The purpose of this study is to investigate 11th and 12th grade high school students&rsquo / attitudes towards philosophy course and to examine whether their attitudes show significant differences with respect to certain background variables such as gender, school type, grade level, GPA of previous semester, philosophy course grade from the previous semester, mother&rsquo / s and father&rsquo / s education level, number of books available at home, and numbers of books read in the previous year. The sample consisted of 1322 high school students from 11th and 12th grades from 11 public and private high schools in the Province of Ankara. Data were gathered from the participants via Philosophy Course Attitude Scale developed by the researcher. Data were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. ANOVA was employed to investigate whether there were significant differences among students&rsquo / v attitude towards philosophy course with respect to certain background variables. Descriptive Statistics were used to analyze the background of information of the sample and attitudes of students towards philosophy course. The findings indicated that the students have moderate level of positive attitude towards philosophy course. The findings also showed that with the exception of the mother&rsquo / s education, each of the variables examined (gender, grade level, school type, GPA of previous semester, philosophy course grade from the previous semester, father&rsquo / s education, number of books available at home, number of books read in the previous year) created a significant difference in student attitudes towards the philosophy course.

The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent the preservice teachers perceived that they were ready for the teaching profession and the differences in preservice teachers&rsquo / readiness based on the year in the teacher education program, gender, high school type (teacher education high school or other), and existence of a teacher in the immediate family. The study was conducted at the Elementary Mathematics Education programs of universities in Ankara, Burdur, Bolu, Gaziantep, Izmir, Samsun and Sakarya in the spring semester of 2009-2010 academic year. The data were collected from 728 third and 4th year preservice mathematics teachers. Readiness of preservice mathematics teachers was assessed with a readiness scale which was developed by the researcher in the fall semester of 2009-2010 academic year. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistics. The results indicated that preservice mathematics teachers did not perceive their readiness at a high level. There was a significant difference in readiness scores for 3rd year preservice mathematics teachers and 4th year preservice mathematics teachers. It was found that the readiness of 4th year preservice mathematics teachers were significantly higher than the readiness of 3rd year preservice mathematics teachers. On the other hand, the results showed that there was no significant difference in readiness scores for female preservice mathematics teachers and male preservice mathematics teachers. Similarly, there was no significant difference in readiness scores for preservice mathematics teachers graduated from teacher education high school and preservice mathematics teachers graduated from other high school types, and between existence of a teacher in the immediate family of preservice mathematics teachers and nonexistence of a teacher in the immediate family of preservice mathematics teachers. Findings of the study indicated the need for improving the practice courses in order to increase preservice teachers&rsquo / readiness for the profession.

The purpose of this study was to investigate pre-service science teachers&rsquo / (PST) quality of written argumentations about socio-scientific issues in an online discussion environment in relation to their epistemic beliefs and argumentativeness. A total of 30 pre-service elementary science teachers who will teach elementary school science from 6th through 8th grade students after graduation voluntarily participated in this study. The sample was chosen by purposive and convenience sampling from the PSTs registered for the course named &ldquo / Science, Technology, and Society&rdquo / in the fall semester of 2009-2010 academic year at a public university in Ankara. In this study, the PSTs participated in an online discussion environment in which climate change, nuclear power, genetically modified foods, and human genome project issues were discussed for a total of four week period. The major data of this study were collected through the Epistemic Beliefs Questionnaire developed by Kuhn, Cheney and Weinstock (2000) and the Argumentativeness Scale by Infante and Rancer (1982). For the analysis of the quality of argumentations, an adapted version of Sadler and Fowler&rsquo / s (2006) argumentation analysis framework was employed. The results of the study illustrated that the PSTs frequently generated high quality argumentations for each socio-scientific issue which was interpreted as a positive indication that the online discussion environment was effective in promoting students&rsquo / argumentation. In addition, the results also showed that argumentation quality levels varied across socio-scientific issues. Another result of this study was that the PSTs&rsquo / argumentation qualities were higher for multiplist and evaluativist levels. Finally, the correlation results between argumentativeness and argumentation quality levels did not reveal a significant correlation between these variables. However, there was a significant correlation between epistemic belief levels and argumentativeness.

