The aim of the study is to investigate early childhood teachers&rsquo / perceptions towards young gifted children and their self-reported needs for meeting needs of young gifted children. In order to reach this aim, interviews with 15 early childhood teachers were conducted. The interview questions were designed to explore three aspects of teachers&rsquo / perceptions on young gifted children: perception on giftedness as a concept, perception on characteristics of young gifted children and perception on gifted education. The findings of the study regarding these three aspects of early childhood teachers&rsquo / perceptions consistently showed that they perceive and define giftedness as a concept based on excellence in cognitive abilities of gifted children. Subsequently, cognitive characteristics which indicate high abilities in cognitive functions are stated most to define gifted characteristics. Related with that, early childhood teachers&rsquo / self reported practices in case of a gifted child in classroom consist mainly of individual studies to support high cognitive abilities of young gifted children. The findings regarding the needs of early childhood teachers in meeting the needs of young gifted children indicate that they have low self-efficacy beliefs in handling multidimensional educational needs of gifted children. They express their need for professional development and trainings with model practices. They also express the necessity of support in terms of time, material, resources, communication, collaboration and supervision in order to be able to practice the theoretical concepts they would acquire through means of professional development.

The purpose of this study was to examine elementary teachers&rsquo / and elementary mathematics teachers&rsquo / perceptions of mathematically gifted students in terms of teachers&rsquo / gender, year of experience and area of teaching. The data were collected from 176 elementary teachers and 90 elementary mathematics teachers from 60 state elementary schools in the center of Trabzon, in the fall semester of 2011-2012 academic year. In order to determine teachers&rsquo / perceptions of mathematical giftedness, the instrument called as Teachers&rsquo / Judgments of Gifted Mathematics Student Characteristic (TJGMSC) was used. The results were evaluated in terms of three dimensions of TJGMSC: school smart mathematics student, mathematics perspective for the real world and creative problem solver. Besides, in order to analyze the data, one-way MANOVA was conducted. The results of the study illustrated that there were no significant differences among teachers&rsquo / TJGMSC scores, in terms of their gender and year of experience. However, a significant difference was found between elementary teachers and elementary mathematics teachers in terms of their TJGMSC scores for only the dimension of school smart mathematics student. To illustrate, elementary teachers&rsquo / scores regarding this dimension were higher than those of elementary mathematics teachers.

This Dissertation analyzes the conditions, problems and potential of rural women&rsquo / s empowerment through a sample of rural women&rsquo / s organizations (two women&rsquo / s cooperative, seven rural development cooperative and one village women associaton) with interpreting DAWN iniative and GAD approach with a socialist feminist perspective. In this study, it is stated that the agricultural sector policies and rural development policy were constructed in relation with the conditions of underdevelopment and thus, in relation with the agreements with IMF, WTO and IPARD Programme of EU which enforced the decreasing of agricultural sector subsidies. It is notable that these policies are formulated with an aim of increasing the influence and significance of capitalist relations in agricultural sector and rural areas without taking precautions for the survival of small sized farming households in rural areas. Despite these general influences of underdevelopment to Turkish Agricultural Sector and patriarchal gender assumptions, these women&rsquo / s organizations could be successful to some extent empowering their members with the recognized dimensions of empowerment such as / psychological, economical, social, organizational and political. All these dimensions are interrelated with each other. In this study, it was observed that while economic empowerment and psychological empowerment is the base of all other dimensions of empowerment, social empowerment and organizational empowerment are the most dynamic processes of empowerment and political empowerment is hardest dimension or outcome to achieve.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between preschool children&rsquo / s reading attitudes and their home literacy environment. In addition, children&rsquo / s perceptions of reading in terms of their reading attitudes were examined as a part of this study. The sample of this study consisted of 261 parents and their 5 year-old children who were enrolled preschool in Ankara, Turkey. The data of this study were collected through child interviews, demographic information forms, and the following questionnaires: the Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire (Umek et al., 2005) and the Preschool Children Reading Attitudes (Saracho, 1986) questionnaire. These questionnaires were both translated into Turkish, and statistical analyses were conducted to control for validity and reliability issues through a pilot study. The results of the study showed that there was a statistically significant relationship between preschool children&rsquo / s reading attitudes and their home literacy environment. In addition, the study revealed there were some differences in children&rsquo / s reading attitudes and their home literacy environment in regards to demographic variables. Furthermore, the study demonstrated that children who have more positive reading attitudes tended to give clearer and more detailed responses to questions and were more aware that writing contains messages. In addition, those children mentioned letters and the role of letters in the learning to read process.

