The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of performance feedback (PF) provided to student teachers working with students with multiple disabilities and visual impairment (MDVI) on their teaching skills. The study group of the research was composed of 11 student teachers attending to the final year of the Teaching Students with Visual Impairments Program at a university in Ankara, Turkey. A quasi-experimental design, was used in the study. These student teachers recorded their classes for pretest and posttest and these video-recorded classes were thereafter watched by the observer, who completed semi-structured observation forms for each student teacher. The results of the analysis suggested a statistically significant difference between the pretest and posttest scores of the student teachers involved in the study before and after the performance feedback. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of the relevant literature and practical recommendations were included.

This study examines the effect of project based learning on 8th grade students’ statistical literacy levels. A performance test was developed for this aim. Quasi-experimental research model was used in this article. In this context, the statistics were taught with traditional method in the control group and it was taught using project based learning in the intervention group. Statistics was given for four weeks according to pro ject based learning at intervention group. The performance test was applied to total 70 students as pre and post-test. Participants are from two different classes of a middle school in Trabzon. The data were analysed using Rasch measurement techniques. This measurement allowed both students’ performance and item difficulties to be measured using the same metric and placed on the same scale. All raw scores converted linear score in order to obtain equal interval scale. Acquired linear scores were compared. In the analysis of gained datum covariance analysis are used. According to gained results in pre-processing application there isn’t substantial difference between the achievements of intervention group and control group; but after processing between the achievements of intervention group and control group there is a substantial difference statistically in favor of intervention group. The results of the study revealed that the project based learning increased students’ statistical literacy levels in the intervention group.

Schools and teacher induction programs around the world routinely assess teaching best practice to inform accreditation, tenure/promotion, and professional development decisions. Routine assessment is also necessary to ensure that teachers entering the profession get the assistance they need to develop and succeed. We introduce the Item-Level Assessment of Teaching practice (I-LAST) as a flexible framework-based approach for quantitative evaluation of teaching best practice in the induction stages. We based the I-LAST on a novel framework for teaching best practice, and used Fuller’s scale as a framework for understanding the potential of the I-LAST in providing longitudinal measures for growth. Using the context of a year-long teacher induction program in the Midwestern United States, we collected data through an online survey from 46 teaching supervisors who were asked to evaluate their interns. We used the Rasch partial credit model as a criterion for construct validity, and measured dimensionality and reliability from both Rasch and classical frameworks. The I-LAST was found to be a unidimensional, valid, and reliable measure for teaching best practice. It demonstrated the ability to provide reliable scores for specific sub-dimensions of best practice, including those which manifest at various stages along Fuller’s scale. Potential uses of the I-LAST to advance understanding of the role of teacher induction programs in fostering productive growth in new teachers is discussed.

Previous research has found conflicting evidence in studies where students participate in the selection of their course topics in educational settings. Katz and Assor, for example, have argued that the increase in student motivation is probably not due to the mere act of choosing, but to the value of the options with respect to personal interest. The aim of our study was to investigate the impact of choice on aspects of motivation during biology lessons. Our sample consisted of five classes with 118 children of whom 63% were female. Their average age was 10.4 years (SD=0.6). One group of students was asked to select one topic out of four in a majority vote during a biology class, while a control group was simply assigned the same topic. Results: Students who chose their topic reported a higher level of intrinsic motivation than students who were not given the option. A surprising result was that the students in the voting group who did not receive their preferred choice reported the same level of motivation as those who did.

Research indicates attributes and practices for mentor teachers that can be used for effective mentoring. Universities provide guidelines for preservice teacher (mentee) engagement in schools generally from anecdotal evidence, however, what are desirable attributes and practices for mentees? This qualitative study gathers data from 25 mentor teachers through an extended response questionnaire and audio-recorded focus group discussions about attributes and practices for mentees. Findings showed that desirable attributes for mentees included: enthusiasm, being personable, commitment to children, lifelong learning/love of learning, open/reflective to feedback, develop resilience, and taking responsibility for their learning, while desirable practices included: planned and preparation for teaching, reflective practices; understanding school and university policies, knowing students for differentiated learning, and building a teaching repertoire (e.g. teaching strategies, behaviour management, content knowledge, and questioning skills). Preservice teachers need to consider teachers‟ suggestions on desirable attributes and practices that can help them achieve positive teaching experiences.

