The main purpose of this study was to investigate the contributions of spatial visualization and spatial orientation tasks regarding 2D representations of 3D objects and isometric drawing to the development of sixth grade students&rsquo / spatial reasoning. The study also aimed to investigate students&rsquo / performances on spatial tasks during the classes and to explore their views and feelings about the spatial tasks. Data were collected from 24 6th grade students in a private school located in Ankara. The design of the research was first person inquiry where the researcher was also the teacher at the same time. During five class hour the topic was covered with spatial tasks developed by the researcher.Spatial Orientation Test (SOT) and Achievement Test on 2D Representations of 3D Objects and Isometric Drawing (AT) were administered to the students before and after the taskto evaluate the effect of instruction. Wilcoxon signed rank test was run to test data. Statistical analyses revealed that there was a statistically significant difference in students&rsquo / spatial reasoning development between pre-test and post-test. Another finding of the study was related to the progress of students&rsquo / performances in the visual reasoning tasks. As the time passed, students got more successful in completing even the more advanced tasks.The findings of the study indicated that in order to develop students&rsquo / visual reasoning abilities teachers need to provide them opportunities to practice with the visual tasks supported with the effective use of manipulative. In addition to this, teachers should create activities and design their lessons in a way that where the students are the actors and actively participated in the class.

This study is aimed to explore the relationships among elementary students&rsquo / epistemological beliefs of science, perceptions of learning environments, learning approaches and science achievement. For this purpose, a model of the associations among these variables was proposed and tested by structural equation modeling. In this model, it was hypothesized that a) students&rsquo / perceptions of their learning environments would directly influence their epistemological beliefs of science and learning approaches, b) students&rsquo / epistemological beliefs of science would directly influence their learning approaches and science achievement, c) students&rsquo / learning approaches would directly influence their science achievement. A total of 2702 students from 139 public elementary schools from istanbul, Ankara, izmir, Diyarbakir, Van, Antalya, Afyon, EskiSehir, and Samsun were administered three instruments to assess their epistemological beliefs of science, perceptions of learning environments, and learning approaches. Students&rsquo / previous year final report card grades were used as the indicator of their science achievement. Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to determine the structure of students&rsquo / epistemological beliefs of science, perceptions of learning environments, and learning approaches. Although multidimensionality of epistemological beliefs of science was supported, a different factor structure was obtained for Turkish elementary school students compared to the theoretically proposed structure for the instrument. The results of the structural equation modeling generally supported the proposed hypotheses. The final model obtained in the study revealed that students&rsquo / perceptions of the classroom environments directly predicted students&rsquo / epistemological beliefs and learning approaches. Students&rsquo / epistemological beliefs predicted their learning approaches and science achievement, and students&rsquo / learning approaches influenced their science achievement.

The main purpose of this study was to determine preservice science teachers&rsquo / (PSTs) epistemological beliefs regarding the nature of knowledge and learning in the domain of environment through comparing with the domains of biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. A total of 12 PSTs voluntarily participated in the study. The sample of this study was consisted of senior elementary PSTs who registered for an elective course titled &ldquo / Laboratory Applications in Science and Environmental Education&rdquo / in the fall semester of 2008-2009 at a public university, in Ankara. The major data of this study was collected by using a semi-structured interview protocol, developed by Schommer-Aikins (2008). The data of this study were analyzed through descriptive statistics and Miles and Huberman approach (1994). The data analyses of this study were presented along with five dimensions of epistemological beliefs. The analysis of omniscient authority indicated that the PSTs less trust in environmental experts&rsquo / opinions, give more importance to informal education in the acquisition of environmental knowledge, and believe that environmental knowledge is justified more on the basis of direct observation. The analysis of stability of knowledge revealed that the PSTs conceived of environmental knowledge as more uncertain. The analysis of structure of knowledge pointed out that the PSTs consider environmental knowledge as more complex. The analysis of control of learning revealed that the PSTs believe that the large percentage of ability to learn can be acquired after the birth more in environment. The analysis of speed of learning indicated that the PSTs believe that much of learning takes less time in the domain of environment. This study provided evidence that epistemological beliefs are multidimensional and domain-specific. Moreover, this study highlighted that the nature of environmental knowledge and learning are also an important issue to be addressed in environmental education.

