Recent science education standards emphasize the importance of the instruction of nature of science (NOS) concepts at all levels of schooling from pre-K to K-12. Delivering a proper NOS education to students is excessively dependent on their teachers with an adequate understanding of NOS concepts. The present study investigated the science conceptions of preschool and elementary teacher candidates. The data collected from a total of 506 prospective teachers were analyzed with respect to the following demographic variables: majors, genders, grade levels, high schools and GPAs of teacher candidates. “Student Understanding of Science and Scientific Inquiry (SUSSI)” developed originally by Liang et al. (2008) was the instrument used to collect data in this study. The data analyses were conducted using MANOVA and Pearson Correlation Coefficient. The corresponding mean scores of the teacher candidates in specific aspects of NOS ranged from “poor” to “informed” conceptions of science. All but one of the demographic variables yielded statistically insignificant results on the NOS conceptions of teacher candidates. The majors of the teacher candidates were detected as a significant variable influencing the conceptions of the teacher candidates. The results of the study were discussed in reference with the relevant literature.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of the activities, which are prepared by teaching techniques that support scientific creativity, on the scientific creativity levels of prospective pre-school teachers. In the research, combined design is used, which is one of the mixed research approaches. The study group of the research included a total of 46 prospective pre-school teachers who have studied in the Education Faculty of Kafkas University in 2016-2017 academic year. The applications were carried out in the "science education" which is one of the third-grade 5th-semester courses of the pre-primary education program. The application process was completed in 4 hours a week for a total of 40 hours. In the analysis of the quantitative data collected by Scientific Creativity Test, percentage calculation and t-test were used. Explanatory and inferential codes were used in the analysis of qualitative data obtained from the in-class observations. As a result of the research, it was seen that the course activities in which different techniques were used positively influenced the scientific creativity levels of the prospective teachers. Prospective teachers' level of skills involved in creative trait, creative process, and creative product sub-dimensions also developed. It has been suggested in the direction of these results that different techniques should be used together to develop scientific creativity.

This study aims to investigate the anxiety levels of secondary school students towards science course depending on a number of variables. Research sample consists of 2245 students who continue their education at public schools in Denizli in the academic year of 2017-2018. "Anxiety Scale for Science Course-which is developed by Kagitci and Kurbanoglu and "Personal Information Form" are used as data collection tools in the research. SPSS 22.0 package program is used for analysis of the data. Descriptive survey model is used in research. Parametric tests including One-Way ANOVA and independent samples t-test are used for analyzing data. As a result of the research, it is found out that secondary school students’ science anxiety levels significantly differ depending on the variables such as class level, the grade they received in science course, scientific books they read, the documentaries they watch, enjoying the science course and science teacher, educational level of parents, reviewing what they learn in science course and experiencing parental pressure for studying science course. However, there is found no significant difference between students' anxiety levels in terms of gender and their getting support while studying science.

Among school psycho-social factors with considerable effect on student outcomes are both school and classroom climate.  Because how students perceive the classroom climate strongly predicts achievement, measuring classroom climate gains importance and the need for testing the existing results across cultures persists.  In this study, we assessed the validity and measurement invariance of the Turkish adaptation of the Student Personal Perception of Classroom Climate Scale (SPPCC) developed in English (US).  Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) and measurement invariance (MI) analyses by sex were performed on 629 students’ data.  CFA results confirmed the factorial structure of the SPPCC.  Results of the MI analyses showed that the SPPCC measures the same construct for females and males in a non-English context.  Latent mean comparisons revealed girls perceived the classroom climate more positively than boys.  We concluded that this study in the Turkish context is a further step in developing evidence of the extent to which SPCC provides psychometrically sound scores.

