The aim of this study is to investigate the use of metacognitive reading strategies of the sixth grade middle school students. The method of this research is survey design. Multistage cluster sampling was used to determine the sample. The sample of the study consisted of 388 students attending five public schools randomly selected. The sample of the students consisted of 200 girls; 188 are boys. The metacognitive reading questionnaire was used to determine the metacognitive reading strategies used by the students. The metacognitive reading strategies scale was applied by the researcher in the classroom environment. The survey was conducted by the researcher. The data obtained as a result of these applications were uploaded to the computer, the percentage, frequency, t test results were reached by using SPSS 20. According to the results of the study, sixth grade students frequently use pre-reading, pre- and post-metacognitive reading strategies, and less frequently recall strategies. Students pay attention to the parts that are important in the text and evaluate the text and comprehension status after reading.

The aim of this study is to reveal the effect of the engineering design-based teaching process in primary school science course of classroom teacher canditates perceptions about the disciplines of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematic). The study, pre-posttest single-group experimental design was used. The study group consisted of 28 classroom teacher candidates studying  of  university in Ankara. The data collected by the "STEM Semantic Difference Scale" were used for normal and dependent groups t-test. Eventually, it was found that the engineering design-based teaching process had a positive and significant increase in the perceptions of the prospective teachers about science, engineering and career disciplines (p <0,05). Although there was a positive increase in the perception of mathematics and technology discipline, this increase was not statistically significant (p> 0.05). It was also observed that positive and meaningful changes (p <0.05) were observed in the perceptions of general STEM disciplines.

The present study aims to investigate the predictive effects of metacognitive awareness of prospective primary school teachers and their motivation to learn science subjects on their academic achievement in the ‘Science and Technology Laboratory Applications’ course. A total of 108 (72 females, 36 males) prospective primary school teachers participated in the study. The sample of the study consists of second-grade prospective primary school teachers attending the ‘Primary School Teaching’ department of a public university in the academic year of 2017-2018.  The study was carried out with relational screening model, one of the descriptive research methods. As the data collection tools, metacognitive awareness scale, motivation scale for science learning, and the average grades of the prospective teachers from the science course were used.  To determine the relationship between the prospective primary school teachers’ academic achievements in their science courses and their metacognitive awareness and motivation for science learning, the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient was used. Besides, multiple regression analysis was used to determine the extent to which the sub-factors of metacognitive awareness and motivation of prospective teachers accounted for the variance in their academic achievement.  The study concludes the importance of the sub-factors predicting academic achievement as follows: knowledge of cognition, the motivation for research, the motivation for participation, the motivation for collaborative work, and motivation for performance. Furthermore, it has been determined that all factors accounted for 37% of the variance on academic achievement.

This study aims to investigate the curriculum orientations of schools in Turkey and Ghana and to examine the relationship between curriculum orientations. The quantitative method (descriptive study) was adopted in this questionnaire survey-based study. This study was conducted in the Fırat University, Elazığ-Turkey and University of Education - Winneba, Kumasi-Ghana. Mean and standard deviation for the overall of the curriculum orientations and for each orientation were obtained. The results showed that the mean of Turkish students was higher than Ghanaian students in term subject-centred curriculum orientation. Meanwhile the for student-centred and problem-centred curriculum design orientations the means of Ghanaian students were higher than those of Turkish students. The country variable was found to be highly effective in classifying teachers in terms of curriculum design. Gender and department independent variables significantly differentiate teachers' views about curriculum design in some dimensions.

The aim of this study was to determine the opinions and suggestions of preservice Turkish language teachers about the Teaching Turkish to Foreigners (TTF) course. The research population consisted of 79 junior students studying in the Department of Turkish Education at the Kazım Karabekir Faculty of Education, Atatürk University. A case study design, one of the qualitative research methods, was employed in the study. A semi-structured interview form was used to collect data. The descriptive analysis technique was used to analyze the data obtained from the interviews. Based on the study, it was found that the preservice Turkish teachers thought that the TTF lessons were interesting, adequate and fun in terms of content and scope. However, they thought that the credit hours were inadequate, that there was little chance to do practice in the lessons, and that the course did not achieve its goal in terms of practice. In addition to that, findings such as the following were obtained: The level thought to be the most difficult when teaching Turkish to foreigners was the beginner level (A1-A2); with this course, they thought they reached a competency level to teach this subject; however, there was a need for activities supported by various materials and practice courses offered in relevant centers.

