Much of the recent literature in mentoring centers on the effectiveness of volunteers who donate their time to relationships with children in need of a positive adult role model (DuBois & Karcher, 2005). Because mentors generally take on a great deal of responsibility with youth who are often at-risk either personally or academically (Commonwealth Fund, 1998; McLearn, Colasanto & Schoen, 1998; McLearn et al., 1999), researchers want to identify those variables and practices that increase the chance of a successful and beneficial relationship (Nakkula & Harris, 2005). This study examined the benefits of adult-child mentoring and looked for connections between the mentees’ growth in social competence and the relationship length, match quality, and specific mentoring strategies employed. The mentors’ perceptions of sufficiency about the match, the mentee’s additional resources, and their own abilities were also examined. A survey was distributed electronically to 890 Austin, Texas mentors about their relationships, and a separate school level survey was distributed to the 90 mentor contacts located in each school that utilizes mentors. School demographic data was also collected from the Texas Education Agency. The results indicate that longer and more high-quality matches, an increased importance placed on getting the mentee to care more about others, and spending more time with the mentee’s teachers all predict higher levels of growth in specific social competencies. The strength of the match was also a positive predictor of the mentors’ sense of sufficiency about themselves and about the impact of mentoring with their mentee. The results suggest a need for increased training in the specific caring and teacher-involvement mentor strategies, and for more discussion with mentors about the importance of committing to long-term, high-quality matches. / text

The primary goal of the current study is to develop a more advanced model of information-seeking behaviors. For achieving this goal, it paid attention to two social phenomena characterizing contemporary society: informationalization and globalization. First, focusing on these two influential phenomena, this study investigated how individual-level factors—information overload, information ambiguity, and goal orientations—affected information-seeking behaviors among employees in a multinational corporation. Next, in addition to these individual predictors of information-seeking behaviors, this study explored the effects of two team-level factors—team task interdependence and team tenure—on the relationships between the main predictors and information-seeking behaviors. Last, paying more attention to the multicultural context, this study investigated how these employees in a multinational corporation seek task and feedback information from two culturally different sources: American direct advisors and Korean expatriates. In order to more thoroughly investigate the roles of the cultural backgrounds of information sources, this study explored how American employees perceived the cultural backgrounds of the two culturally different sources and how such perceptions influenced those employees’ information-seeking behaviors. / text

The present study explored the effects of the national and cultural contexts on students' mathematics achievement. The study also investigated the nature and magnitude of student-level (level 1), school-level (level 2), and country-level (level 3) factors that are associated with math achievement. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 datasets were used. The main predictors focusing on this study included university admission procedure and the country's culture of mindsets about intelligence at level 3, indicating extra-curricular activities at level 2, growth mindset, and resilience self-efficacy at level 1. Other than main predictors, various predictors including country's characteristics, school characteristics, school climate factors, students' demographic characteristics, and non-cognitive abilities were added in the analysis to examine the main predictors are statistically significant after controlling for other predictors. The findings of HLM analysis showed that mathematics achievement is associated with national and cultural contexts since the study found 31.30% of the total variation was accounted for level 3 in math achievement. Also, the significant findings of the study indicated that university admission procedure was significantly associated with country-mean math achievement while the country's culture of mindsets about intelligence was not at level 3. At level 2, providing extra-curricular activities in school was a significant predictor for math achievement. At level 1, a growth mindset and information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage were positively associated with math achievement. The other significant predictors for math achievement were found in the model. In addition, the study found that the compositional effect of ICT usage explained a significant amount of between schools and countries variance even after controlling for other predictors in the analysis. Moreover, the study found several counterintuitive association phenomena due to shift of meaning. These findings were explained in terms of practical and theoretical implications for policymakers, educators, and researchers to improve students' mathematics achievement. / Doctor of Philosophy / Policymakers and researchers have been concerned about the shortage of students pursuing STEM disciplines in the United States despite the increasing demand for STEM professionals. Since mathematical skills play an important role in a nation's economic development, improving mathematics performance is essential for developing professional STEM workers. Therefore, conducting a cross-national comparative study of mathematics achievement is needed to provide a useful empirical perspective and deeper understanding of mathematics performance. The present study examined the association of diverse predictors at the country-, school-, and student-level with math achievement using multilevel modeling which is also called hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). It was found that university admission procedure was significantly associated with country-mean math achievement at the country-level. Also, providing extra-curricular activities in school was a significant predictor for math achievement at the school-level and a growth mindset and information and Communication Technology (ICT) usage were positively associated with math achievement at the student-level. In addition, the study found the positive compositional effect of ICT usage at school- and country-level which indicates that developing the infrastructure of ICT in school and country should be needed to for high and sustainable students' math achievement. Moreover, the study found several counterintuitive association phenomena due to shift of meaning. These findings were explained in terms of practical and theoretical implications for policymakers, educators, and researchers to improve students' mathematics achievement.

