Motivation to learn foreign languages is a significant determinant of successful language acquisition. The subject has been widely researched in the past, and since the early 1990s a great deal of empirical research related to the classroom environment has been proposed to expand theory into everyday classroom practice. I present an empirical, longitudinal (3-year) study to explore the relationship between and changes in foreign language learning motivation, learning motivation and self-concept in the 5th, 6th and 8th forms of elementary school. The same tests (Kozéki-Entwistle’s Learning Motivation Questionnaire, the Tenessee SelfConcept Scale, and Clément, Dörnyei and Noels’ Foreign Language Learning Motivation questionnaire) were administered three times, so I was able to compare the results and draw conclusions about developmental tendencies. A strong correlation was found between motivational and self-esteem scores, and between learning and foreign language learning motivation subscales. It is necessary to highlight the importance of the Moral, Family and Social Self, which draws our attention to the family values and beliefs students are equipped with, when they enter the school. The significant decrease in motivation and self-esteem in the period under investigation focuses our attention on problems of adolescence, and challanges language teachers to establish a highly motivating classroom practice.

Mathematics is well known as a subject area where there can be problems in terms of understanding as well as retaining positive attitudes. In a large study involving 813 school students (ages approximately 10-12) drawn from two different school systems in Pakistan, the effect of limited working memory capacity on performance in mathematics was explored along with a survey of areas of difficulty and student attitudes. This involved looking at student perceptions of their experiences, the nature of the difficulties they have with mathematics and possible reasons for these difficulties. The overall aim is to explore the extent of the effect of working memory and to gain insights so that practical ways forward to enhance mathematics education can be identified. It was found that limited working memory capacity has a very strong influence on performance, confirming other studies. Indeed, if the cognitive load exceeds the capacity of working memory, understanding becomes a casualty, with consequent attitude deterioration. Students need to be able to see that mathematics has a purpose in being able to be applied to real-life situations. However, attempts to develop applications may often generate further working memory overload. Curricula devised by those outside the classroom can sometimes be inappropriate while topics causing the greatest problems at these ages and include areas of geometry, statistics and the applications of mathematics.

The major purpose of this study was to explore the social studies teachers’ perceptions and understandings of citizenship education in primary schools in Botswana. The study adopted a post colonial lens by using the notions of the pedagogy of imperialism and contrapuntal criticism to interrogate the teachers’ perceptions of citizenship education. The study was qualitative in nature and employed the naturalistic inquiry paradigm. Qualitative methods were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using grounded theory through the constant comparative technique. The findings of the study revealed that social studies teachers perceived teaching about Botswana as citizenship education. The paradox lies in the teachers’ view that knowledge about Botswana’s cultures, histories and politics constitutes citizenship education. Therefore, the study recommends that citizenship education be re-imagined to take into account both the local and global trends on citizenship education. Furthermore, teachers have to be cognizant of the politics of mainstream academic knowledge and work towards knowledge construction devoid of imperialist ideologies.

The contribution of special needs assistants (SNA) is becoming increasingly important in inclusive and special classrooms. However, the profession itself has remained unexplored. The purpose of this article is to describe special needs assistants’ perceptions on their education, professional competence, the content and significance of their work within the school system of Finland, and the further development of their role and content of their work. 171 special needs assistants from the province of Lapland participated in the research. This research was a mixed methods research where the data was collected in 2010 through a semi-structured questionnaire that consisted both quantitative and qualitative elements and was, therefore, analyzed both by using qualitative and quantitative analyzing methods. The results highlighted the diversity, challenges and development needs of special needs assistants’ work. Special needs assistants are strength and can work as a support for teachers, students, and parents.

The main objective of this study is to examine the attitudes of preschool teacher candidates and teacher candidates in other branches towards scientific research in terms of some variables. Survey method was used. The study group consists of 547 teacher candidates studying in education faculty of a private university in the spring term of 2015-2016 in Istanbul province. Personal Information Form, Scale of Attitude towards Scientific Research were used as data collection tool. According to the results; Preschool teacher candidates’ levels of reluctance to help researchers and negative attitudes towards research are lower when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. Preschool teacher candidates’ positive attitudes towards researchs and researchers are higher when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. Guidence and psychological counselor candidates’ negative attitudes towards research are lower when compared to Turkish language teacher candidates. The levels of reluctance to help researchers of male teacher candidates are higher when compared to female teacher candidates. Negative attitudes towards research of the teacher candidates who do not take the course of scientific research methods are higher when compared to the teacher candidates who take the research methods course. The teacher candidates’ attitudes towards research do not vary by age, grade level and the academic success average.

