Empirical directions to innovate e-assessments and to support the theoretical development of e-learning are discussed by presenting a new learning assessment system based on cognitive technology. Specifically, this system encompassing trained neural nets that can discriminate between students who successfully integrated new knowledge course content from students who did not successfully integrate this new knowledge (either because they tried short-term retention or did not acquire new knowledge). This neural network discrimination capacity is based on the idea that once a student has integrated new knowledge into long-term memory, this knowledge will be detected by computer-implemented semantic priming studies (before and after a course) containing schemata-related words from course content (which are obtained using a natural semantic network technique). The research results demonstrate the possibility of innovating e-assessments by implementing mutually constrained responsive and constructive cognitive techniques to evaluate online knowledge acquisition.

The main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of ethical leadership on teachers’ job satisfaction, and affective commitment in an education sector. This study proposes that ethical leadership has a significant and positive effect on overall job satisfaction and affective commitment. Moreover, it suggests that ethical leadership has an influence on overall job satisfaction and affective commitment. In this study, the relationships among the variables were evaluated using correlation, and regression analysis. The results which is based on a sample of 150 teachers from four private schools in Pakistan demonstrate that overall job satisfaction has a significant and positive influence on affective commitment, whereas, marriage as a demographic variable has a positive effect on overall job satisfaction and affective commitment.

Mathematics educators have reported on many issues regarding students’ mathematical education, particularly students who received mathematics education at different departments such as engineering, science or primary school, including their difficulties with mathematical concepts, their understanding of and preferences for mathematical concepts. This study aimed to investigate the opinions of primary-school teacher education students in terms of their perceptions of difficulty level of the mathematics courses, change in their achievement, if there is any, and interest in mathematics after completing these courses, and factors affecting their achievement and interest level in these courses. Being qualitative in nature, this study was a case study. The data were analyzed using the content analysis and descriptive methods. According to the results, most students stated that they faced mathematics course content with unexpected level of difficulty. After taking basic mathematics courses, the percentage of students with decreased level of interest and achievement in mathematics was found higher than the students who experienced an increase in their interest and achievement. Students underlined such significant factors for the change of their interest and achievement in mathematics as prior knowledge, lecturer(s), and content coverage. Finally, most of the students viewed mathematics courses as a beneficiary tool for their professional development.

Teacher wellbeing and performance is affected by their ability to cope with the demands of the profession. This pilot non-randomized, waitlist-controlled study investigated the impact of a mindfulness intervention (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) on teachers' wellbeing, self-regulation ability and classroom performance applying a mixed-method design. The sample was comprised of 32 German school teachers (93% female) which were distributed to a control and intervention group. Compared to the control condition, the intervention showed medium to high effect sizes on most outcome variables at post-test and results were sustained at follow-up. Mediation analyses showed that changes in mindfulness at post-test mediated changes in outcome variables at follow-up. Unexpectedly, the intervention seemed to negatively affect teacher engagement. Qualitative interviews highlighted the way mindfulness may influence teacher engagement and improve performance. Limitations of this study and future directions of research are discussed. 

This research aimed to investigate relationships between quality of work life, burnout, school alienation, affective commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors. In this context, a model was proposed based on the literature review and the model was tested through structural equation model. The study group of the research consists of 314 volunteer teachers working in the state schools in Kilis in 2016-2017 academic years. The data was collected through work-related quality of life scale, burnout scale, school alienation scale, affective commitment scale and organizational citizenship behaviors scale. The analysis with descriptive, correlation, path and bootstrap methods were used to analyze the data. As a result of the analysis, it was found that teachers' perceptions for quality of work life have a negative effect on burnout and school alienation, whereas they have a positive effect on affective commitment. Besides, their perceptions for affective commitment have a positive impact on organizational citizenship behaviors. Another important result derived from the research is that teachers' perceptions for burnout and school alienation play partial mediation roles in the effect of their perceptions for quality of work life on affective commitment. Based on these results, it can be suggested that teachers' working conditions should be constantly improved.

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.

Higher education institutions increasingly seek to promote students’ intercultural competence (IC), yet its conceptualization remains a challenge. The first aim of this study was to explore how a purposive sample of n=77 domestic, undergraduate students at a public university in Germany define IC. The second aim was to assess to what extent such definitions are context-dependent by comparing IC definitions provided by domestic students (with predominantly German nationality and little international experience/exposure) with those provided by n=130 international, undergraduate students at a private university in Germany (with predominantly non-German nationality and more extensive international experience/exposure). A qualitative content analysis showed that domestic students defined IC mostly in terms of attitudes followed by external outcomes while the opposite was true for the international students. Differences in IC definitions between the two samples are discussed with regard to various contextual factors. Our results suggest that such contextual factors should be considered when designing measures to promote IC development in university students.

