The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of Stress Management Training Program on perceived stress, self-efficacy and coping styles of preparatory school students in Middle East Technical University. Pre-posttest experimental control group design was used to investigate the effectiveness of Stress Management Training Program. Before the main study, reliability and validity studies of Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), College Adjustment Self-efficacy Scale (CASES) and Student Coping Instrument (SCOPE) were carried out with one hundred and forty one students. Three hundred and sixty six students (154 females and 212 males) contributed the main study. Among them, sixteen students were randomly assigned in the experimental and control group. While the Stress Management Training Program was applied for experimental group, control group did not receive any treatment. The program continued for six weeks, once a week for 90 minutes. The program included the effective and in-effective ways of coping with stress, emotions and thoughts that affect behaviors, relaxation training, problem solving and assertiveness training. ANOVA, Mann-Withney U and two-related samples Wilcoxon tests were used to analyze data. The results of analysis of variance showed a gender difference between males and females. Females had higher scores in perceived stress, socially related life events and emotion-focused coping. The results of Wilcoxon test showed a significant reduction between pre and post test scores of experimental group in perceived stress scores and the frequency of socially related life events. No difference was found for CASES and SCOPE.At the end of the study, the findings were discussed and recommendations were presented.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cooperative learning activities and the STAD technique on students&rsquo / vocabulary retention. The relationship between students&rsquo / course achievement and type of vocabulary learning activities they engage in with respect to their retention levels were also investigated. The study was conducted with one elementary level group at BaSkent University. 22 students took part in the study. The participants were taught a total of 40 words, through 4 reading lesson plans, two of which implemented cooperative learning activities while the other two implemented group work activities. A pre-test on the target words was administered before each lesson, and a post-test was given two weeks after each lesson to see if there was any difference in students&rsquo / retention levels in favor of either technique. The data gathered were analysed through the t-test procedure and the regression analysis test. According to the results of these tests, cooperative learning activities produced better retention results than group work activities. The study also found that there is no relation between the students&rsquo / course achievement grades and their vocabulary retention scores.

ABSTRACT A NEEDS ANALYSIS TO DEVELOP AN ASTRONOMY PROGRAM FOR TURKISH ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY SCHOOLS Kahraman, Oktay MS, Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Ali Eryilmaz April 2006, 238 pages In this study, needs analysis has been made to gather the necessary data for developing a possible astronomy program for elementary and secondary schools in Turkey. In order to collect and to determine the students&rsquo / and teachers&rsquo / needs, 35 elementary schools and 20 secondary schools in the six districts (Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren, &Ccedil / ankaya, Yenimahalle, Altindag, Mamak and Sincan) of Ankara in Turkey has been visited during 2004-2005 fall semester. 2133 elementary and 1180 secondary school students, and 37 teachers were involved in the study. In the first part of this study, the international science curricula were examined and the studies related with the concepts of astronomy and astronomy education was analyzed. According to the gathered data from the literature, it was observed that in the international science curricula astronomy education has an important part and most developed countries have astronomy standards in their elementary and secondary school. However, the importance of Turkish National Education given on Astronomy education was not as high as it was supposed to be compared to the international science programs. Also, it was viewed that there is no Astronomy education during secondary school education / there are no standards for Astronomy education in the national science education policy. In the second part of this study, the elementary and secondary school students&rsquo / and teachers&rsquo / opinions were collected. The opinions of the students and the teachers have been collected via questionnaires. These questionnaires have been designed to find answers to six sub-categories of the main problem. The sub-categories can be listed as the content of the program that was aimed to be developed, teaching and learning methods, evaluation period, educational atmosphere and facilities, significance of the astronomy course, and lastly the relationship between the students&rsquo / demographic features and preference of astronomy education. According to the gathered data from the questionnaires, the teachers supported the idea that a possible Astronomy course should be included in the curriculum of elementary education starting with the 6th grade, and they had a common opinion that an astronomy course should take part also in secondary school education. Moreover, most of the students who attended this study want to have a separate astronomy course in their education. Also, the findings revealed that there is a parallelism between the astronomy programs defined in the international arena and the teachers&rsquo / and students opinions about the content of the astronomy course in this study. To conclude, it was observed that the astronomy subjects listed in the questionnaire was selected with high percentages. Besides, for teaching and learning method the participants in the study wanted experiments and projects that are clear, comprehensible and related to daily life experiences. Also, performance based evaluation was supported in the evaluation process. Moreover, an education environment where there are visual based materials and teacher &ndash / student cooperation is expected when teaching astronomy subjects. Lastly, according to teachers and students, the most important benefit of teaching and learning astronomy is getting information and recognizing the facts about the Earth and the Universe.