Entrepreneurship has been an intriguing issue as an indicator of economic development and social welfare particularly being focused on last decades. Furthermore, the issue of immigration has attracted considerable attention in recent years. Nowadays, the quality of the workforce and it's training processes are not getting only progressively important but as well the participation of migrants in the labor market will be a great problem in the future. Migrant’s entrepreneurial tendencies and career expectations designation are the main objectives of this research. This research was designed as a comparative qualitative model, and the structured written interview technique was used in order to collect the data. Randomly sampling study groups were formed according to methods of maximum diversity. The sampling group was formed by the participation of 12 Syrian migrant high school students who live and get trained in Altindag, a district of Ankara, Turkey and 13 Syrian migrant high school students who live and get trained in Kreuzberg, a district of Berlin, Germany. The collected data were analyzed by content analysis technique. The results of the research reveal that immigrant students have a high level of entrepreneurship in Germany, the nonetheless low level of the expectations of future career prospects in Turkey. Thus, the absences of sociocultural and economic areas where they will use entrepreneurial tendencies are a serious obstacle to them. Moreover, participants argue that they do not want to stay in Turkey anymore, and most of them intend to emigrate to Europe or another country if they can do so. Unlike Germany, many of the participants in Turkey neither know what they want to be nor how they want to live in the future and nor have they made any career planning.

This study is a departure from discussions on why community college students do not transfer in large numbers, but instead, provides an analysis of Latino students from community college who have successfully transferred to Tier 1 universities. The conceptual framework included student engagement theory (Kuh, 2003), the support for student autonomy (Koestner et al., 2015), and the importance of students studying to mastery (Sarwat & Irshad, 2012).  These theories were applied to the central research question, ‘What strategies do Latino students from a community college use to create a successful transition from community college to Tier 1 colleges and universities?’ The researcher generated six themes on how Latino students experienced successful transfer: institutional support, student transfer experiences, strategies to adapt, financial support, studying to mastery, and family support as major factors for academic success.   These findings would be significant to student development specialists in community colleges.  Further, such findings can be used to support Latino community college students as they sought transfer to four-year colleges and universities.

This research study investigates the cognitive, psychological and personal factors affecting the accuracy and fluency of English language usage among Arab learners. Early research led by Chomsky (1965) and Krashen (1981) suggested that an individual’s Language Acquisition Device once triggered at the appropriate time and supported with adequate Comprehensible Input can lead to automatic development of an L2. Relevant research suggests that children are born with the instinct or innate facility for language acquisition provided they have no physical or mental impairment (Al Ghazali, 2006). However, past research (Engin and Seven, 2014; Hanani, 2009; Gupta, 2008; Latu, 1994) has led to the identification of additional factors that go beyond the cognitive domain. These factors were examined individually and against a background of teaching methods, phonetics application, and classroom conditions. In this research, a mixed research study was designed in which a survey and interviews were conducted with a number of university students. With minimal effect from the researcher, the data were collected to examine the influence of these factors on learners’ proficiency of English language and application. The findings reveal that Arab learners’ ability to learn English is dependent on psychological motivation, physical needs to apply it, and personal reasoning.

The study investigated differences in students’ reported overall test anxiety before, during, or after test taking among two school-levels and gender. Differences among three test anxiety components (thoughts, off-task behaviors, and autonomic reactions) were also examined. Participants were 725 primary (349 females, 376 males) and 375 middle (180 females, 195 males) school students from a metropolitan city in Turkey. Turkish students’ reported overall test anxiety declined from primary to middle school, with females showing higher test anxiety throughout school years. Whereas students rated thoughts high, autonomic reactions were rated low; followed by off-task behaviors. Female and male students did not differ in thoughts and autonomic reactions. School-level differences were found in off-task behaviors and autonomic reactions. The pattern of Turkish students’ overall test anxiety derived as a combination of thoughts, off-task behaviors, and autonomic reactions was discussed, and educational implications were offered.

This study presented a secondary analysis of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) dataset. The paper explored the differences between fourth grade reading scores by examining (1) how often the fourth graders discuss their school work at home with family and (2) how often the fourth graders discuss what they were reading with friends. The results by NAEP Data Explorer indicate that the average scale score (M=214, SD=36) of students who report “never or hardly ever” talking about studies at home was significantly (p <0.001) lower than all other groups. The results of how often they talked to their friends about what they were reading were mixed: Students reporting talk with friends once or twice a month (M=228, SD=35) had significantly (p<0.001) higher average scale scores than those in the never or hardly ever and almost every day groups and slightly lower than those talking once or twice a week.