We are living in an age where knowledge is rapidly produced and consumed. In this period, the future of the individual and the society depends on accessing, using and producing information. This situation requires a qualified education and first literacy teaching which is the foundation of it. Primary school is the foundation of everything; likewise, the first literacy learning is the foundation of learning (Gunes, Uysal and Tac, 2016). First literacy is to create a new communication and interaction channel for the individual by teaching the symbols of humankind that it created in ten thousand years. Education performs a great miracle by making a seven-year old child comprehend this script that humankind developed in ten thousand years within a seven- or eight-month period (Guleryuz, 2001). It is desired for and expected of the children who start the first grade in primary school at the level of illiteracy to reach the level of basic literacy with qualified first literacy education under the supervision of an effective program, equipped teacher (Sagirli, 2015). Education in cursive handwriting in our country has started in Ataturk era. Ataturk demonstrated examples of the New Turkish Latin Letters on the blackboard with the cursive handwriting. Elderly and young people of the generation of Ataturk era have learned the cursive handwriting very well and used for many years. Many documents of that period such as diplomas, identity cards, registry of deeds etc. have been prepared with cursive handwriting in a clear, cursive and aesthetic form (Gunes, 2006). In our country, it has been decided to start the first literacy education with the cursive handwriting under the scope of the 2004 draft program. For nearly thirteen years, our students are becoming literate with cursive handwriting. There are many studies in literature that examine the opinions of teachers, students, and parents about the cursive handwriting. The aim of the concerned study is to express the view from the perspective of the parents of the gifted and talented students on the practice of cursive handwriting in first literacy education. Within the scope of the research, interviews were conducted with the parents of the gifted and talented students and their opinions were taken about starting the first literacy with the practice of the cursive handwriting. All of the parents are the parents of gifted and talented children who are attending primary school. The data collected during the 2016-2017 academic year have been obtained by face-to-face interviews. The answers of the parents are recorded and then reported. Screening model is used in the study that is designed by content analysis. The research is a qualitative study. Recommendations are brought at the end of the research.

In this study, in-class lesson observations were made with volunteer teachers working in primary and secondary schools using alternative observation tools regarding the scope of contemporary educational supervision. The study took place during the fall and spring semesters of the 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 academic years and the class observations were made with six alternative volunteer teachers in the primary and secondary schools in the provincial and district centers using alternative observation tools. In the classroom observations, the teacher's verbal flow scheme, teacher's movement scheme and student behaviors both during tasks and not, were analyzed. Observations were made during the two classes with teacher's permission. After the first observation, an information meeting was held and then the second observation was made. Following the observations, interviews were held with the teachers. In interviews, the information about the class observations was shared with teachers and their opinions about research were asked. It has been found that alternative observations, in general, have a positive effect on the professional development of teachers. It is concluded that this type of observation approach positively affects teachers' in-class activities, helps in classroom management and teaching arrangements and positively affects student's unwanted behaviors.

This study investigated prospective mathematics teachers’ reflections on the experience of designing and conducting one-to-one clinical interviews with middle school students in the context of an elective course on use of video in teacher learning. Prospective teachers were asked to write about weaknesses and strengths in student understanding as well as their own performance as an interviewer in terms of asking questions and responding to student thinking in their reflections on conducting clinical interviews. Furthermore, prospective teachers were also asked to reflect on what they would do differently in order to conduct better clinical interviews.  Nature of prospective teachers’ reflections were analyzed by using existing frameworks (through constructs of reflection-on-action and reflection-for-action) and by using thematic analysis. Results of data analyses revealed that prospective teachers had more difficulties in providing meaningful reflection-for-action which was related to alternative decisions and planning for future similar interviews. Thematic analysis results revealed prospective teachers’ learning were grouped under three categories: conducting clinical interviews as part of being a teacher, complexity of conducting clinical interviews, and personal theories about middle school students. There are implications for both teacher learning and research.