The aim of the present study was to figure out whether university students’ learning approaches were shaped via their achievement goal orientations, academic self-efficacy and hope or not. The other objective was to examine if these psychological constructs varied in accordance with the demographic variables including gender, age and class level. 332 undergraduates from two different universities who were in the year of junior and senior participated in the study. The Achievement Goal Orientations Scale, the Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, the Dispositional Hope Scale and the Demographic Form were utilized to reveal the predictive power of these constructs on their learning attitudes measured by the Revised Two-Factor Study Process Questionnaire. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that learning goal orientation was a pivotal predictor of both deep and surface approach to learning. Academic self-efficacy and hope were the crucial precursors of deep approach while performance-avoidance goal inclination was a considerable predictor of surface approach. Independent samples t-test analysis displayed that the female undergraduates were superior to the male ones in terms of the learning goal tendency. And the students (20 to 22 aged) demonstrated higher scores on the same variable than the other ones (23 to 25 aged). On the basis of class level, there were no significant differences in the scores of achievement goal orientations, academic self-efficacy, hope and learning approaches. The results pointed out the fact that such concepts pertinent to an undergraduate’s academic performance could be viewed as distinctive features engendering different learning attitudes toward scholastic training.

This study aims to analyze whether academics’ organizational cynicism attitudes and levels of organizational identification in the field of sports sciences differ based on certain variables and determine if any relationship exists between these two variables. “Organizational Cynicism Scale” and “Academics’ Organizational Cynicism Scale” were applied to 106 academics as a data collection tool. Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis test were used for nonparametric statistical data analysis. Bonferroni correction was taken into account in order to identify different groups. Spearman order correlation coefficient was calculated in order to identify the correlations among variables. The findings suggest that academics’ organizational cynicism and identification sub-dimensions did not display significant differences in terms of gender, marital status and academic title. However, significant differences were found among some sub-dimensions in terms of sufficiency of institution’s physical facilities, the status of place where the institution is located and financial aid from the institution. Additionally, negative and moderately significant correlations were found between all sub-dimensions of organization cynicism attitude and cognitive/behavioral/affective organizational identification sub-dimensions. It is considered that the present study will make important contributions to educational psychology thanks to its findings.

This study aims to analyse the emotional intelligence scores of the special education teacher candidates for the predictor of multiple intelligences areas. This study was conducted through relational scanning model. 211 teacher candidates, 106 females and 105 males, participated in the study. Data were collected through Personal Information Form, Teele Multiple Intelligence Inventory and Schutte Emotional Intelligence Scale. Logistic regression analysis was used to find whether the gender and grade level variables, and optimism, utilization of emotions and the scores of emotion evaluation are statistically significant in defining predominant intelligence areas or not. SPSS 24.0 was used in the data analysis process. The results revealed that while the gender variable and optimism scores are significant variables predicting the determination of individuals in which predominant intelligence is both interpersonal and not, optimism and evaluation of emotions scores are significant variables predicting the determination of individuals whose predominant intelligence is both visual and not. However, the results suggested that demographic variables (gender and grade level) and emotional intelligence scores did not affect kinesthetic, musical, intrapersonal, logical and verbal intelligence areas which were found as the predominant intelligence areas of teachers.

Pragmatic competence is an indispensable dimension of overall language ability, and proper interpretation of implied meanings is a major constituent of pragmatic competence. In this regard, this study aimed to investigate the efficiency of a film-based instruction program devised to facilitate the interpretation of implied meanings in English. It was conducted with a quasi-experimental design. First, a multiple-choice discourse completion test was given to 144 English language teacher trainees with 77 people in the experimental group and 67 in the control group. After the 5-week instruction given to the experimental group, the test was administered to both groups again. The results revealed significant differences in favor of the experimental group. This makes the program a promising one as it made the participants, who were also prospective English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers responsible for helping their own students have pragmatic competence too, significantly more equipped about processing implied meanings as a major constituent of pragmatic competence.

