The purpose of the current study is to investigate how global and local thinking styles affect psychological well-being among undergraduate students. A total of 372 (213 females and 159 males) students at Middle East Technical University participated in this study. The qualitative data were gathered via self-report questionnaires including Scales of Psychological Well-Being, Thinking Styles Inventory and a demographic information form. To be able to determine the differences between psychological well-being due to global thinking and local thinking scores as well as gender, ANOVA was held. The results revealed a significant difference between high and low scorers of local thinking in terms of psychological well-being when the global thinking style was low. In addition, the findings indicated that for higher levels of psychological well-being individuals need to adopt one of the styles and report higher levels on that adopted style. On the other hand, the statistical analysis revealed no significant differences between high scorers of global thinking and low scorers of global thinking on psychological well-being. Additionally, no significant difference found between high scorers and low scorers of local thinking in terms of psychological well-being. Upon the examination of gender related findings, it was found that females reported higher levels of psychological well-being compared to males while males reported higher levels of global thinking than females did.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of 5E learning cycle on sixth grade students&rsquo / mathematics achievement on and attitudes toward mathematics. The study was carried out in a public school in one of the towns of the Central Anatolia Region with 28 sixth-grade elementary school students. One group pretest-posttest design was used. Mathematics Achievement Test and Mathematics Attitude Scale were administered to collect the necessary data. The instruction will be applied by the researcher five hours per week in a 15-week. The data were analyzed by using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance and a paired-samples t-test. According to the results of the study it was found that there was a statistically significant change in mathematics achievement of sixth grade students who participated in the instruction based on 5E learning cycle over three time periods (pre-intervention, post-intervention, and follow-up). There was only no statistically significant mean difference between post-intervention and follow-up mathematics achievement. Furthermore, there was a statistically significant decrease in mean scores of attitudes toward mathematics from prior intervention to after intervention.

The purpose of this study was to identify seventh grade students&rsquo / computational estimation strategies and factors associated with these strategies. A case study was conducted with five students. They were selected among 116 seventh grade students from a public elementary school in Aegean region. Two sessions of clinical interviews were carried out with each participant. In the first interview session, the Computational Estimation Test, which was consisted of 15 estimation questions, was administered to students with requesting explanations of solving procedure. In the second interview session, students answered to semi-structured questionnaire prepared by the researcher to understand their feelings and thoughts on estimation. The results of the study indicated that students used three kinds of computational estimation strategies, which were reformulation, translation, and compensation. Reformulation was the most used types of estimation and by all interviewees. It was divided into four sub-strategies, which were observed during the interviews, among them rule based rounding was the most preferred one. The most sophisticated strategy was compensation, which was used least frequently by the participants. The other kind of computational estimation strategy was translation, which means changing the operation for handling the questions more easily. Translation strategy was used students who performed well in number sense. Based on interviews and observations, there were some cognitive and affective factors, which were associated with the specified strategies. Number sense and mental computation were two sub categories of the cognitive factors. Besides these cognitive factors, confidence in ability to do mathematics, perception of mathematics, confidence in ability to do estimation, perception of estimation and tolerance for error, which were identified as affective factors, played important role for strategy selection and computational estimation. Good number sense may lead to use of multiple representations of numbers and use of translation strategies. Moreover, mental computation ability may enable students both to conduct reformulation and use compensation strategy easily. Interviewees who had both high confidence in ability to do mathematics and low confidence in ability to do estimation, preferred exact computation and more rule dependent estimation strategies, like rule based rounding. Low tolerance for error may influence students&rsquo / answers, in order to produce them in a narrow interval. Additionally, perception of estimation may lead students recognize estimation as useful and use of variety of computational estimation strategies. According to data analysis, feelings and thoughts about computational estimation may influence interviewees&rsquo / strategy usage, such as students, who had negative feelings on estimation and thoughts about mathematics wanted exactness, generally preferred exact computation process and did not use diverse computational estimation strategies. Students who had poor in number sense and mental computation could not conduct computational estimation strategies. Therefore, the research study may lead to better understanding of students&rsquo / perspectives on computational estimation. With understanding used strategies, and related factors are affecting computational estimation strategies, it might be produce effective instructional designs for teaching computational estimation.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perceived opinions of Turkish sports high school teachers, students and managers about these high schools. In order to reveal the practical conditions of sports high schools, three survey instruments were developed separately for sport high school students, teachers and managers related to school perception. Participants of this study were 1283 students, 50 teachers, and 26 managers of 11 sports high schools in Turkey. According to the results, participants&rsquo / expectations were not fully satisfied due to insufficient facility, personnel and material infrastructure of sports high schools. Results of this study also revealed that the majority of the students had shown high state of belonging and contentment to their particular sports high school, although managers and teachers had shown neutral scores according to state of belonging and contentment.

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.

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.