University departments that offer graduate programs require feedback to assess the quality of the education they offer. Feedback on the quality of education is provided in the form of program evaluation. In the general approach to program evaluation, outsiders, i.e., people who are not parts of a program, do the evaluation. This descriptive study starts out with the belief that the best feedback in program evaluation can only come from insiders, i.e., faculty, students, and alumni, who are parts of a particular program. In order to capture the perspectives of insiders on the quality related characteristics of a program, this study evaluated a master&rsquo / s degree program in TESOL (Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages) at an American university in a practical and cost-effective way, using a minimum number of evaluators. All faculty, students, and alumni of the program form the participants in this study. Regular program evaluation studies are conducted to do one type of evaluation only and they do not seek insiders&rsquo / opinions. Unlike such studies, this evaluative research study aims to go beyond that familiar narrow focus and provide a richer description of the program it evaluates. Its research design and the data collection methods employed in it are chosen to achieve that goal. These enable the present study to have a broader scope than those of the regular program evaluation studies as the collected data can be used for more than one type of analysis. The results of data collection show that all parties express positive opinion on the aspects of the program that are directly related to the teaching that takes place in classes. Areas of the program that need improvement are also introduced, and recommendations to overcome them are presented.

The number of men within the academia who analyze patriarchy, masculinities and gender inequality seem to be increasing in Turkey especially for the last couple of years. This can be considered as an evidence for the influence of feminism over men. Although more men today are interested in those fields of feminism to criticize men&rsquo / s hegemony, it is rather important to know that how much extent they are open to change their relation with patriarchy in order to confront it. This study attempts to provide a critical evaluation of men who are academically interested in struggling against patriarchy. For this aim, in-depth interviews were made with thirteen men in the academia in order to comprehend their standpoint and thoughts about men&rsquo / s engagement with feminism. It is seen that most men in the research group are willing to cooperate with feminists to confront patriarchy. However, it is also found out that it is arduous for men to change their relation with patriarchy because patriarchy provides men with institutionalized privileges. In this respect, this study argues that male contribution to feminism would be beneficial as much as problematic. Moreover, instead of answering it directly as &lsquo / yes&rsquo / or &lsquo / no&rsquo / , this study suggests to respond the main question that whether men would be true allies of feminism by following the change in men in terms of their attitudes towards patriarchy.

This study analysed the students&rsquo / perceptions about the web based instruction in a blended learning environment. Students&rsquo / perceptions, expectations and comments about their blended learning experiences, course web site and their communication experiences with the instructor were investigated. This case study was conducted within the Information Technology in Education II Course (CEIT 112). This course was delivered for the undergraduate course at the Computer Education and Instructional Technology Department (CEIT), Middle East Technical University, during the 2004-2005 Spring semester. Number of the participants was 25 and all of them were first year CEIT students. This course was delivered as a blended learning which combined face-to-face instruction with the web based instruction. The questionnaire was used to identify the students&rsquo / perceptions about the web based course at the end of the semester. Interviews were conducted at the end of the semester in order to take students&rsquo / comments, expectations and recommendations with respect to the course. Also, an interview was conducted with the instructor to identify his perceptions about the blended instruction experiences at the end of the semester. Both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered at the end of the semester. Data results showed that students had positive perceptions about the blended learning environment and to some extent neutral about the effectiveness of the course website. According to the instructor&rsquo / s point of view, the blended learning was beneficial for the students, but the efficient utilization of computer mediated communication would be better supported. This study can contribute the following research studies related with the blended learning. Also, the instructor of the course can benefit from this research result in order to improve the productivity of the course for the next terms.