This study focused on the phenomenon of success at work asking whether it would be possible to find factors from top workers’ children and school experiences that would explain their later success. This study was a part of a larger research in which Finnish top workers, employees of the year, who have been selected as successful professionals of their field in Finland were researched. This article focuses on the narrative data collected through qualitative interviews. In this article, their childhood and adolescence experiences were analyzed in order to find out whether successful development could be enhanced already in early phases of life. This study employed the narrative interview method through which top workers were asked to reminisce their childhood and adolescence experiences. What factors have supported their success and how have they coped with adversities in life? According to the results, the most important key to success at work adopted from home was caring upbringing as parents did not set any ambitious goals for success for their children but made the children think about their future and have an optimistic attitude to life. The role of careers counseling at school was also discussed. Analyzing these factors is important if aiming at helping people’s chances of finding an occupation they fit and in which they can use their talents. Experiences and events taking place in childhood and adolescence can be crucial, or at least, direct people in a right direction.

This research paper explores the concept of ‘cost sharing’ which became more prominent in Zambia education with the advent of democratic form of governance in 1991. As a way of responding to the ever diminishing tax revenues, government through the education policy of 1996, allowed higher education institutions including public universities to introduce cost sharing as way of improving financial vibrancy, accountability and cost effectiveness. This paper therefore, uses students’ perceptions to examine the cost sharing policy which has now been existence for almost two decades. More specifically, it explores underlying factors which can make cost sharing more effective and sustainable. In exploring these prospects and challenges, a self administered questionnaire based on convenient sampling was used to collect data from 729 respondents in Zambia’s three biggest public universities. The findings revealed that the current cost sharing policy was appropriate but lacked the government support in its implementation. The study further highlighted the need for re-engineering the current policy by providing details on the implementation process. The study highly recommends that a true cost-sharing model be implemented in an effort towards making public universities more effective and sustainable.

This exploratory study is concerned about the extent to which a sample of 163 pre-school, primary and secondary Brazilian school teachers, expressed their opinion on how neuroscience might help their teaching and pupils´ learning. Evaluation instruments for Brazilian pupils were analysed. Two questionnaires were completed by the teachers. Results of a quantitative analysis indicated that in general teachers believe that neuroscience may contribute to the teaching and learning of their subject matter. An outline for an elective neuroscience and education course is presented. Educational implications are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to examine the pre-service teachers’ attitudes toward computers use. The impact of five variables (perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, subjective norm, facilitating conditions, and technological complexity) on attitude towards computer was assessed. Data were collected from 230 preservice teachers through self-report and structural equation modelling was used as the technique for analysis. Results showed that 64% of the variance in attitude towards computer use was explained by the five exogenous variables. In addition, perceived usefulness, subjective norm, and technological complexity were found to be significant influences on attitude toward computer use while perceived ease of use and facilitating conditions did not.

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 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.

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.

The purpose of this study was to develop a scale for assessing teachers’ self-determination instruction and to test the validity and reliability of this tool. The subjects included 315 teachers recruited from elementary and junior high schools nationwide in Taiwan. The Teaching Self-Determination Scale (TSDS) developed in this study aimed at assessing the extent to which educators teach students knowledge and skills related to self-determination. The 24-item TSDS is comprised of four subscales including Self-Realization, Psychological Empowerment, Self-Regulation, and Autonomy. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, t tests, and factor analyses. Findings showed that the TSDS has satisfactory psychometric properties. The internal consistency reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s α) ranged from .76 to .93, while the test-retest coefficients ranged from .71 to .87. Findings of the exploratory factor analysis showed that the four TSDS subscale factors can be reasonably extracted, which can explain 59.7% of the total item variance. The confirmatory factor analysis results further indicated a good fit between the measurement model and the sample data (GFI = .96, AGFI = .91, RMSEA = .08, NFI = .97, RFI = .93, IFI = .98, TLI = .95, CFI = .98). Suggestions are provided for future research.