The purpose of this study is developing valid and reliable scales in order to measure beliefs and perceived self-efficacy beliefs towards using origami in mathematics education and then, investigating beliefs and perceived self-efficacy beliefs of Turkish prospective elementary mathematics teachers in using origami in mathematics education. Furthermore, gender differences in prospective teachers&#039 / beliefs and perceived self-efficacy beliefs in using origami in mathematics education were investigated. Data for the current study was collected in the spring term of 2011-2012 academic year from 299 prospective elementary mathematics teachers. These teacher candidates are from three universities located in three different regions of Turkey and all the participants have elective origami course experience. Origami in Mathematics Education Belief Scale (OMEBS) and Origami in Mathematics Education Self-Efficacy Scale (OMESS) were used as data collection instruments. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis results showed that OMEBS and OMESS are valid and reliable instruments in order to measure beliefs and perceived self-efficacy beliefs in using origami in mathematics education. Descriptive analysis results indicated that, Turkish prospective elementary mathematics teachers strongly believe that origami is beneficial and suitable to be used in mathematics education. However, their perceived self-efficacy belief level is at little higher than moderate level. Lastly, independent sample t-test results revealed that female teacher candidates have significantly higher belief and perceived self-efficacy beliefs in using origami in mathematics education when compared with male teacher candidates.

The aim of this study is to investigate perceptions of preservice mathematics teachers&rsquo / technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) regarding geometry. In addition, the purpose is to examine the relationships among the components of TPACK. Moreover, possible gender and year of enrollment differences related to preservice mathematics teachers&rsquo / technological pedagogical content knowledge dimensions are examined. This research study has been conducted with 780 preservice mathematics teachers who are enrolled in elementary mathematics education department of Education Faculties of seven public universities located in Central Anatolia. Perceived TPACK regarding geometry instrument has been developed to collect data. In order to determine the levels of preservice mathematics teachers&rsquo / perceptions related to TPACK in geometry, descriptive information have been used. The results indicate that preservice mathematics teachers&rsquo / perceptions of TPACK related to geometry is higher than moderate. Furthermore, correlational analysis was conducted to identify the relationship among dimensions of TPACK. Positive significant correlations among the components of the TPACK framework were found in correlational analysis. Besides, two-way MANOVA has been conducted to investigate a possible relationship between demographic information of preservice elementary mathematics teachers and their perceptions of TPACK. According to the MANOVA results, there are statistically significant differences between male and female preservice mathematics teachers in favor of male participants in three components of TPACK, namely technological knowledge, technological pedagogical knowledge and technological pedagogical content knowledge in favour of males.

CONTRIBUTION OF SOME FACTORS TO EIGHTH GRADE STUDENTS&rsquo / SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT IN TURKEY: TIMSS 2007 KORKMAZ, Fettah M. S., Department of Secondary Science and Mathematics Education Supervisor: Prof. Dr. &Ouml / mer GEBAN September 2012, 120 pages The purpose of this study is to determine some of the factors that affect science achievement of eighth grade students in Turkey based on data results of Trends in International Science and Mathematics Study (TIMSS 2007). The present study investigated the relationship between the students&rsquo / achievement in science and certain factors such as student centered activities perceived by students, teacher centered activities perceived by students, students