The aim of this study is to examine students’ bullying toward teachers and classroom management skills in terms of various variables. The sample of the study consisted of 422 participant teachers. The ‘Bullying toward Teachers Questionnaire’ and ‘Classroom Management Skills Scale’ were used as data collection instruments. According to the results, it was determined that 57.2% of participant teachers have not been bullied whereas 42.8 % have been bullied by their students. The teachers who have been bullied by their students were mostly woman, had undergraduate degrees and more than 16 years of teaching experience. There was no significant difference of teachers’ total scores and two sub-dimension scores of CMSS according to gender, school type, education level and years of experience variables. There were significant differences between bullied and non-bullied teachers’ total scores and two sub-dimension scores obtained from CMSS. It is evident that non-bullied teachers’ mean scores obtained from two sub-dimensions and total scores of CMSS were significantly higher than those of the bullied teachers.

The purpose of this research is to describe the effectiveness of STEM on the physics concepts understanding seen from gender differences. The research method used is a type of quasi-experimental design with 2x2 factorial design and saturated sampling technique. The data collecting technique used a tested method to see the results of students’ concept understanding. Hypothesis testing was done using two-way ANOVA 2 x 2 factorial designs. The results of the study are: (1) there are differences in STEM and conventional learning on concepts understanding and the use of STEM learning is more effective than the conventional one; (2) there are differences in the results of understanding the concept between male and female students where male students are higher than female students; and, (3) there is no interaction between learning and gender towards concepts understanding. The research recommends designing the STEM-integrated ESciT learning to be relevant with the indicator measurements and to manage the learning effectively to obtain optimum learning outcome.

Conflicts are an inevitable phenomenon within organizations. The organization of interest in this study is the elementary school and the conflicts that may emerge into its context. There are many types of conflicts and their consequences vary; there are positive consequences, but also negatives ones. When teachers are to express their opinions on conflicts, they think that conflicts happen often enough, and they recognize both their negative and positive effects. The present study examined teachers’ perceptions on the frequency of certain types of school conflicts and their consequences. The researchers asked teachers working in public elementary schools in Achaia Prefecture, Greece. Personal characteristics of the study’s participants such as age, gender, years in service and teaching specialization were also taken into consideration. It was found that a small percentage of teachers believed that conflicts happen very often. In general, teachers thought that negative consequences are more frequent than positive ones, even though, they recognized the beneficial aspect of conflicts. Lastly, the teachers’ groups that were formed based on participants’ characteristics showed significant differences. Study’s limitations along with suggestions for future research are also discussed.

The purpose of this research was to investigate the relationship between foreign language anxiety, shyness, language learning strategies, speaking scores and academic achievement of university preparatory students learning German. In addition, it was aimed to determine how the independent variables predict the speaking scores and academic achievement. The research sample consisted of 110 students (75 female and 35 males). Three instruments used in the study were: Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale; Strategy Inventory of Language Learning and Shyness Scale. The results of this study revealed that a moderate significant negative relationship (r= -.434) was present between the students' foreign language learning anxiety and academic achievement. Besides, a significant and negative relationship (r= -.290) was found between foreign language anxiety and speaking scores of students. According to the correlation analysis, no significant relationship was identified between shyness, academic achievement and speaking scores of students. According to the analysis, a significant positive relationship was found between the students' language learning strategies and their academic achievements (r= .275). Namely, these data showed that, the level of academic achievement increases as the use of strategy increases. Similarly, shyness and foreign language anxiety show a moderate positive correlation (r= .419). According to these findings, it may be stated that shyness increases as speaking anxiety rises. Besides, it was determined that students' shyness, foreign language anxiety and language learning strategies predicted 26.4 % of their academic achievement. The results indicated that independent variables were positive predictors of students’ academic achievement. Finally, suggestions were made for German teachers to reduce the effects of shyness and anxiety in the process of foreign language learning.