The current study, initially aimed to explore the problem solving skills of the sixth grade students within the four-process problem solving framework including the processes of understanding the problem, devising a plan, carrying out the plan, and looking back and evaluating. Secondly, it aimed to investigate the relationships between student and teacher related characteristics and problem solving skills of the students. In the study, a model was proposed based on the related literature and this proposed model was tested by using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) technique. A total of 2562 sixth grade students from 37 public elementary schools in the eight central districts of Ankara completed a problem solving skills test developed by the researcher and a student questionnaire. At the same time, mathematics teachers of the students participated in the study completed a teacher questionnaire. The results indicated that in general the sixth grade students displayed low performance in the overall problem solving skills test. Moreover, the students performed best in the process of understanding problem whereas they showed the worst performance in the process of looking back and evaluating. The results of the hierarchical linear modeling technique indicated that the student characteristics significantly and positively related to the problem solving skills of the sixth grade students were socioeconomic status, mathematics self concept, extrinsic motivation, use of control strategies, preference for competitive learning situation, and teacher support, on the other hand student level characteristics significantly and negatively related to the problem solving skills of the sixth grade students were mathematics anxiety, giving homework, activities related with homework, and different types of homework. Furthermore, the teacher level characteristics significantly related to the problem solving skills of the sixth grade students were only teacher gender and perceptions about limitations aroused from students. The characteristic of perceptions about limitations aroused from students was negatively related to problem solving skills of the students on the other hand teacher gender was found to be related to problem solving skills of the students in favor of female teachers. It was also found that there was no teacher level characteristic influencing the relationship that was between student level characteristics and the problem solving skills of the students.

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The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) has replaced its predecessors, the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) and the Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC) as the new sole accreditor for educator preparation in the United States. As the new accreditor, CAEP has established a new set of accreditation standards and cross-cutting themes by which it intends to measure educator preparation programs (EPPs) worthiness to received accredited status. These new standards and cross-cutting themes are untested and need to be researched in order to determine the degree to which they constitute valid and reliable measures of an EPP's potential to produce quality teachers. To evaluate one aspect of CAEP's new standards and cross-cutting themes (i.e., diversity), this study used hierarchical liner modeling to regress elementary candidates' student teaching performance assessment scores on school- and classroom-level diversity variables to evaluate the impact that being placed in a diverse field experience might have had on candidates' performance during student teaching. The analysis found that the levels of diversity in the student teaching placements had little to no impact on the elementary candidates' performance on diversity items on their teacher performance assessments completed by university supervisors and mentor teachers during student teaching. A confirmatory factor analysis also determined that the diversity related contextual factors of the schools used in the study could not be reduced to a single diversity score. Diversity is clearly a complex multidimensional construct comprised of a variety of interdependent yet distinct constructs. Developing competency in diversity and multiculturalism clearly requires more than simply being placed in a diverse student teaching placement. This does not discredit the practice of providing candidates a variety of field experiences; however the findings from this study call into question CAEP's assumptions regarding diversity and multicultural education embedded in its standards and cross-cutting themes.

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of school and student related factors on scientific literacy skills of Turkish students in the Programme for International Student Assessment &amp / #8211 / PISA 2006. 4942, 15 year-old Turkish students from 10 primary schools, 88 general high schools and 66 vocational high schools participated in this assessment. Among the student factors considered were gender, student background, motivational factors, science self belief, value belief regarding science, science-related careers, science teaching and learning, scientific literacy and the environment. Some of the school factors discussed were proportions of girls at school, school size, school academic selectivity, teacher-student ratio, school activities for learning environmental topics and learning of science, quality of educational resources, teacher shortage (negative scale), general high school &amp / #8211 / vocational high school and average class size. The responses of Turkish students and principals from the database of the PISA assessment were used in Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM). The result of the study showed that the impact of school and student related factors on scientific literacy skills of the Turkish students varied from school to school. It was observed that the PISA index of economic social and cultural status, general value of science and science self-efficacy impacted on every aspects of the scientific literacy. In addition, it is evident that the general high school students were more successful than the vocational high school students after adjusting for selected student and school characteristics.