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of concrete materials on fourth grade students&rsquo / geometry achievement. The secondary purpose was to investigate their opinions and feelings about instruction with concrete materials. The study was carried out in a private school in Ankara with 32 fourth grade elementary school students. One group pretest-posttest design was used. Geometry Achievement Test was administered to collect the necessary data. The instruction with concrete materials was applied by the researcher five hours per week in 10 weeks. The data were analyzed by using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance. Also, an interview was conducted with 11 students to determine their opinions and feelings about instruction with concrete materials. The results of the study revealed that there was a statistically significant change in geometry achievement of fourth grade students who participated in the instruction with concrete materials over three time periods. In other words, there were statistically significant positive changes in students&rsquo / geometry achievement across pre-intervention and post-intervention and across pre-intervention and followup. Moreover, there was no statistically significant change in students&rsquo / achievement across post-intervention and follow-up. The other results can be deducted from the study: most of the students enjoyed the class more when concrete materials were used / some of the students became anxious when they first saw the questions in preintervention / most of the students stated that questions become easier after instruction with concrete materials / cubes and the geoboard were the most useful and most liked as perceived by the students.

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of eco-school application on elementary school students&rsquo / environmental literacy levels. Besides, effects of the application on students&rsquo / views about environment were explored. The study was carried out during the spring semester of 2008&ndash / 2009 academic year. Data of the study were gathered from 316 students (grades six to eight) enrolled to two elementary schools. One of the schools was determined as experimental group (n = 156) and students attending this school received eco-school application. The other school was set as control group (n = 160) and students enrolled to this school received traditional school application. Environmental Literacy Questionnaire with four subscales / environmental knowledge, attitudes, uses and concerns, was used to determine students&rsquo / environmental literacy before and after the eco-school application. Also, students&rsquo / views about environment were clarified with a draw-and-explain task. At the end of the treatment, interviews were conducted with some eco-school students and teachers to determine their views about the application. The results revealed that there were significant differences between control and experimental groups of different grade levels in terms of the all subscales of Environmental Literacy Questionnaire in the favour of experimental group. Additionally, students&rsquo / pre- and post- drawings showed that elementary school students&rsquo / views about environment mainly focus on three major themes / clean, polluted and both clean and polluted environment. The Chi-Square analysis revealed that there were significant associations between treatment groups and their views about the environment.

The purpose of this study was to investigate sixth grade students&rsquo / conceptual and procedural knowledge and word problem solving skills in the domain of length, area, and volume measurement with respect to gender, previous mathematics achievement, and use of materials. Through the Conceptual Knowledge test (CKT), the Procedural Knowledge Test (PKT), and the Word Problems test (WPT) and the Student Questionnaire, the data were collected from 445 sixth grade students attending public schools located in four different main districts of Ankara. Both descriptive and inferential statistics techniques (MANOVA) were used for the data analysis. The results indicated that the students performed relatively poor in each test. The lowest mean scores were observed in the WPT, then CKT, and PKT respectively. The questions involving length measurement had higher mean scores than area and volume measurement questions in all tests. Additionally, the results highlighted a significant relationship not only between the tests but also between the domains of measurement with a strong and positive correlation. According to the findings, whereas the overall performances of students on the tests significantly differed according to previous mathematics achievement level, gender did not affect the students&rsquo / performance on the tests. Moreover, a wide range of mistakes were found from students&rsquo / written responses to the length, area, and volume questions in the tests. Besides, the results indicated that use of materials in teaching and learning measurement was quite seldom and either low or non-significant relationship between the use of materials and the students&rsquo / performance was observed.

The purpose of this qualitative case study is threefold: (1) to examine the implementation of current Life Sciences curriculum in a selected primary school from the perspectives of teachers, students and administrators / (2) to investigate the degree to which teachers&rsquo / , students&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / perceptions were embedded in the classroom practices / and (3) to identify whether the implementation of the curriculum was conducive to principles of constructivist pedagogy. An elementary school was chosen as a single case in an outer district of Ankara. The participants of the study were the school administrator and 2 co-administrators, 4 classroom teachers and 87 students from different 2nd and 3rd grades classrooms. The data were collected through document analysis, observations in the Life Sciences classes, semi-structured interview with administrators, stimulated recall interview with teachers, and creative drama with students. Content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicated that the suggested Life Sciences Curriculum was conducive to the principles of constructivist pedagogy in terms of its content / teaching and learning processes / instructional methods / assessment methods / and teachers&rsquo / and students&rsquo / roles. However, the acquisitions of the LSC were not conducive to the constructivist approach. The findings on the teachers&rsquo / , students&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / perceptions about the Life Sciences curriculum indicated that in Life Sciences lessons the teachers seemed to have a role of knowledge transmitter to a group of passive students. According to the findings, the most frequently used teaching methods were lecturing, question-answer and demonstration through using textbooks, workbooks, and white boards. In addition, the most frequently used assessment methods were essay and oral exams, classroom observations and self-assessment. Overall it can be concluded from the findings that although the suggested Life Sciences curriculum was prepared in line with the principles of constructivist pedagogy, the way it was implemented had some deficiencies regarding the actualization of goals suggested by a constructivist curriculum.

