Based on the importance of environmental ethics in both causing and solving many of the environmental problems, the present study aimed to (1) Examine moral reasoning patterns (i.e. ecocentric, anthropocentric, non-environmental) of pre-service science teachers toward local and non-local environmental problems, (2) Investigate the effects of gender and grade level on moral reasoning patterns, and (3) Explain the factors that may have led to the observed differences in participants&rsquo / moral reasoning patterns. Throughout 2008-2009 Fall and Spring semesters, environmental cases regarding local and non-local environmental problems were distributed to a convenience sample of 120 pre-service science teachers who were enrolled in Middle East Technical University and moral decision-making interviews (MDMIs) were carried out with a sub-sample of 16 pre-service science teachers. In accordance with the purpose of the study, descriptive statistics, paired-samples t-tests, and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) tests as well as qualitative analysis of the interviews were utilized. Analyses demonstrated that participants of the study mostly exhibited ecocentric moral reasoning for both local and non-local environmental problems, and their ecocentric and anthropocentric concerns showed statistically significant difference with regard to problems&rsquo / locality. Moreover, while gender did not have a statistically significant effect on participants&rsquo / moral reasoning patterns, grade level did have a statistically significant effect. Finally, analysis of the interviews revealed sixteen factors effective in participants&rsquo / environmental concerns and their moral reasoning regarding environmental issues.

Based on the importance of implementing effective environmental education has been asserted to a sustainable solution to the environmental problems, this study aimed to (1) investigate the pre-service science teachers&rsquo / processes of construction of explanations regarding environmental problems, and (2) provide an environment for researchers to understand the dispositions of participants in terms of how using environmental explanations for answering the questions. The research has been realized within the context of an elective course titled &ldquo / Laboratory applications in environmental education&rdquo / in the Department of Elementary Education throughout 2008-2009 Spring semesters. The 21 pre-service science teachers attended the course and participated the environmental learning activities including five different environmental problems / biological diversity, surface waters, drinking water, waste water and air pollution with in a small group. Field trip activities, group discussions and whole class discussions were conducted through the course. Data were collected through audio and video recorders from one small group and through pre, post-tests. Analyses of data revealed that pre-service science teachers could not aware of the complex and multidisciplinary nature of environmental knowledge, so they mostly interpreted environmental problems through the everyday knowledge that they derived from everyday experiences. Through peer collaboration in fields and student-facilitator collaboration in discussions weeks, the pre-service science teachers have a chance to analyze different perspectives and ideologies about the causes and solutions of environmental problems. The pre-tests and post-test results revealed that in the field-based collaborative inquiry activities the participants&rsquo / nature of explanations shifted from descriptive to formal and scientific explanations.

The purpose of the study is to investigate 8th grade Turkish students&rsquo / perceptions towards civic concepts and issues like good citizenship, government responsibilities and women&rsquo / s political and social rights and to determine the factors affecting their intentions to participate in electoral, political and civic activities. In order to achieve this aim, a nation-wide survey was conducted with a sample of 2497 students from 60 schools in 21 provinces. The questionnaire developed by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) on civic education was adapted and used as the data collection instrument. The data obtained from the sample were analyzed through both descriptive (mean, frequencies and percentages) and inferential statistics (ANOVA, Hierarchical Multiple Regression). The results revealed that students value both conventional and social movement citizenship activities to be a good citizen. However, although they plan to participate in electoral and civic activities, more than half of them do not plan to participate in political activities such as joining a party, being a candidate for a local office. Moreover, it was found that the variances in students&rsquo / intentions to participate in electoral, political and civic activities were explained by students&rsquo / background characteristics, their media consumption habits, their discussion practices and discussion environment in classrooms, curricular and extracurricular experiences and finally by their perceptions of good citizenship and participation in school. Findings were discussed around relevant literature both in Turkey and abroad.

This study investigated perceptions of EFL learners towards the benefits and the challenges of keeping a portfolio. The study also examined the students

The purpose of this study was to examine the contribution of the gender, self-efficacy beliefs, task value, and learning strategies to the 11th grade students&rsquo / biology achievement.A total of 1035 students from different high schools in Yenimahalle and &Ccedil / ankaya districts of Ankara participated in the study.The Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ / Pintrich, Smith, Garcia &amp / McKeachie / 1991) and Biology Achievement Test(BAT) were used to collect data. Results of the the simultaneous multiple regression analysis indicated that 11th grade students&rsquo / gender, task values, self-efficacies and elaboration learning strategies were statistically significant predictors of their Biology achievement / whereas rehearsal and organization learning strategies were not.

This study aimed to explore the self-estimated intelligence dimensions of seventh and tenth grade students, and the effect of grade level, gender, age, socio economic status (SES), physics/science achievement, and branch in school (science-math/literature-math/social sciences-literature) on these dimensions. In this study a Multiple Intelligence Inventory was used as measuring instrument. The study was conducted in randomly selected 26 elementary and 7 high schools throughout &Ccedil / ankaya, Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren and Yenimahalle districts of Ankara with a total of 3721 seventh and tenth grade students in fall 2003-2004 semester. The data obtained from the administration of the measuring instrument were analyzed by using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and bivariate correlations. Results indicated that most dominant intelligence of seventh, tenth, and all students was the interpersonal intelligence according to their self-perceptions. Results of the statistical analyses indicated that grade level of students had a significant effect on their self-estimated intelligence dimensions. Strengths and weakness of the students vary according to their grade level. Also, significant differences found in female and male students&amp / #65533 / self-estimated intelligence dimensions for both two different grade levels, and tenth grade students coming from three different branches. Bivariate correlations revealed low positive correlations between science achievement and interpersonal intelligence of seventh graders.