This study aimed at investigating the effect of an extended teacher wait time on student participation in primary school context. The main purpose of the study was to inquire whether primary level students would participate in the lesson more when they are given extended wait time after questions than those lessons in which they received average wait time. Students&rsquo / attitudes towards receiving extended wait time and teachers&rsquo / opinions about and experiences in applying it were also explored. For this purpose, two fifth grade classes at ihsan Dogramaci Foundation Bilkent Primary School participated in the study. Pre-test and post-test results and first part of the teacher and student questionnaires provided the quantitative data of the study. The qualitative data came from the second part of the questionnaires that were given to the teachers and the students. The analysis of the quantitative data indicated that students who received extended wait time participated in the lesson more than the students who received average wait time. Analysis of the results of student questionnaire indicated that the students were aware of the positive outcomes of being allowed extended wait time. The results of the teacher questionnaire showed that although extending wait time strategy and its outcomes are known by the teachers, it is not widely used in the classrooms.

In this thesis, the Generalized Finite Difference (GFD) method is applied to analyze the elastoplastic deformation behavior of a long functionally graded (FGM) tube subjected to internal pressure. First, the method is explained in detail by considering the elastic response of a rotating FGM tube. Then, the pressurized tube problem is treated. A long FGM tube with fixed ends (axially constrained ends) is taken into consideration. The two cases in which the modulus of elasticity only and both the modulus of elasticity and the yield limit are graded properties are analyzed. The plastic model here is based on incremental theory of plasticity, Tresca&#039 / s yield criterion and its associated flow rule. The numerical results are compared to those of analytical ones. Furthermore, the elastic response of an FGM tube with free ends is studied considering graded modulus of elasticity and Poisson&#039 / s ratio. The results of these computations are compared to those of Shooting solutions. In the light of analyses and comparisons stated above, the applicability of the GFD method to the solution of similar problems is discussed. It is observed that, in purely elastic deformations the accuracy of the method is sufficient. However, in case of elastic-plastic deformations, the discrepancies between numerical and analytical results may increase in determining plastic displacements. It is also noteworthy that the predictions for tubes with two graded properties, i. e. the modulus of elasticity and the yield limit, turn out to be better than those with one graded property in this regard.

This study aims to investigate the relations between the dimensions of parental expressivity which are positivity, negative dominant expressivity, negative submissive expressivity, family environment and child&rsquo / s coping strategies, and the effect of child temperament on this relation .111 preschool children between the ages of 4 and 6 years and their families participated in the study. Family expressivity as assessed with Halberstadt&rsquo / s Self Expressivennes in the Family Questionnaire. Three subscales of Family Environment Scale which are cohesion, expressivity and conflict were utilized to measure the relation in the family. In order to determine how the child copes with situation specific stress Vignette Assessment of Preschool Children&rsquo / s Coping Strategies was used. VAPCCS consists of four stressful vignettes that are mastery challenge, peer conflict, parent&ndash / child conflict and separation situations. Child&rsquo / s coping strategies were coded as five coping strategies, problem approach and problem avoidance, passive acceptance, and emotion venting. Child&rsquo / s temperamental characteristics were assessed with Colorado Child Temperament Inventory. Results revealed that children&rsquo / s temperamental characteristics did not predict children&rsquo / s coping strategy by its own. However, child coping strategies varied in the interaction of different child temperament characteristics and dimensions of maternal emotional expressivity. Children&rsquo / s soothability moderated the relation between maternal negative submissive expressivity and children&rsquo / s problem approach coping. Moreover, children tended to use less problem avoidance coping strategy in cases where mothers expressed negative submissive emotion more frequently in the family and when children had highly sociable temperamental characteristics. Overall, the results of the study suggested that when fluctuations in the degree of expression of negative emotion in the family are taken into consideration with children&rsquo / s temperamental characteristics, they influence how the children cope with stress.