In recent years, cyberbullying, which can be considered as a new form of bullying, has emerged as a result of developments in the field of technology and communication. Cyberbullying has become a social problem which has affected individuals’ lives negatively. The key to success in the elimination of cyberbullying and its negative effects lies in cyberbullying sensitivity. The present study aims to analyze teachers’ cyberbullying and cyber victimization experiences and levels of cyberbullying sensitivity based on some variables which are supposed to develop awareness regarding cyberbullying. Using survey as a research model, the present study focused on 346 teachers working at schools affiliated with Ministry of National Education in Tasova District located in Amasya (Turkey). “Personal Information Form”, “The Revised Cyberbullying Inventory for University Students” and “Cyberbullying Sensitivity Scale” were used as data collection tools. SPSS package program was used for data analysis and frequency and percentage values of demographic variables. Independent T test was used for gender and marital status variables, and One-Way ANOVA test was used for age and level of education variables. The findings of the present study revealed that most of the participants used social media websites actively and spent at least 2 or 3 hours on these websites on a daily basis. Teachers usually have a Facebook and/or Instagram account, and benefit from social media for research purposes and playing games. It can be stated that teachers have a significantly high level of cyberbullying sensitivity. However, it was also indicated that even though participants worked as a teacher, they still did cyberbully and suffered from cyber victimization in the past. While a significant difference was observed only in the dimension of cyber sensitivity in terms of marital status, age and level of education, a significant difference wasn’t observed in the dimensions of cyberbullying, cyber victimization and cyber sensitivity in terms of gender.

The correlation between the stress problems and the needs for high school students’ stress counseling in Vietnam is an unspecified issue that deserves attention. This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that there was no correlation between the stress problems and the needs for counseling of high school students in Vietnam. Survey of 1,200 high school students in Vietnam from grades 6 to 12 with questionnaires, the results show that the mean score of stress problems in high school students is 2.67 - corresponding to moderate level. Different levels of learning and living conditions are encountered in different student’s stress problems. The mean score for high school students' stress needs of counseling is 3.18 - corresponding to the optional level. Different levels of education have different needs for stress counseling. There is a strong correlation between high school students' problems and needs for stress counseling. The more problematic high school students experience in stress, the more they need to be counseled on this issue.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the level of anxiety in learning Chinese, discover the dominant factors of anxiety in learning Chinese language and analyze differences in Chinese language anxiety based on gender, year of study and HSK in foreign students in Wuhan, China. The research method used was quantitative using a survey approach. There are 250 foreign students as the samples, consisting of 108 male and 142 female students. The data collection technique used is questionnaire called CLAS (Chinese Learning Anxiety Survey) adapted from FLCAS (Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Survey). The data were analyzed using SPSS with descriptive statistical techniques and Multivariate Analysis. The results showed that Chinese language anxiety among foreign students is on a moderate level, with communication anxiety as the most dominant aspect. The male and female students have the same anxiety level in learning Chinese. The foreign students who had longer duration of learning Chinese and had higher HSK tend to have lower level of anxiety in learning Chinese. This showed that years of study and HSK were two factors that determine the high or low level of anxiety in learning Chinese for foreign students.

The industrial revolution era 4.0 has now become a major topic in every country. Various sectors respond quickly to this problem, including education. In response to this, there are several aspects of skills that students must master. One of them is problem-solving skills. One of the aspects that influence the students’ problem-solving skills is the context and problem-based learning model. The purpose of this study is to describe the effect of the model on students' skills to solve physics problems. The research method used is a quasi-experimental research design with non-equivalent control group design. The data analysis technique used Independent Sample T-Test by PASW 18 with a significance 5%. Based on the results of the Independent Sample T-Test can be concluded that there is an effect on the model that was applied with a significant gain of 0,00. The results showed that the context and problem-based learning (C-PBL) model affected the physics problem-solving skills. The C-PBL model is able to improve the students’ physics problem-solving skills, communication skills, the students’ confidence in learning, as well as improving students’ understanding of physics lessons conceptually.