In this study which is carried out in the phenomenology pattern, the aim of this course is to determine the opinions of the pre-service teachers about the value concept and values education. In this study, twelve prospective teachers in 4th grade in the department of primary education in a faculty of education were interviewed. The opinions of prospective teachers on values and values education were grouped under two categories as “My Values” and “Values Education”. In the category of “My Values”, prospective teachers included the concept of values and the values that guided their lives within personal and social values. The category of Values Education was examined under the purpose of values education and the path I will follow. While some prospective teachers emphasized that the primary goal in values education should be to raise good citizens, other teacher candidates highlighted the importance of having a good character by focusing on personal values. Prospective teachers thought that active learning methods, modelling, and cooperating with family would be effective in values education.

This research aimed to investigate the role of temperament traits and empathy skills of preschool children in predicting social emotional adjustment. Designed in accordance with the relational screening method, the study was completed with 284 children attending preschool educational institutions in Çanakkale provincial center in the 2017-2018 educational year, their teachers, and parents. Research data were collected using the Short Temperament Scale (Yağmurlu & Sanson, 2009), Preschool Behavioral and Emotional Rating Scale (Balat Uyanık & Özdemir Beceren, 2014) and Empathy Questionnaire (Adak Özdemir & Uysal, 2017). The research results show that there are significant correlations between temperament traits, empathy skills and social emotional adjustment of children. The subdimensions of temperament and empathy significantly predicted the social emotional adjustment subdimensions of family involvement, social confidence, readiness for school and emotional adjustment.

Early mathematics education bases a foundation of academic success in mathematics for higher grades. Studies show that introducing mathematical contents in preschool level is a strong predictor of success in mathematics for children during their progress in other school levels. Digital technologies can support children’s learning mathematical concepts by means of the exploration and the manipulation of concrete representations. Therefore, digital activities provide opportunities for children to engage with experimental mathematics. In this study, the effects of digital learning tools on learning about geometric shapes in early childhood education were investigated. Hence, this study aimed to investigate children progresses on digital learning activities in terms of recognition and discrimination of basic geometric shapes. Participants of the study were six children from a kindergarten in Kırşehir, Turkey. Six digital learning activities were engaged by children with tablets about four weeks in learning settings. Task-based interview sessions were handled in this study. Results of this study show that these series of activities helped children to achieve higher cognitive levels. They improved their understanding through digital activities.

The main aim of this study is to examine the perceptions of university graduate working mothers who have 36-60 months-old children of the quality of the time spent with their children. In the study, the phenomenology design was used among qualitative research techniques. The study group consisted of 32 mothers selected by using a maximum variation sampling method. The data of the study were collected using the semi-structured interview technique, and the data were analyzed using the descriptive analysis technique. The majority of the mothers who participated in the interview described the quality time spent between the mother and child as the time which is spent with activities that the mother and child enjoy equally. The majority of the mothers stated that they believe that it is necessary to spend quality time with their children since it affects mother-child communication positively, they want to participate in the training during which they can learn activities appropriate to different age ranges and different areas of development with their children, they play games with their children to spend quality time, and they believe that spending quality time contributes to mother-child communication. Half of the mothers stated that the process was turned into quality time by including the child in all responsibilities at home, while the other half stated that no quality time could be spent with the child while fulfilling the responsibilities at home. The mothers emphasized that the periods that can be spent in a quality way are weekends and annual leave periods and stated that the main factor which prevents spending the quality time is the intensity of working hours. It is thought that organizing practical training seminars that will enable mothers to learn how to make the time spent with their children more qualified will contribute to mothers.

The purpose of the current study is to determine how Turkish teachers use the drama method in their classes and what difficulties/problems they experience during their implementations of the drama method. This is a qualitative study. The study employed the case study design. The study group of the current research is comprised of 17 Turkish teachers working in the city of Kars. The participating teachers were selected by using the maximum variation sampling method, one of the purposive sampling methods. In the current study, a semi-structured interview form was used as the data collection tool. The collected data were analyzed by means of the content analysis method. The findings of the current study have revealed that the participating teachers mainly define drama as acting out and empathy development. They use the drama method most in the warm-up and wrap-up sections of the lesson, while studying texts including four basic language skills and didactic and critical texts, theatrical texts, and tales, folktales and fables. The drama method is believed to make its greatest contribution to the development of the skill of establishing empathy and the most important difficulty encountered is related to preparedness of students. The suggestion made by most of the teachers is to make drama a separate course.