The purpose of study is to investigate the effects of school characteristics on students&rsquo / mathematics achievement across Turkey by analyzing the data collected from school questionnaire, student background questionnaire and mathematics achievement test in Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2007. The analyzed sample was comprised of 4,498 students in 146 schools. Student level factors were highest level of education of either parent, students speak the language of test at home, students&rsquo / parents born in country, books in home, computer and internet connection, computer use, index of time students spend doing mathematics homework in a normal school week, index of students&rsquo / positive affect toward mathematics, index of students&rsquo / valuing mathematics, index of students&rsquo / self confidence in learning mathematics. School related factors were principals reports on the percentages of students in their schools coming from economically disadvantaged homes, principals report on the percentage of students having the language of test as their native language, index of good attendance, principals time spent on various school related activities, schools encouragement of parental involvement, index of school resources for mathematics instruction, index of principals perception of school climate. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used for analysis. The result of the study showed that 45% of variance between schools, 54.6 % of variance was in schools, 57.33 % of school variance in mathematics achievement accounted by principals&rsquo / report on percentages of students coming from economically disadvantaged homes, parents to volunteer for school programs, school resources for mathematics instruction and principals&rsquo / perception of school climate.

This study investigates the students&rsquo / characteristics and school characteristics and their influences on scientific literacy skills of 15-year-old students across Turkey, Canada, and Sweden, through the use of data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development&rsquo / s (OECD&rsquo / s) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2006. The purpose of this study is to gain a more complete understanding of the effect of human and physical resource allocations and their interaction on students&rsquo / scientific literacy skills using Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) techniques. By PISA 2006 results, in terms of scientific literacy, Canada is a high performing country whereas Turkey is far below the average and Sweden has a rank in the average. For modeling scientific literacy, student-level characteristics determined by student questionnaire, and school-level characteristics determined by school questionnaire were used. Results of the present study indicated that there were significant between-school differences in scientific literacy skills of students for all three countries. Turkey had the highest between-school variance and it was more than half of the total variance whereas in Canada and Sweden they were far lower. School type and size were common school factors affecting students&rsquo / scientific literacy skills in Canada and Sweden / however, in Turkey school admittance policies, educational resources, science promotional activities, and teacher qualities were school characteristics which have impact on scientific literacy. Enjoyment of learning science, self-efficacy in science, general value given to science, awareness of environmental issues, responsibility for sustainable development, and confidence in use of information technologies were common student factors affecting development of scientific literacy skills in the three countries. Finally, in all three countries cross-level interactions of student and school characteristics for developing scientific literacy skills were observed.

The purpose of the present study is to gain a more complete understanding of the impact of human and physical resource allocations and their interaction on students&rsquo / mathematical literacy skills across Turkey, member and candidate countries of European Union through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) techniques were used separately for three different cultural settings using the database of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The results indicated that students in Turkey, member and candidate countries of European Union who performed higher on the mathematical literacy assessment tended to have the following characteristics: (1) enrolled at higher grade levels, (2) more educational resources at home, (3) higher levels of mathematics self-efficacy, (4) lower levels of mathematics anxiety, (5) more positive self-concept in mathematics, (6) less preferences for memorization strategies, and (7) more positive disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons. As the performance of schools were considered, the higher average mathematics self-efficacy of students, the higher the mean school mathematical literacy performance. The influence on mathematical literacy assessment varied from school to school with respect to grade level and disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons in Turkey and European Union countries, with respect to grade level, mathematics self-efficacy, and disciplinary climate in mathematics in European Union candidate countries. Moreover, school size and mathematics student-teacher ratio at school influenced the disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons in Turkey / academic selectivity of the school influenced the grade level and mathematics self-efficacy in the candidate countries of European Union.