This study tested and integrated the effects of an inquiry-based didactic method for preschool science in a real practical classroom setting. Four preschool classrooms participated in the experiment (N = 57) and the children were 4–6 years old. In order to assess children’s attention for causal events and their understanding at the level of scientific reasoning skills, we designed a simple task in which a need for information gain was created. Compared to controls, children in the post-test showed significant learning gains in the development of the so-called control of variables strategy. Indeed, they executed more informative and less uninformative explorations during their spontaneous play. Furthermore, the importance of such programmes was discussed in the field of STEM education.

* Note: This paper was published as an inadvertent duplicate publication with an another journal.

With the break of the civil war in Syria, many Syrians have been displaced either internally or as refugees. Turkey, one of the leading host of Syrian refugees, has made changes to the policies to accommodate the needs of Syrians. Education is one of the most prominent needs of displaced refugee children. While 80 percent of refugee children living in camps have access to formal education, only small number of children living outside the camps are attending schools. With the increased number of children, many of the governmental organizations, municipalities, and NGOs have been involved in an effort to establish schools for Syrian refugee children living outside of the camps. This article reports the results of a study conducted at a newly established host community school for Syrian refugee children in the City of Gaziantep during the 2014-2015 school year. The aim of the study was to look at the experiences of administrators, teachers, and a parent who were involved in the establishment of the schools. The study made use of qualitative case study methodology, where interviews, focus group, and field notes were the data sources. The results of the study indicated that there were many systematic challenges involved in the establishment of the school, but nevertheless the teachers, administrators and the parents were happy to have the opportunity to be involved in this effort. The curriculum used in the school provided cultural relevance for the students and made their transition to the context easier. Although the school was established with support from the municipality for that year, there were not solid plans in place to provide sustainability of the school. This study provides a unique insight into the current status of Syrian refugee children living in Turkey and should serve as a bridge to policy makers in designing educational programs for refugees.

The objective of the study was to find out the effect of EI and gender on job satisfaction of primary school teachers. A total of 300 (150 male and 150 female) primary school teachers were selected randomly for the study. Emotional Intelligence Scale (EIS) and Teachers’ Job Satisfaction Scale (TJSS) were used to collect the data. The study found a significant positive relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. Regression analysis showed that emotional management and emotional maturity significantly predicted the job satisfaction. The results of the two-way ANOVA showed that the interaction effect of gender and EI was not significant. Results also showed that level of EI significantly affected the job satisfaction of primary school teachers. However, there is no significant difference between male and female teachers regarding the level of job satisfaction. There are other factors which affect job satisfaction but the role of EI cannot be neglected. So the level of EI must be taken into consideration in order to select the best teachers.

Although wealth of empirical researches have covered the impact of crucial, indispensable role reading skills play in the development of individuals’ mental faculties through the acquisition of knowledge in a particular language, scientific works on the assessment of the relationship(s) between pre-reading activities (consisting of games, puzzle solving, match making) and reading skills achievement remain depressingly scanty in Ghana. This study in the light of foregoing atmosphere explored how pre-reading activities facilitate pre-reading and reading skills among preschoolers with the use of randomized experimental control groups design which adopted pre and post-test of two classes, as well as observation guides to diagnose the problem of reading among the KG children in the two groups (control and treatment groups). The findings from these experimentations clearly portrayed the significant influence that pre-reading activities exert on the level of preschoolers reading skills achievements. Upon thorough analysis, and discussions predicated on the research outcome, it has been recommended that preschool educators incorporate levelappropriate pre-reading activities to enrich Preschool Education in Ghana.

Using data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), patterns of parental involvement were examined in selected OECD countries. The findings showed that, irrespective of educational qualifications, parents were frequently involved in their children’s learning at the start of primary school and at age 15. Cross-national analyses showed that a high percentage of parents were frequently involved in various ways with their children’s learning, with some OECD countries showing parental involvement to be very common. Less instrumental, more subtle forms of parental involvement such as parent-child conversations about topical social issues emerged as the strongest predictor for continuing parental literacy support at age 15. These findings have important implications for understanding patterns and forms of parenting and for guiding family policy to consider cultural, economic and educational explanations about the nature of parental involvement in children’s education.