This qualitative study was designed to introduce STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) activities to pre-service science teachers and identify their views about STEM materials. In this context, a competition was organized with 42 pre-service science teachers (13 male- 29 female) who took Instructional Technologies and Material Development course in Elementary Science Education Department in Siirt University. The competition consisted of 5 categories: balloon powered car, mousetrap car, water rocket, spaghetti bridge 1 (durability) and spaghetti bridge 2 (visuality). Structured interview form developed by researchers was used as data collection instrument. The results were analyzed with the conventional content analysis. Results indicated that participants (especially females) are more willing to use STEM materials in their future teaching life. Participants mostly believe that STEM materials facilitate learning, enhance retention and increase self-confidence. However, there are also pre-service science teachers who believe that preparation of STEM materials is difficult, takes too much time and not appropriate to students’ levels.

Aim of this research is to identify the self-efficacy perception levels of teacher candidates studying at department of Physical Education and Sport and other teaching departments towards teaching profession, to present whether these the self-efficacy perceptions differ or not depending on independent variables acquired from the personal information of the candidates. It is important that Physical Education teacher candidates have high levels of self-efficacy perception on teaching profession. A total of 904 teacher candidates 175 of whom are studying at department of Physical Education and Sport participated into the research voluntarily. “The Self-efficacy Perception Scale of Teacher Candidates towards Themselves” is used in the research. It is seen that Physical Education teacher candidates have higher levels of self-efficacy perception than other teacher candidates and that self-efficacy perceptions on teaching profession differ depending on gender variable. Also, it is found out that the correlation coefficient between scores obtained in the scale is meaningful both for Physical Education teacher candidates and other teacher candidates.

The purpose of the present study is to investigate pre-service history teachers’ perceived self-efficacy and the effect of pedagogical formation training on this perception. The study is based on a one-group pretest-posttest research design, which is a type of pre-experimental design. For the purpose of the study, in the first week of the formation training, the “Teachers’ Sense of Efficacy Scale” developed by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy and adapted to Turkish by Capa, Cakiroglu and Sarikaya was administered as a pre-test to a group of 178 pre-service history teachers who underwent pedagogical formation training in 2016-2017 academic year in two different universities in Turkey. The same scale was administered again as a post-test at the end of the 28-week training. The study has found out that the pedagogical formation training did not make a significant difference in pre-service history teachers’ perceived self-efficacy except for the classroom management subscale, in which the self-efficacy scores of pre-service history teachers decreased after the pedagogical formation training.

This study aims to present the design and pilot testing procedures of the two specific self-report questionnaires were used to measure the two key aspects of reading motivation, self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation in the field of literary (narrative) reading, and the partial factors that jointly shape them. These instruments were outlined in advance, tested on a small scale and finally administered in a pre-post (quasi)experimental-control group research study, in order to investigate the effect of an intervention reading program to 6 graders. The measurement tools have good validity and reliability evidence, but further construct validity analysis should be done.

This study aims to examine the effect of feedback strategies on understanding and applying the concept of National ideology to students who have different achievement motivation, on learning Citizenship Education in vocational high schools. This research uses quasi experiment research design (Quasi Experiment). The subjects of this study were 133 vocational high school students. The research instrument used the achievement motivation questionnaires and test appraisal tools of understanding and application of the concept. Research data were analyzed using MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) method with 2x2factorial. The results reveal three findings, namely: (1) there are differences in posttest score of understanding and application of concepts between groups of direct and indirect feedback strategies; (2) there is difference of posttest score of understanding and application of concept between high and low achievement motivation group: (3) interaction between feedback strategy with achievement motivation does not influence simultaneously to understanding and application of concept.

This study explored in a sample of 560 high level education students their judgment formation to perceived self-efficacy to solve mathematical tasks. Students had to read 36 experimental vignettes describing educative scenarios to learn mathematics. Each scenario presented four manipulated pieces of information (learning modality, task difficulty, task relevance, and structure). After reading each scenario students were required to provide judgments regarding their believed self-efficacy to solve mathematical tasks described in the vignette by using a scale. Results showed that in regard to how students perceived their self-efficacy they could be grouped in two clusters (high and moderate). Most relevant factors to their judgment formation were task difficulty, task relevance and structure. Here, both groups used the same cognitive algebra mechanism to integrate factor information. Here, students valuated academic performance and feedback (e.g. difficulty and relevance) as most relevant even when they are conscious that learning is a primordial target. These and other results are discussed in the paper.

