher were categorized into six subtitles: personal characteristics, knowledge of subject and its teaching;, skills, professional growth, appreciation, and commitment to the mission, most of the answers were about different dimensions of personal characteristics.
Keywords: Teacher candidates, good teacher characteristics, views
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Development of Adjustment to University Life Scale
Sevda ASLANThis study aims to develop a measurement tool that evaluates the adjustment of university students to university life in terms of personal, social and academic dimensions and also to conduct the validity and reliability of this measurement tool. The study included two study groups one of which comprised of 375 respondents and the other involved 488 respondents. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses were used in order to test the validity of the scale developed for this study. In addition, test-retest reliability method and internal consistency Analysis were used in order to evaluate the reliability of the scale. As a result of the factor analysis study, the Adjustment to University Life Scale consisted of 60 items and 3 factors (personal, social, academic). Study findings revealed that this measurement tool can be used for Turkish university students as both a reliable and valid one.
Keywords: Adjustment to University Life Scale, university students, personal adjustment, social adjustment, academic adjustment
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The Opinions of Teachers of French and Turkish Related to Speech Acts Teaching
Yusuf POLATIn this study, the main objective is to answer questions if teachers FLE and TLE took during their university courses, information about pragmatic competence and if they focus on grammar and pragmatic competence during their teaching practice. To do this, a survey containing 16 questions was conducted in 2013 in Paris with the participation of 22 teachers who attended FLE at the time a teacher training program organized by the Alliance Française and with that of 9 teachers TLE teaching Turkish for foreigners in the center of the teaching of Turkish and foreign languages attached to the Ankara University (TÖMER). This study provides the answers and the considerations obtained from 10 questions directly related to the research questions. Although the results obtained show that a good part of teachers think they have taken enough information about pragmatic competence, the number of those who say they are reluctant on the matter is not negligible. The results also suggest that if teachers wish to design courses geared more to the pragmatic competence as well as communication skills, they are reluctant about the approaches they might take to do this. Indeed, we understand that they are not sure if they should teach speech acts implicitly or explicitly and should be given theoretical information in their teaching practices.
Keywords: teaching foreign language, pragmatic competence, speech acts, teacher awareness
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