This study aims to investigate Turkish teachers&rsquo / opinions and beliefs on the place of target cultural information in English language teaching, as well as their related practices and applications in EFL classrooms in Turkish higher education context. Particularly, it tries to explore three research questions: (a) How do Turkish teachers of English define culture? (b) What are the EFL teachers&rsquo / attitudes towards incorporating cultural information into their teaching? and (c) What role do they allocate to the culture of the target language in their classrooms? Data was collected from 98 randomly selected EFL teachers in the Preparatory (Hazirlik) Programs of four universities (Hacettepe University, Middle East Technical University, Ankara University, and Baskent University) in Ankara. A written survey questionnaire, including structured items, a rating scale and a Likerttype attitude scale, together with a follow-up interview were used as the two data collection methods. The analyses were carried out by frequency counts of the predetermined choices in the items and the related responses that were given to questions of the interview. The study shows that teachers mostly define culture in the sociological sense, such as values and beliefs. Their definition of culture in the framework of ELT slightly shifts towards more visible culture, such as food and clothing. The study also reveals teachers&rsquo / positive attitudes towards incorporating cultural information in their instruction. Teachers incorporate cultural knowledge to increase the learners&rsquo / awareness of other cultures and people for intellectual development, and to improve learners&rsquo / communicative competence.

The aim of this study is to investigate the views of preservice science teachers on science-technology-society, STS, issue. A total of 176 preservice science teachers participated in the study. A 26-item &ldquo / Views on Science-Technology-Society (VOSTS)&rdquo / instrument, translated and adapted into Turkish, were utilized to assess participants&rsquo / views on STS. The VOSTS (Aikenhead, Ryan and Fleming, 1989) is a pool of 114 empirically developed multiple-choice items with nine categories. In order to understand participants&rsquo / views on STS in depth, semi-structured interviews were also conducted by 9 volunteer preservice science teachers. The results gave a colorful picture of the views of preservice science teachers on science-technology-society issue. The analysis revealed that preservice science teachers often confuse the definitions of technology with science. Most of the participants of the study had specific views about the reasons of doing scientific researches in their country, for example, to be independent from other countries, to get financial profit. Results displayed a consensus on the possible positive effects of upbringing and the importance of education given to high school students. According to the data obtained from the present study, respondents possess varied views about the influences of society on science and technology. While preservice science teachers claiming that scientists could break the rules of science, they also claimed scientists as objective in their study. On the other hand, participants supported the view that scientists&rsquo / concern on all the effects of their experiments. Preservice science teachers advocated also that technological developments can be controlled by citizens.

In this study, a comparison of the effectiveness of conceptual change oriented instruction with traditionally designed chemistry instruction and an investigation of the effect of gender difference were made on ninth grade students&rsquo / understanding of phases and phase changes concepts. In addition, the effects of these instructional methods on students&rsquo / attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject were compared. In this study 56 ninth grade students from two classes of a chemistry course instructed by the same teacher from Ankara Atat&uuml / rk Anatolian Lycee in 2003-2004 educational year&rsquo / s first semester took part. The classes were randomly assigned as control and experimental groups. The experimental group was instructed by conceptual change oriented method with conceptual change texts supported by demonstration, whereas the control group was instructed by traditionally designed method over a period of three weeks. Both groups were administered to Phases and Phase Changes Achievement Test as pretest and posttest in order to assess students&rsquo / understanding of phases and phase changes concepts. Additionally, Science Process Skills Test was given before the treatment to measure students&rsquo / science process skills and Attitude Scale toward Chemistry as a School Subject was given after the treatment to determine their attitudes. The hypotheses were tested using analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), paired samples t-test, and analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results of this study indicated that conceptual change oriented instruction caused a significantly better understanding of phases and phase changes concepts / that males had fewer alternative conceptions than females on phases and phase changes / and that science process skills were strong predictors of understanding in phases and phase changes concepts. On the other hand, no significant difference between conceptual change oriented instruction and traditionally designed chemistry instruction / and no effect of gender difference on students&rsquo / attitudes toward chemistry as a school subject were found.

This study investigated the impact of several affective, cognitive, and demographic entering characteristics of students and their experiences of the psychosocial, instructional and managerial, physical, and course-related materials aspects of the classroom environment in accounting for three language learning outcomes / class participation, study habits, and English achievement. The subjects of the study (N = 519) were the preparatory class students of various departments of Erciyes University in Kayseri who received a one-year English instruction at Erciyes University School of Foreign Languages (EUSFL) during the academic year 2001-2002. In line with the &ldquo / Input-Context-Outcome&rdquo / research framework of the study, the data were gathered from the students through self-report questionnaires and school records prior to (Input-entering student characteristics variables), during (Context- classroom environment variables), and at the end (Outcome) of the specified instructional period (one-semester), which were subjected to various applications of Multivariate Linear Regression procedures. The findings indicated different patterns of relationships depending on the type of outcome assessed with significant predictors from both input and context classes. In descending order of effect size, the significant predictors of class participation were teacher supportiveness, involvement, satisfaction with course materials, speaking anxiety, self-concept, task orientation and organization, effort, student cohesiveness, physical conditions, overall academic achievement, and previous exposure, which altogether accounted for 74 % of the variance in students&rsquo / levels of class participation. The amount of variance accounted for study habits was 40 %, with involvement, overall academic achievement, self-concept, student residence, and gender emerging as significant predictors. As for the English achievement criterion, overall academic achievement, teacher supportiveness, self-concept, involvement, satisfaction with course materials, previous exposure, and student residence were significant predictors which accounted for 56 % of the overall variance. The findings are discussed in light of relevant theory and empirical research and suggestions are made for pedagogical practices and further research directions.