Children from southern and northern Brazil have a basic knowledge of plants, which they observe during their everyday life. Children ages between 3 to 10 years old (kindergarten & primary school), but the majority of them in the age group of 4-5 (total 145) were asked to draw what they think is a plant (total sample=332). Afterwards, a equal number of boys and girls randomly chosen were interviewed individually (mix ability) to list plants they said they knew and where they had seen them. Then they were asked to give exemplars of the local plants which they had seen. These data from the exploratory study show that pupils are in touch with their environment and recognize plants that are part of it. The everyday experiences of these children in school and out of school, at home and in leisure activities with family and friends, contribute to their knowledge about plants and such knowledge is complemented in the preschool and primary school classes by appropriate teaching. Educational implications of these findings are discussed.

The purpose of the research is to evaluate pre-service preschool teachers' knowledge about environment by analyzing their drawings about it. 70 first grade, 99 second grade, 56 third grade and 44 fourth grade, with a total of 269 students have been evaluated in this research. This qualitative research was made with social structuralism vision. The data used in this research were gathered by draw and tell conversation technique, where pre-service teachers were asked to draw the first thing when they think about environment and explain it. When analyzing the data, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used. After analyzing collected data, it is seen that most used object in drawings are tree, human, house and sun, respectively. 4 themes and 12 sub-categories under these themes are detected by pre-service teachers' drawings. The most drawn theme by pre-service teachers is Theme 3: a place which affected/designed by third persons, while the least drawn is Theme 4: a place where humans, animals and plants lives together. 10 categories have seen after analyzing explanations of the drawing. Most explanation seen in the places that supports human life category. Independent variables of the research (sex and grade level) and themes and explanations of the drawings are statically and meaningfully related to each other. The most significant result of this research is that pre-service preschool teachers have human-centric system of thought about environment.

In this article, a teaching strategy which not only blends yesterday and today in a meaningful way but also powerfully integrates literacy and history will be examined. Firstly Readers’ Theatre as a technique will be introduced. Secondly, the usage guidelines of Readers’ Theatre will be presented. Finally the opinions of secondary school students about Readers’ Theatre as an instructional component in history teaching will be discussed. The research was conducted on 72 11th grade students from Deneme Secondary School in Çankaya district in Ankara in the spring term of 2013-2014 school years. For the purpose of the study, students were taught by using Readers’ Theatre technique in history lessons for four weeks and at the end of this implementation, the semi-structured interviews were held to determine the opinions of students about Readers’ Theatre technique. The themes were formed by making content analyze to the collected data. It is concluded that the students mainly have described Readers’ Theatre as “theatre”. They have found Readers’ Theatre useful in many respects as they outline the positive effect of the technique on their reading and obtaining historical information. They like most the cooperation with their peers and acting. The vast majority of students have not mentioned any dislikes and a few of them have difficulties to follow the script. Finally, the answers of the majority of the students on the implementation of Readers’ Theatre again are “positive” and their suggestions for better implementation are “on stage”, “the same way” and “using visuals”.

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.

The aim of this study was to determine mental models of 334 pre-school children concerning school. Children in the city center of Kastamonu in the Western Black Sea region of Turkey were included. Content analysis was conducted on pictures drawn by the children, and the models were split into two groups, scientific and nonscientific. The scientific group was split into three types; the nonscientific group, into four. About 40% of the children had a scientificbased school perception, while 60% were nonscientific. No significant difference was found between the mental models of females and males. Few studies have investigated mental models, so this study fills a gap, but further studies would aid the understanding of the relevant pedagogic architecture.

This study aimed to comparatively examine the self-efficacy and burnout levels of preschool teachers in Turkey and the United States. Of the general screening models, the study uses the relational screening model. A total of 90 teachers participated in the study. 32 of the participants were from the United States and 58 were from Turkey. The Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale and Burnout Scale were used in the study. The data were analyzed through the Whitney U-Test. According to the analyses regarding the self-efficacy levels of teachers, a significant difference in student participation sub-dimension as well as in total points in favor of the teachers in Turkey were found. However, no significant difference was found between the two countries with regards to teachers’ burnout levels. Regarding the self-efficacy levels of teachers working in Turkey, a significant difference was found in favor of teachers with two to five years of experience in the student participation sub-dimension, while no significant difference was found in the other sub-dimensions and in total points. On the other hand, no significant difference was determined was found between the self-efficacy levels and years of experience for the teachers in the United States.