Emodin (1,3,8-trihydroxy-6-methylanthraquinone) is a phytoestrogenic component of Rheum plant extracts which has been used for medical treatment since ancient times. It has been shown to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effects. In our research, we aimed to study the biological effects of emodin on MCF-7 and MDA-231 cell lines. Cytotoxicity assays showed that emodin treatment for 48hours caused a concentration dependent decrease in viable cell numbers of both cell lines. As determined by cell counting with tryphan blue, IC50 values were 8.40 and 12.17 &micro / g/ml for MCF-7 and MDA-231 cells, respectively. Apoptotic effects of emodin was investigated by measuring the changes in apoptotic and antiapoptotic gene expressions by qRT-PCR. In MCF-7 cells, Bax expression increased with increasing emodin concentrations, while Bcl-2 expression was downregulated. Bax/Bcl-2 ratio was calculated as 9.2 fold at 10&micro / g emodin/ml treatment for 48 hours, indicating stimulation of apoptosis. However, Bax/Bcl-2 ratio was found 1.6 fold for MDA-231 cells. These results were in accordance with the results obtained from microarray analysis of related gene expressions. MCF-7 cells were more apoptotic in comparison to MDA-231 cells. DNA fragmentation was observed in MCF-7 cells by TUNEL method. GST enzyme activity that was measured using CDNB as substrate, was increased 100% with respect to control up to 5&micro / g emodin/ml treatment of MCF-7 cells for 48 hours. However, effect of emodin on GST activity in MDA-231 cells was found insignificant. According to microarray analysis results, emodin affected the gene expressions of GST isozymes in MCF-7 cells much more than in MDA-231 cells.

The purpose of this study was to investigate 7th-grade students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions in graphs concept before and after the regular mathematics instruction. The study was conducted in an elementary school in the 2nd semester of 2009-2010 academic year in Afyonkarahisar. A mathematics teacher and 71 7th-grade students participated in the study. The data were collected through achievement tests administered to the students before and after the instruction and interviews conducted with the teachers and the selected eight students based on the results of the pretest and posttest. The teacher&rsquo / s instruction was also observed. Students were not exposed to a special treatment, but rather the influence of regular mathematics instruction on a group of 7th-grade students from the four classes taught by the same teacher was investigated. The results of data analysis indicated that 7th-grade students had common typical errors and possible misconceptions about the usage, construction, reading, and interpretation of line, bar, and circle graphs before and after the regular instruction. The comparison of pretest and posttest results showed that while there were differences between the students&rsquo / errors and misconceptions in pretest and posttest, some misconceptions were decreased or increased, or did not change from pretest to posttest. The interviews conducted with the selected students addressed that the students had errors and misconceptions in graphs concept. Findings of the observation of teacher&rsquo / s instruction showed that the teacher did not fully discover and prevent students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions. Moreover, the findings of the interview conducted with the teacher indicated that her knowledge of students&rsquo / errors and misconceptions were limited. The results of this study showed that teachers&rsquo / planning was important in understanding students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions. Inservice training of teachers should put more emphasize in effective planning and understanding students&rsquo / typical errors and possible misconceptions.

The purpose of this study was to investigate predictive value of life satisfaction, academic achievement, number of clients, number of counseling sessions, and satisfaction level of supervision both in terms of quality and quantity in determining counselor trainees&rsquo / counseling self-efficacy levels. The sample of this study was the 470 voluntary senior counselor trainees (335 females, 135 males) enrolled in Department of Guidance and Counseling at eleven universities in Turkey. Participants were administered a demographic data form, the Satisfaction with Life Scale, the Counselor Self-Estimate Inventory and the Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales. In the context of this study, the Counselor Activity Self-Efficacy Scales were translated to Turkish, validity and reliability studies were conducted. Additionally, reliability studies of the other scales used for the sample of the present study were conducted. Data analysis was carried out by Stepwise Multiple Regression Analysis. Results of the study indicated that life satisfaction, number of counseling sessions and satisfaction with quality of supervision explained 13% of the total variance of counseling self-efficacy scores of the counselor trainees. Life satisfaction was found as the most important predictor of counseling self-efficacy, explaining 8.2 % of the total variance. On the other hand, academic achievement, number of clients and satisfaction with quantity of supervision were not found to be significant predictors of counseling self-efficacy.