The empowerment of metacognitive skills has an important role in increasing the capacity of critical thinking and active control of students' cognitive processes in learning. Metacognitive skills can be enhanced through the implementation of learning strategies involving higher-order thinking. The RQA, ADI, RQA integrated with ADI are constructivistic learning strategies that can accommodate these skills. The researches specifically examining the correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills at the implementation of RQA, ADI, and RQA integrated with ADI learning strategies are still rarely found. This research is a correlational research, aiming at revealing the correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills. The data of metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills are collected by using a valid and reliable essay test. The samples of this research are the fourth semester (IV) biology education students programming Animal Physiology course in the 2016/2017 academic year consisting of 109 students. The results of this research show that (1) there was a significant correlation between metacognitive skills and critical thinking skills at the implementation of the four learning strategies, (2) the regression equations analyzed using Anova obtain regression lines (not coincide), and non parallel regression lines (intersected); meaning that there is a difference in the increase rate and magnitude of the critical thinking skills influenced by the four learning strategies. It is expected that the teachers and the lecturers always strive to improve the quality of the learning process through the implementation of active and constructive learning strategies.

The development of the revolution era 4.0 which increasingly rapidly demands the wider community to have the ability to think creatively mathematically. One effort to improve the ability to think creatively is through quality education. Quality education can be improved through to train thinking using the right learning model. This study aims to see which results are more effective in improving students' thinking skills between the two learning models applied. The two models are Problem Based Learning (PBL) and Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) models. This research method uses quasi experimental method with a posttest only control test design not control group. This study uses two group subjects with two experimental classes. The analysis of the data used the hypothesis testing of the non-correlated 2-sample t-test. Based on the research results obtained Aptitude Treatment Interaction (ATI) models have a better effect on students' creative thinking abilities compared to Problem Based Learning (PBL) models.

In this study we aimed to investigate the role of hope, secure attachment with the parents, and satisfaction levels of the basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence and relatedness) of university students in predicting their happiness levels. A total of 558 university students were recruited and 70% of them were female and 30% of them were male. Ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 29. The data were collected in classroom settings using personal information form, the Oxford Happiness Scale, the Attachment with the Parents Scale, the Basic Psychological Needs Scale, and the Dispositional Hope Scale. Results indicated that that the satisfaction levels of the competence needs were the most powerful predictor of happiness among university students. The satisfaction levels of autonomy, relatedness needs, and a secure attachment to the father, along with hope contributed little to the explanation of happiness; whereas, a secure attachment to the mother was not a predictor of happiness of the university students. The findings were discussed within the framework of the developmental characteristics of university students and the characteristics of collectivist societies.

Aggression in early childhood is considered to a common problem. Identification, reduction and prevention of aggression, especially in early childhood are also considered prevalent. Preschool teachers are known as one of the most important people in children’s lives as they are the first ones to meet the child after parents. Therefore, they hold an important role in identifying, reducing and preventing child aggression observed in early childhood. The purpose of the present study is to examine the knowledge and the awareness levels of preschool teachers about aggression and aggressive behaviours. The study is based on phenomenological approach, as one of the qualitative research designs. A semi-structured interview form, prepared for the study based on expert opinions, was applied to the participants. On the light of the findings from the preliminary findings, the related form was applied to a second group of teachers over the internet. Besides, an additional scale consisting of the items of two different instruments directed to determine the aggressive behaviours of preschool children were formed and applied to the second group of participants. The last scale, which was prepared depending on the findings obtained from the second group of teachers, was applied to a third group of participants because the first two participant groups could not recognize and define relational aggression. The relevant themes and sub-themes were created from the data obtained and the findings were discussed within the scope of the literature. According to the results of the study, it was seen that preschool teachers generally defined aggression as physical and verbal harm, and similarly, aggressive behaviours were categorized under physical aggression and verbal aggression types. It was determined that teachers generally recognized relational aggression when they saw the items related to it in the scale. However, they hardly emphasized it while they were defining aggression. So, it can be said that preschool teachers have limited knowledge and awareness of relational aggression as they recognize it only when they see it but can neither define nor name it. The results are discussed and some suggestions are recommended.