The purpose of this study was to investigate plane geometry problem solving strategies of pre-service elementary mathematics teachers in technology and paper-and-pencil environments after receiving an instruction with GeoGebra. Qualitative research strategies were used to investigate teacher candidates&lsquo / solution strategies. The data was collected and analyzed by means of a multiple case study design. The study was carried out with 7 pre-service elementary mathematics teachers. The main data sources were classroom observations and interviews. After receiving a three-week instructional period, the participants experienced data collection sessions during a week. The data was analyzed by using records of the interviews, answers to the instrument, and transcribing and examining observation records. Results revealed that the participants developed three solution strategies: algebraic, geometric and harmonic. They used mostly algebraic solutions in paper-and-pencil environment and v geometric ones in technology environment. It means that different environments contribute separately pre-service teachers&lsquo / mathematical problem solving abilities. Different from traditional environments, technology contributed students&lsquo / mathematical understanding by means of dynamic features. In addition, pre-service teachers saved time, developed alternative strategies, constructed the figures precisely, visualized them easily, and measured accurately and quickly. The participants faced some technical difficulties in using the software at the beginning of the study but they overcome most of them at the end of instructional period. The results of this study has useful implications for mathematics teachers to use technology during their problem solving activities as educational community encourages to use technology in teaching and learning of mathematics.

The aim of the current study is to investigate the role of social-cognitive (locus of control, rumination and socially-prescribed perfectionism), emotional (shame and guilt), and behavioral (conciliatory behaviors) reactions toward oneself in predicting self-forgiveness based on Hall and Fincham&rsquo / s (2005) theoretical model. The sample of this study was composed of 815 (445 female, 370 male) university students attending five different faculty programs at Middle East Technical University (METU). Heartland Forgiveness Scale, Trait Shame and Guilt Scale, Socially-Prescribed Perfectionism Scale, Ruminative Response Scale, The Internal-External Locus of Control Scale and Demographic Information Form were used in data collection. In the current study, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used primarily to test the hypothesized model, integrating the effects of the social-cognitive (locus of control, rumination and socially-prescribed perfectionism), emotional (shame and guilt), and behavioral (conciliatory behaviors) variables as determinants of self-forgiveness. The SEM results indicated that this model provided a good fit to the data in spite of three non-significant paths, including the direct paths from (a) socially-prescribed perfectionism to shame and guilt and (b) locus of control to self-forgiveness. Since some paths appeared to be non-significant, the hypothesized model was trimmed. The result of the trimmed model was surpassed many of the criteria for good fit. Overall, the total variance explained by the finalized model in self-forgiveness was .32.

ABSTRACT THE EXAMINATION OF GUIDANCE AND RESEARCH CENTERS&rsquo / ADMINISTRATORS&rsquo / CONFLICT MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES WITH THE PERCEPTIONS OF SELF AND TEACHERS Cebeci, S&uuml / lbiye M.S., Department of Educational Sciences Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Hasan SimSek September 2006, 136 pages The purpose of this study is to examine conflict management strategies of administrators who are working in Guidance &amp / Research Centers (GRCs) of Central Anatolia with the perceptions of teachers and administrators themselves. The subjects of this study included 30 administrators and 141 teachers who worked in the 30 GRCs in 13 cities of Central Anatolia of Turkey. Data collection was carried out by using quantitative techniques. A survey technique was used to collect data. A questionnaire which was translated to Turkish by G&uuml / m&uuml / Seli (1994) from The Rahim Organizational Conflict Inventory II (ROCI II) to identify administrators&rsquo / conflict management strategies was used to collect data. The questionnaire has two parallel forms, one for administrators to rate themselves and the other for teachers to rate administrators. Administrators&rsquo / self-ratings of their own coflict management strategies and teachers&rsquo / ratings of administrators&rsquo / conflict management strategies were measured with a 5-point likert scale. In addition, the data related with demographic characteristics of both teachers and administrators were gathered by demographic inventory. Demographic Inventory (DI) was developed by the researcher to provide basic demographic information about participants. Descriptive statistics and SPSS 14.0 were utilized to analyze data. The results revealed that concerning rank ordering of styles, both administrators and teachers indicated administrators as using the Integrating style of handling conflict first, followed by Compromising, Obliging, Avoiding, and Dominating. The data did not reveal rank order of differences between the perceptions of administrators and teachers. The study also revealed that with the perceptions of self, administrators used integrating style at 5th level (strongly agree), compromising style at 4th level (agree), obliging style at 3rd level (undecided), dominating and avoiding style at 2nd level (disagree). On the other hand, with the perceptions of teachers, administrators used Integrating and Compromising style at 4th level (agree), obliging and avoiding style at 3rd level (undecided), dominating style at 2nd level (disagree). Keywords: Conflict management, conflict management strategies, conflict management strategies of administrators, educational administrators.

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.