This study aims to explain the extent to which prospective physics teachers’ views and practices are consistent with the constructivist framework. A case study design was employed as the research approach. The study was conducted with 11 prospective physics teachers attending a state university in Turkey. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews, observation notes and lesson plans. The interview guide consisted of questions which allowed the interviewer to probe participants’ views of constructivism based on 5E learning model. Such questions as “how do you plan your teaching?” (introducing new topics, continuing the lecture, types of questions to ask, evaluating students’ understanding etc.) were included in the interview. Following the analysis of the interview data, participants’ profiles were classified into three categories: traditional, transition and constructivist under the dimensions “beginning of a lesson,” “learning process,” “learning environment” and “assessment.” Observations were carried out using an observation checklist consisting of 24 items based on 5E learning model. Another checklist developed by the researchers was used to evaluate participants’ teaching qualifications. Interview results showed that seven participants had transitional, three had constructivist and one had traditional views. However, none of the participants were observed to exhibit constructivist teaching styles. Moreover, observation and interview results were consistent only for six participants, indicating that almost half of the participants had difficulty putting their views into practice.

It is important for pre-service teachers to know the conceptual difficulties they have experienced regarding the concepts of multiplication and division in fractions and problem posing is a way to learn these conceptual difficulties. Problem posing is a synthetic activity that fundamentally has multiple answers. The purpose of this study is to analyze the multiplication and division of fractions problems posed by pre-service elementary mathematics teachers and to investigate how the problems posed change according to the year of study the pre-service teachers are in. The study employed developmental research methods. A total of 213 pre-service teachers enrolled in different years of the Elementary Mathematics Teaching program at a state university in Turkey took part in the study. The “Problem Posing Test” was used as the data collecting tool. In this test, there are 3 multiplication and 3 division operations. The data were analyzed using qualitative descriptive analysis. The findings suggest that, regardless of the year, pre-service teachers had more conceptual difficulties in problem posing about the division of fractions than in problem posing about the multiplication of fractions.

In this research, the purpose is to investigate the practice of teacher candidate procedure and engage in a discourse on the teacher candidates’ views on the practice. The qualitative method has been used in order to analyze teacher candidates’ views on the subject. The subjects of the study comprise 57 teacher candidates currently working in Bayburt. Semi-structured interview forms consisting of questions about the way the teacher candidate education is implemented and questions that refer to their thoughts about the practice were used as data gathering instrument. In this research, content analysis technique has been used for the analysis of the data collected through the interviews. The codes reached through the answers from the informants and their frequencies have been given. The codes with high frequencies have been supported with excerpts from teacher candidates. As a result of the study, it has been found out that most of these teachers who were involved in teacher candidate training consider it ‘a waste of time'. With flexibilities allowed and without proper planning, the practice of the procedure is found to have prevented achievement of the goal. Furthermore, the practice of contract adjunct teaching has also brought about some contradictions.

The aim of the present study was to elucidate Mexicans teachers’ attitudes toward school inclusion and disability.  To achieve this goal, 119 regular education and 88 special education teachers answered The Opinions Relative to Integration of Students with Disabilities scale.  Subsequent analyses revealed that attitudes to both groups were similar in terms of direction but dissimilar in magnitude factor. In addition, while the attitude structure in both samples involved three factors, these were unique to each group: Regular education teachers (Perceived Benefits and Negative Effects inside the Inclusive Classroom/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom, Teaching Ability/Education System, Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom/Education System) and the special education teachers group (Perceived Benefits inside the Inclusive Classroom/Education System, Teaching Ability/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom, Perceived Benefits and Negative Effects inside the Inclusive Classroom/Performance inside the Inclusive Classroom). Theoretical and applied implications of these findings are discussed in this paper.

This study focuses on the evaluation of academic conferences and ways of improving them. The study includes a case study of one university in Israel. Sixty two academic faculty members from varied departments completed a questionnaire, including 61.7% women and 38.3% men. The research participants were asked a single open question: "What do you think could be improved at conferences?" In addition, age, seniority, and the number of times the respondents had initiated or served as a partner in initiating a conference were also examined. The main findings are as follows: Age predicts seniority. Seniority has a positive effect on the number of times the respondent organized or was a partner in organizing a conference. Seniority has a negative effect on time, i.e., the more senior the faculty member the more he or she would like conferences to be short and to the point. Moreover, the amount of initiatives to organize a conference or to be a partner in establishing a conference has a negative effect on interaction, i.e., the more initiating the faculty member the less he or she is interested in interpersonal interactions at conferences. The wish to space out sessions and lectures has a positive effect on the need to improve the quality of the lectures.