The aim of this study is to examine the tales in Turkish textbooks in terms of the values they convey. In this study, organized according to qualitative research method, the data have been obtained by document examination which is one of the qualitative data collection tools. A total of 29 tales in Turkish textbooks of 3-8 grades in the 2017-2018 academic year, were examined. Content analysis of qualitative data analysis techniques was conducted to analyze the data. In the analysis of the data the coding reliability was made and all the tales were analyzed together by two researchers. The total frequency of the sub-values determined in the examined tales is 70. When the distribution of lower values to the main values determined by MEB (2017) is examined, it is seen that there are 17 lower values related to responsibility main value, 11 lower values related to friendship and respect main values and 7 lower values related to self-regulation main value. While there is only 1 lower value for patience main value, there is no lower value for patriotism main value. Transfer method of 70 sub-values in the tales becomes different. These transfers were mostly positive sample behavior (f = 31), negative sample behavior (f = 21) and direct transfer (f = 12). The least used transfer method in tales is indirect transfer (f = 1). Almost all of the most frequently encountered humility sub-value is conveyed through negative examples; industriousness sub-value is mostly conveyed through direct (word) transfer. Among the main values (deep values) that are intended to be given in the whole of the tales in Turkish textbooks,  friendship and responsibility take place 3 times; confidence, perseverance, humility, sense of mission, cooperation and empathy take place 2 times; and the other values take place once. When sub-values obtained from investigating tales as a whole are examined in the context of main values, it is seen that there is no sub-value reflecting the main value of justice and patriotism, and therefore no tale text was encountered on that.

Recent recreation and sports marketing research demonstrates that involvement can be used as a new segmentation strategy and offers potential opportunities for better understanding of leisure participants. In the current study, the three-step the Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) segmentation procedure was performed for participant segmentation by using physically active leisure involvement profiles. This study consisted of 561 (nmale=321 and nfemale=240) physically active leisure participants and three involvement facets of hedonic value, centrality and symbolic value were conducted to segment participants. Confirmatory factor analysis, the Pearson correlation coefficient and multivariate analysis of variance were used for data analysis. Our findings showed that a significant majority of the participants were allocated to the attraction stage (n = 306, 54.5%) and awareness (n = 106, 18.9%), attachment (n = 104, 18.5%) and allegiance (n = 45, 8%), respectively. Consequently, the segmentation revealed that differences in attitudes from awareness to attraction, attachment and allegiance stages, become strengthened among physically active leisure participants.  Thus, this information can be used to better understand the leisure activity participation habits of students for marketers-practitioners.

This research investigated how interactive book reading activities affect elementary school students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension skills. The research was performed in 2017-2018 academic year with 705 students (358 males, 347 females) studying at four state schools of low socio-economic level in Polatlı district of Ankara. 309 of the students were in the second grade, 200 of them were in the third and 196 of them were in the fourth grade. The implementation stage of the research was conducted in the interactive reading classrooms established at the four schools. These classrooms were equipped with wallpapers, shoe racks, stools, bookcases, puppets, wooden geometric shapes, hanging lights, light-proof curtains, material cupboards, computers and sound systems so that the students might feel that they were in a different environment and might gain different learning experiences. Pretest-posttest one-group quasi-experimental design was used in the research. Students’ reading fluency and reading comprehension skills were measured before and after the procedure. The findings showed that the interactive book reading activities performed during the study revealed a significant difference in favor of students’ posttest scores in regard to reading fluency and reading comprehension. The results were discussed within the context of the related literature and recommendations were made accordingly.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between mathematics self-efficacy beliefs and sources of self-efficacy in two elementary school students whose mathematics achievement are at different levels. Case study design, which is one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the study. Two 4th grade elementary school students have participated in the study, one with high mathematics achievement and the other with low mathematics achievement. Participants have been selected according to purposive sampling method. Mathematics achievement of the students have been determined through their mathematics scores and the information obtained from their teachers. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews conducted with the students. Descriptive analysis was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the research it was found that students’ mathematics achievement is parallel to their mathematics self-efficacy beliefs. It was found that the student, whose mathematics achievement is high, has positive experiences concerning the sources of self-efficacy, whereas the student, whose mathematics achievement is low, mostly encounters negative experiences.

The purpose of this research is to examine the insights of preservice teachers' new literacies throughout online research and comprehension. The study is grounded in an online research and comprehension perspective. In the study, the action research design of qualitative approaches was selected as the method. The participants in the research were nine teacher candidates studying in the first year of the Classroom Teacher Education Programme at Erciyes University. The teacher candidates took part in two online research and comprehension tasks about children’s literature and teaching materials lasting 28 hours in total. Following, the preservice teachers’ perspectives regarding this process were elicited through semi-structured individual interviews. The findings reveal that the internet has resulted in certain changes in the nature of information and learning. During the online research and comprehension process, the preservice teachers employed strategies for information location, determining reliability, reading, and online information synthesising and content creation. Moreover, during this process the preservice teachers developed certain digital skills as well as their online research and technology competencies and awareness of reliable information. All these findings have contributed to the exploration of teacher candidates’ new literacy skills, strategies, and dispositions.