A university course project was developed and implemented in a biology course, focusing on environmental problems, to assess community awareness of childhood lead poisoning. A set of 385 questionnaires was generated and distributed in an urban community in North Carolina, USA. The study revealed that university education levels among the participants in the study significantly enhanced awareness of the body systems affected by lead poisoning, whereas age significantly enhanced awareness of the treatment of lead poisoning, its prevalence, causes, and the body systems affected. A majority of the participants showed interest in learning about lead poisoning (67%), but perhaps not only through a university seminar (42%). The project showed that involvement of students in innovative communication avenues between universities and communities, aimed at enhancing public awareness of a major environmental health risk, is possible through a biology course project in which students are part of the project’s development, implementation and analysis. Also, such an educational research project can, despite some limitations, offer educational opportunities that can intensify the students’ interest in the course and knowledge of the research topic.

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 purpose of this study is to understand in an exploratory way pupils´ perception of science and the image of scientists at primary and secondary school levels. Data was collected by means of a survey questionnaire and a drawing representing pupils´ depiction what scientists do during their working hours. A questionnaire anchored on a Likert scale was filled by 204 primary and 229 secondary school children. Pupils from this sample considered science classes enjoyable, helped to understand issues covered by media, that science is a body of knowledge whose goal is to make life more comfortable to people. A total of 433 drawings were collected at 3 urban and 1 rural schools. Drawings illustrated scientists in scientific activity, mainly working alone, wearing lab coat and eyeglasses. Scientific specialization included chemists, biologists and a few technologist and astronomers. Educational implications are discussed.

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 attempts to reveal pre-service teachers’ conceptions, definitions, and understanding of quadrilaterals and their internal relationships in terms of personal and formal figural concepts via case of the parallelograms. To collect data, an open-ended question was addressed to 27 pre-service mathematics teachers, and clinical interviews were conducted with them. The factors influential on pre-service teachers’ definitions of parallelograms and conceptions regarding internal relationships between quadrilaterals were analyzed. The strongest result involved definitions based on prototype figures and partially seeing internal relationships between quadrilaterals via these definitions. As a different result from what is reported in the literature, it was found that the fact that rectangle remains as a special case of parallelogram in pre-service teachers’ figural concepts leads them not to adopt the hierarchical relationship. The findings suggested that learners were likely to recognize quadrilaterals by a special case of them and prototypical figures, even though they knew the formal definition in general. This led learners to have difficulty in understanding the inclusion relations of quadrilaterals.

This study aims to review the impact of the interactive story reading method on 48-72 month children’s vocabulary based on receptive and expressive language. The study group is 52 children in the 48-72 months age group at the nurseries of primary schools at Ankara province. The research employed a combined pattern analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data. The data were collected via "General Information Form" ,"Expressive and Receptive Language Test in Turkish (TIFALDI)" developed under the leadership of Gul Guven and Berument The "Teacher Observation Form", the "Teacher Interview Form" and the "Family Interview Form". In conclusion of the study, a significant difference in favor of the experiment group in the posttest was observed with respect to average posttest scores of experiment and control groups, following the implementation of the Interactive Story Reading Program. The comparison of the follow-up test and pretest score averages revealed a significantly high value in favor of the total for the follow-up test for the children in the experiment group. The agreement among the forms filled out by two observers with reference to the results of the observation and video analysis regarding the implementation of the "Interactive Story Reading Method" by the teachers, was assessed to be good/very good agreement. In the light of these results it can be said that the interactive story reading method have a fundamental impact on receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge of 48-72 months old children.

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.

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.

This study investigated the resilience levels of parents with children with multiple disabilities by utilizing different variables. The study, conducted with survey model –a qualitative method- included a sample composed of a total of 222 voluntary parents (183 females, 39 males) residing in Bolu, Duzce and Zonguldak in Turkey. Parental Information Form and Family Resilience Scale, consisting of 4 sub dimensions (Challenge, Self Efficacy, Commitment to Life and Control) and a total of 37 items, were used in the framework of the study which included reliability and validity studies of the scale as well. Differences between sub groups were not statistically significant for the following variables:  gender of children with multiple disabilities; age of children with multiple disabilities; support received for child care by parents of children with multiple disabilities; health problems of parents of children with multiple disabilities; psychological support received by parents of children with multiple disabilities; age of parents of children with multiple disabilities; income levels and education of parents of children with multiple disabilities (p>0.05). However, significant differences were observed in Challenge dimension in terms of gender of the parents and the type of disability.