Building a teacher-student relationship is important for creating trust, mutual understanding and respect. The interaction of teacher and students can be found using the 48-item Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction. The result is the Model for Interpersonal Teacher Behavior, consisting of four dimensions, which are further divided into eight sectors to evaluate the teacher. The main goal of our study was to show how the teacher and students perceive the environment of the class, whether their views match, and whether it is a statistical significant dependence among different sectors of the model teacher-students interaction. The sample size consisted of 63 Slovak students of 12th grade and their teacher of biology. Our results have shown that the teacher has evaluated herself similarly to the students, but without a statistical significant difference. In monitoring of the relationship of scales in the whole group of respondents, in the group of male and female respondents we showed statistically significant differences between the sectors. Using of Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction can help mutual knowing of students and teachers and the creation of positive relationships.

The aim of this study is to determine the problems, the solutions and the suggestions of the school principals and teachers towards the Syrian refugee students in the primary schools in Turkey. The research group of the study included four school principals and six teachers. The research was conducted by qualitative methods. The results revealed that the school principals mostly live communication, adaptation, accreditation, absenteeism, psychological and financial problems related to Syrian refugee students. Teachers also have problems such as communication problems with these students. Principals have opened ‘support rooms’ for these students; have worked for adaptation of these students, have been in contact with the families. The teachers opened literacy courses and worked to socialize these students with their classmates. Both principals and teachers have primarily proposed the creation of specific curricula for these students and the activities to solve the problem of language and cohesion for these students.

In this research, it is aimed to study the correlations between perceived supervisor supports (PSS), organizational identification (OI), organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and burnout of teachers. The research was conducted from the perspective of social change and identity theories. The study group of the research consists of 234 teachers working in the public high schools in Giresun city center during the 2016. In order to collect data in the research, Perceived Supervisor Support Scale developed by Kottke & Sharafinski, Organizational Identification Scale developed by Mael & Ashforth, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Scale developed by DiPaola, Tarter & Hoy, and "Burnout Scale" developed by Pines were used. The correlations between variables are tested with the structural equation model. According to the results, PSS positively affects the OI and OCB and negatively affects the burnout. OI positively affects the organizational citizenship behavior and negatively affects the burnout.  OI plays a partial mediation role in the correlation between PSS of teachers and their OCB and burnout level. The results contribute to the integration of social change and social identity theories in description of organizational behavior.

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate prospective mathematics teachers’ subject matter knowledge of the underlying concepts of standard and nonstandard algorithms used to solve the problems with whole numbers. Twenty three prospective mathematics teachers enrolled in the Elementary Mathematics Education Program of one of the most successful universities in Turkey were the participants of the study. The data was collected through four tasks containing basic algorithms. More specifically, the Ones Task assessed participants’ understanding of the underlying place value concepts of standard algorithms. The Andrew Task and the Doubling Task required participants to conceptualize and interpret nonstandard strategies. In the Division Task, participants were expected to provide in-depth explanation for the difference between multiplication and division and between partitive division and measurement division. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data. The results of the study revealed that more than half of the prospective mathematics teachers had knowledge about the place value of 1 in addition and subtraction, and also multiplication. However, most of the prospective teachers could not explain the underlying principle and the meaning of the nonstandard algorithm in subtraction. Similar to their knowledge on subtraction, prospective teachers’ knowledge on division was limited.

The effectiveness of schools, that is, their ability to achieve their pre-determined goals depends on many variables but especially the effectiveness of the administrators who are responsible for the implementation of the educational programs and curricula. An administrator must have a healthy perception of being "an effective administrator" in order to be able to demonstrate expected roles successfully. Concerning school effectiveness, in addition to the emphasis of self-efficacy of administrator, the leadership role of the educational administrators has gained importance with modern educational administration approaches. If an administrator wants to be effective, he/she must act as a leader and convince followers. In this context, when questioning the effectiveness of schools, it is important to determine the level of self-efficacy perceptions of administrators and to determine the leadership styles displayed by them. In this study, it was aimed to examine whether there is a significant relationship between the perceived self-efficacy belief and leadership style. The results show that self-efficacy perceptions of the administrators make a difference in their leadership style and there is a relationship between the self-efficacy belief and exhibitors of transformational leadership behaviors; the more administrators feel themselves efficient, the more they exhibit transformational leadership behaviors.