One of the important aspects that increase the efficiency of learning is well trained teacher. Besides, increasing quality and ensuring permanent learning is undoubtedly dependent on teacher’s effort to achieve these and active participation of student in the teaching process more actively and willingly. This study was conducted to review the views of teacher candidates for the practices they performed at relevant schools in the scope of teaching practice. In the study, it was aimed to determine what teachers have carried out for the teaching process to be more qualified. In the study, six open-ended questions were asked to 26 teacher candidates, working at central district of Tokat province during the spring semester of 2015-2016 academic year, received pedagogical formation, agreed voluntarily respond to the information on the form in pre-interview. The study conducted qualitatively. In the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis technique from qualitative data analysis techniques was used. According to findings, it is seen that participants experienced various problems during teaching practice. The participants found short haul and temporary solutions that they usually developed by themselves to overcome their problems that they experienced. The majority of the participants expressed   that they benefited from teaching practice course in the topics of lecturing, addressing, recognizing students, communicating with students, classroom management and attracting attention. The majority of the participants stated that teaching practice satisfied their expectations from this practice. It was found that the participants didn’t have enough knowledge about the practice itself, so their expectations from this practice was low. The fact that participants' expectations were low and they didn’t have enough knowledge about the practice shows that the practice in question satisfied their expectations easier and faster. Regarding the participants' expectations about how teaching practice should be and what it should include; they expect  for   teaching staff and practice teacher to   get  more involved with participants   and course; the lesson plans to be more planned and functional, the communication of instructors, and practice teachers at school to be better.

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.

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 purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of lessons conducted in out-of-school learning settings on 5th graders science achievement within the scope of a guidance material that was prepared to be used in out-of-school learning settings in accordance with the “Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body” chapter objectives. The pretest / posttest equalized control group design, which is one of the quasi-experimental designs, was used in this study. The sample of this study was composed of a total of 31 5th grade students (15 were in experimental group, 16 were in control group) that were selected from secondary schools in the first semester of the 2015-2016 academic year in Tokat Province. Let’s Solve the Riddle of Our Body Chapter Achievement Test (LeSROBAT) was administered before and after the implementation of the guidance material to measure the students’ achievements and retention. The lessons were conducted as suggested by the current curriculum in the control group. The data were analyzed using independent samples t-test and covariance analysis (ANCOVA). As a result of the analyses, it was found that the LeSROBAT post-test scores of experimental group were significantly higher than the control group. Within this context, it was concluded that the out-of-school learning settings positively contributed to academic achievement and the guidance material that was developed within the scope of this study was effective. The results of retention test analyses didn’t reveal any significant difference between the posttest and retention test scores of experimental and control groups. When the LeSROBAT retention test scores were examined, it was observed that the scores of experimental group was higher than the control group.

Children have a basic knowledge of birds that they observe during their everyday life either in their garden, other gardens, round the house, walking in the local area or in the yard on school gardens. A total of 515 children, aged 3 to 16 (249 girls and 266 boys) enrolled in southern Brazilian public preschools, primary school and secondary schools, were invited to participate in this exploratory study. A semi-structured interview was conducted with 206 pupils asking to name which birds they knew, where they had seen these birds, which ones live around home, which they had seen further away. Additionally, they were asked which birds they knew from a list and the source of this knowledge where they had learned about the birds. They were asked to draw on a sheet of paper a representation of what the word “bird” meant to them. Results show the importance of everyday observations rather than beyond formal education in the children knowledge. Children from the earliest years notice birds in their everyday lives, and build a bank of knowledge, gradually acquiring an understanding of adaptation to a variety of habitats. Children notice birds in their lives to differing extent and sources according to the culture in which they are immersed. Experiences of seeing or finding out about birds are encapsulated for many children in the form of narratives and contribute to their mental models of birds and their habitats on which they will drew in formal science later (Biology and Environmental Education). Educational implications are discussed.

The aim of the study is to determine views of principals regarding assignment procedure. Data were gathered with the implementation of semi-structured interview forms from 14 administrators in the center of Konya according to ‘Purposive sampling’ method. The data were analyzed by content analysis and the following findings have been reached. There should be criteria such as an examination (written and verbal), developing projects related with the school, receiving academic or in-service training in administration, having experience as assistant principal, preparation of evaluation forms aiming at objectivity and improvement, election of the assistant principal by the principal without any intervention among the successful ones from the written exams, appointment of administrators instead of assignment, acceptance of school administration as a profession, regulations respecting of the objectivity, justice and equality. It is recommended that similar studies be conducted through quantitative research.