This study mainly aimed at investigating the academic writing needs and writing self-efficacy beliefs of graduate students studying at an English-medium university, Ankara. Furthermore, such areas that have a crucial role in determining writing needs as the frequency of writing tasks, usefulness of written sources, perceived importance of academic writing, and role of Turkish while writing were explored. In this study, quantitative data via &ldquo / Academic Writing Needs Assessment Survey for Graduate Students&rdquo / were collected from 213 graduate students enrolled at Graduate School of Social Sciences. Descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and multiple regression analyses were employed to analyze the data. The results of descriptive statistics indicated that the graduate students need a wider vocabulary repertoire in order to cope with the challenges of academic writing and they are mostly assigned longer research papers. In addition, using journal articles published in the area of specialization during writing was the most common method and more than half of the graduate students stated that when stuck with finding the right word, they first look for a Turkish word first. The exploratory factor analysis produced two factors and the regression analyses were carried out. The results yielded that the predictors accounted for 24% of the variance in productivity-related academic writing needs, and 22% of the variance in accuracy-related academic writing needs. For the productivity-related academic writing needs, writing self-efficacy and academic status made a significant contribution and for the accuracy-related academic writing needs, writing self-efficacy and English proficiency exam score were significant.

Through the widespread use of the Internet, WebQuest has become one of the popular techniques in a variety of fields of science and arts for teaching different age groups and levels. This study is conducted to research the effectiveness of this approach in English language learning and to determine possible problems in its implementation. Thus, the purpose of this study is to design, develop, and implement this new approach and to evaluate the learners&rsquo / experiences with it. The participants of this study were the students of a preparatory school at a state university. Twenty-five learners participated in this study. In line with the scope of the research, a WebQuest site was designed which require learners to complete a task related to the curriculum and learning objectives of their English courses. Both qualitative and quantitative techniques were employed to assess the learner perceptions about the WebQuest site design, the steps of the process, group work, and the contribution of the application to language learning. According to the findings of this study, participants appreciated the WebQuest approach and they provided important suggestions for future applications.

Semantic annotation of video content is necessary for indexing and retrieval tasks of video management systems. Currently, it is not possible to extract all high-level semantic information from video data automatically. Video annotation tools assist users to generate annotations to represent video data. Generated annotations can also be used for testing and evaluation of content based retrieval systems. In this study, a semi-automatic semantic video annotation tool is presented. Generated annotations are in MPEG-7 metadata format to ensure interoperability. With the help of image processing and pattern recognition solutions, annotation process is partly automated and annotation time is reduced. Annotations can be done for spatio-temporal decompositions of video data. Extraction of low-level visual descriptions are included to obtain complete descriptions.

Physically Interactive Games (PIGs) have emerged as a new game genre and potential as an educational tool in classrooms. In PIGs, children are allowed to interact with game environment and solving problems by using their bodily movements and voices without using mouse or keyboard by being active physically and cognitively. Designing PIGs is critical and difficult process because it is vital that educational content and entertainment parts of a game should be balanced properly considering interaction between children and game environment. The current dissertation aims to explore principles of designing and developing physically interactive educational games for children. Mainly, qualitative data collection techniques were used in the study. Also, Reeves&rsquo / Development Research Model was administered under the Design-Based Research. Both Mathematics and Physical Education subjects were integrated within the game environments. Totally four physically interactive games were designed and developed. During the design and development phases, field experts, subject-matter experts and children&rsquo / s expectations, needs and recommendations were taken into account. During the development phase, 5 teachers with 3 Mathematics and 2 Physical Education teachers as subject matter experts participated to the study. Also, 10 v children with 5 boys and 5 girls participated to the design phase. In the implementation phase, 30 children with 17 boys and 13 girls participated in Pilot Implementation and 50 children with 27 boys and 23 girls participated to the Final Implementation phase. The study revealed that camera screen was the main deterministic factor in order to play physically interactive educational games properly. Girls and boys had different considerations about the developed games. The bigger camera screen physically interactive games had, the higher motivation children had during gameplay. At the end of the study, design principles of physically interactive educational games were defined.