The purpose of the study is threefold: (1) to examine students&rsquo / attitudes toward mathematics in terms of cognitive, affective and behavioral components, (2) to examine the relationships among students&rsquo / perceptions of their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s teaching profession, their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s and parents&rsquo / attitudes toward and expectations from them as learners of mathematics, some affective variables students have and the time they spent on mathematics at home and (3) to examine the relationships between students&rsquo / perceptions of their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s teaching profession, their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s and parents&rsquo / attitudes toward and expectations from them as learners of mathematics and three components of attitude toward mathematics, namely, cognitive, affective and behavioral components. The subjects of the study consists of 1960 7th grade students enrolled in 19 different public elementary schools in Istanbul. The study was carried out during the fall semester of 2009-2010 academic year. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to test the hypothesized relationships. The significant level was set to 0.05. Major findings revealed that (1) Attitude toward mathematics is identified with the three factors namely, cognitive, affective and behavioral, (2) Students&rsquo / perceptions of their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s teaching profession, their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s and parents&rsquo / attitudes toward and expectations from them as learners of mathematics statistically and significantly explain their confidence in learning mathematics, beliefs about the usefulness and importance of mathematics, liking for mathematics, mathematics anxiety, behaviors toward mathematics and the time they spent on mathematics at home, and (3) Students&rsquo / perceptions of their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s teaching profession, their mathematics teacher&rsquo / s and parents&rsquo / attitudes toward and expectations from them as learners of mathematics statistically and significantly explain three components of attitude toward mathematics.

The science and technology program developed by the Ministry of National Education of Turkey aims at training students as science and technology literates. In order to achieve this, method implemented by teachers should enhance science process skills, increase achievement and actualize differentiation in the conceptual structure of students. The present study aims to investigate the effectiveness of guided inquiry experiments over traditionally designed experiments on the acquisition of science process skills, content knowledge achievement and differentiating conceptual structure of 8th grade students about floating, sinking, buoyancy and pressure subjects. Guided inquiry laboratory manuals were developed for the experimental group. Traditional confirmation type laboratory manuals were developed for the control group. The study was conducted with 55 eighth grade students at a private elementary school in the Bah&ccedil / elievler district, Istanbul. In this quasi-experimental study, two of the three intact groups assigned as experimental group, while the control group. Unit achievement test (UAT), science process skills test (SPST) and two-tiered test for determining differentiation in conceptual structure (DDSCT) were used as data collection instruments. All of these instruments were administered to the students as pre-test and post-test. It was found that guided inquiry experiments were effective than traditional confirmation type experiments in differentiation of students&rsquo / conceptual structure about floating, sinking, buoyancy and pressure. However, there was not a significant difference in the effectiveness of both inquiry and traditional methods on enhancing the students&rsquo / science process skills and their achievement at the unit of force and motion.

The purpose of this study was to trace the reflections of critical issues, such as neo-liberalism, cultural differences based on social class, gender stereotyping, and nationalism in the elementary mathematics education in Turkey. Critical discourse analysis was conducted to examine these possible reflections. By researching mathematics education from a critical perspective, this study aimed to contribute constructing a starting point for socially responsible mathematics education. There were four main data sources in the study: elementary mathematics curriculum, 6th, 7th, and 8th grade elementary mathematics textbooks, workbooks and teacher&rsquo / s guide books, 7th grade mathematics classroom observations, and pre- and post-interviews with participant teacher. The discourse analysis of mathematics education contexts implied that elementary mathematics discourse: (i) oriented students to use their mathematical abilities and skills for the benefit of private corporations instead of public welfare / (ii) replaced the &lsquo / real life&rsquo / in mathematics problems with the life of middle and upper middle classes / (iii) included sexist expressions / and (iv) fostered nationalism via ignoring ethnic and non-Muslim groups living in Turkey. It appeared that teachers might not be aware of such discourse. Findings have addressed that policy makers and textbook writers should consider these critical issues in order to reach all students and teachers&rsquo / awareness should be increased. Future research should clarify these issues in a broad sense including pre-service teachers, teachers, students, and mathematics instruction in schools.