The state of mathematical thinking is considered to have an effect on the formation of anxiety regarding teaching mathematics. It is hypothesized that with the formation of mathematical thinking, the anxiety in teachers regarding teaching mathematics will be reduced. Since mathematical thinking is a skill acquired starting from the early years of education, the anxiety in form teachers in primary school regarding teaching mathematics is important. Within this context, the objective of this study is to investigate the effect of mathematical thinking states of form teachers on their anxieties regarding mathematics teaching. The sample group comprises 194 form teachers working in state schools of Bagcilar district, Istanbul province in the spring term of 2015-2016 academic year. As data collection tools, mathematical thinking scale and anxiety scale for the mathematics teaching anxiety of form teachers were used. To test the predictive power of mathematical thinking regarding the mathematics teaching anxiety, Multiple Linear Regression Analysis was used. It was found that the form teachers had high mathematical thinking scores and had low anxiety scores. A low degree, negative and significant correlation was found between the mathematical thinking and anxiety of form teachers regarding mathematics teaching. Moreover, it was found that mathematical thinking had an effect on the anxiety in form teachers regarding mathematics teaching.

This study aims to determine the relationship between the self-efficacy perceptions of the prospective teachers and the levels of their professional competence. In the study, relational screening model is used and it is investigated whether prospective teachers' perceptions of academic self-efficacy and professional competence differed according to various variables. The population of the research constitutes 1430 university students (prospective teachers) who are educated in Inonu University Pedagogical Formation Education (PFE) Program in 2015-2016 academic year. In the sample of the study, there are 537 participants who were determined by random sampling method. The Ohio Teacher Competence Scale and The Academic Self-Efficacy Scale (Turkish versions) are used as a data collection tool. In the analysis of the data, the standard deviation, frequency, percentage and arithmetic mean of respondents were calculated. One-way analysis of variance, ANOVA and Scheffe Test are used. The main result of this research is that the perceptions of academic self-efficacy of prospective teachers are "Moderate" but their perceptions of professional competence are in level "Very". According to this result, prospective teachers are of the opinion that the teaching profession can be achieved with “a moderate level of academic competence”.

Anxiety that students experience during test taking negatively influences their academic achievement. Understanding how students perceive tests and how they feel during test taking could help in taking effective preventive measures. Hence, the current study focused on assessing children’s perceptions of tests using content analysis. The sample consisted of 1143 participants (566 females and 570 males) attending 3rd (n = 320), 4th (n = 420), 5th (n = 197), and 6th (n = 206) grade classes in three public schools in Istanbul, Turkey. The findings indicated that three main domains emerged from the data. The domains and the categories under each domain were as follows: evaluation (grades, success vs. failure, learning and development, and intelligence), emotions (excitement, fear and anxiety, happiness, curiosity, mixed feelings, and disappointment), and experiential process (answering questions, studying, difficulty, thinking, having fun, cheating vs. honesty, and silence). Understanding students’ experiences with testing early on in their education will give researchers and practitioners the chance to plan effective applications for treatment and prevention, which would influence students’ future achievement and experiences. The study findings could also help teachers and school counselors plan more effective teaching and counseling programs that take into account students’ anxiety levels during tests.

The aim of this research is to determine the thoughts of the teachers about the concepts of "Smart Board", "Computer", "Internet" and "Social Media" from the Instructional technologies of the secondary school teachers with different branches through metaphors. In the research, a qualitative research model was used to identify teachers' thoughts in metaphor analysis from various branches about the use of instructional technologies in the national field. Within the scope of the qualitative research model, the phenomenology design was used. In order to find out what kind of thoughts teachers have about teaching materials from the participants "Smart Board / Computer / Internet / Social Media is like / similar to…..; Because ..." they were asked to complete their covenants. As a result of the research, 25 valid metaphors belonging to the concepts of smart board, computer, social media and 27 of internet concept were obtained from secondary school teachers. The most book (f = 4) metaphor for smart board concept, brain and memory (f = 2) metaphors for computer concept, most air (f = 3) and medicine, ocean, water (f = 2) metaphors for internet concept and the drug and virus (f = 2) metaphors related to the concept of social media. The metaphors of the concept of smart board are classified into 5 conceptual categories with common characteristics related to each other, 6 categories with common features related to computer and internet concepts, and 7 conceptual categories with social media concept related to each other. In the research, it was reached that the secondary school teachers expressed positive opinions about the concept of smart board and computer, partially negative about the concept of the internet but more negative opinions about the concept of social media.