The aim of this study was to evaluate the perceived benefits of an English language learning architecture of a preparatory language school of a private university from the current students&rsquo / , previous students&rsquo / , teachers&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / point of view. The study investigated the reactions towards the two parts of the learning architecture designed to teach English through a blended learning system, focusing on the system&rsquo / s benefits for the students&rsquo / language skills as well as transferable skills such as computer literacy, working collaboratively, and taking responsibility for their own learning. In this case study both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered from four parties: questionnaires from current students, instructors, administrators and faculty students, classroom and language laboratory observation forms, interviews with the current students as well as with faculty students who passed the preparatory school&rsquo / s proficiency exam and were in their freshmen year, studying in their departments. The qualitative data were analyzed using a coding system and quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS and Excel. In general it can be said that there was a positive reaction towards the use of computers in the preparatory program for providing an effective platform for teaching and learning English as well as transferable skills such as computer literacy, taking responsibility for one&rsquo / s own learning and working collaboratively. The materials were found useful and there was a request for similar materials in the other levels of the program. Nevertheless, it was found that students did not really enjoy doing the materials and needed more incentives to complete them. From the instructors&rsquo / and administrators&rsquo / point of view issues of time needed to get familiar with and integrate the materials into the daily teaching, ways of integrating the materials as well as learner and teacher training emerged as a result of the study.

The purpose of this study was to explore early-career faculty&rsquo / s needs on teaching related issues and examine the effectiveness of an online environment that was designed as a support to a graduate course on teaching in higher education. The study was carried out through two phases including a needs analysis and evaluation of the online environment. Findings of the needs analysis were used as input data in designing the online environment. An exploratory mixed design was employed to investigate graduate assistants&rsquo / perceptions about the effectiveness of the online environment in general, and the components specifically. Results of the first phase revealed that early-career faculty (n=53) were highly willing to participate in faculty instructional development activities, mostly through workshops and internet-based systems. Having students&rsquo / active participation into class was found to be one of the biggest concerns of new faculty. The second phase of the study provided descriptive data related to graduate assistants&rsquo / (n=10) use of an online environment incorporating a discussion forum, exemplary V teaching case and informative videos. Interaction with people from different academic fields helped the graduate assistants to experience and gain different perspectives about teaching. The graduate course itself raised graduate assistants&rsquo / awareness with regard to the teaching aspect of their profession. Online components generally provided the graduate assistants with different perspectives on teaching, and contemplate their future teaching. Based on the findings of the study, it can be concluded that online technologies have a potential to support faculty instructional development through incorporating visual media and communication tools.

This post-use evaluation research aims to investigate the appropriacy of academic writing materials to contextual needs, and to investigate the essential considerations concerning these materials. This case study was conducted with the participation of program designers, teachers, and students at three universities in Hungary, Turkey, and Oman. A unique checklist was developed to evaluate the materials. The data collection process consisted of questionnaires and interviews. The results concur with findings in the literature regarding the benefits of using computer-mediated communication in the writing class, the need to combine process and product pedagogies, the necessity of having discipline-specific themes, and the need to provide students with more guidelines and input. Interestingly, contrary to the literature, the students do not seem to benefit from peer feedback / they value teacher feedback more. Furthermore, despite their increasing role in writing, there are few collaborative writing activities in these materials. The quantitative and the qualitative data also demonstrate that the program designers and the teachers consider in-house writing materials more appropriate than global materials, since they were developed in view of the learning context and the specific requirements. However, neither global nor in-house materials are regarded as motivating and attracting for the students. There are relatively new areas for further research as a result of these findings: the role of free writing in EAP and the ways to manage mixed language levels of the students. All these findings are expected to provide insights to researchers and practitioners in the fields of writing and materials evaluation.

This post-use evaluation research aims to investigate the appropriacy of academic writing materials to contextual needs, and to investigate the essential considerations concerning these materials. This case study was conducted with the participation of program designers, teachers, and students at three universities in Hungary, Turkey, and Oman. A unique checklist was developed to evaluate the materials. The data collection process consisted of questionnaires and interviews. The results concur with findings in the literature regarding the benefits of using computer-mediated communication in the writing class, the need to combine process and product pedagogies, the necessity of having discipline-specific themes, and the need to provide students with more guidelines and input. Interestingly, contrary to the literature, the students do not seem to benefit from peer feedback / they value teacher feedback more. Furthermore, despite their increasing role in writing, there are few collaborative writing activities in these materials. The quantitative and the qualitative data also demonstrate that the program designers and the teachers consider in-house writing materials more appropriate than global materials, since they were developed in view of the learning context and the specific requirements. However, neither global nor in-house materials are regarded as motivating and attracting for the students. There are relatively new areas for further research as a result of these findings: the role of free writing in EAP and the ways to manage mixed language levels of the students. All these findings are expected to provide insights to researchers and practitioners in the fields of writing and materials evaluation.

ABSTRACT A STUDY ON LEARNERS&amp / #8217 / READINESS FOR AUTONOMOUS LEARNING OF ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE KO&Ccedil / AK, Ayfer MSc, Department of Educational Sciences Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Fersun Payko&ccedil / September 2003, 115 pages The purpose of this study is to investigate whether, or not, students attending English Language Preparatory School at BaSkent University are ready to be involved in autonomous language learning. This study also argues that before any interventions aiming at fostering autonomy are implemented, it is necessary to explore learners&amp / #8217 / readiness for autonomous learning in four different areas. These areas are as follows: (a) Learners&amp / #8217 / motivation level in learning English, (b) Learners&amp / #8217 / use of metacognitive strategies in learning English, (c) Learners&amp / #8217 / responsibility perception of their own and their teachers&amp / #8217 / in learning English and (d) Learners&amp / #8217 / practice of English in the outside class activities. The questionnaire used in the study was administered to 186 students attending Preparatory School of BaSkent University. The data analysis was carried out through quantitative (frequencies, means, standard deviations, t-test and one-way ANOVA) analysis techniques. The results of the study indicated that majority of the students had high motivation. Another result revealed that the students tended to use some metacognitive strategies like self-monitoring and self-evaluation. The third result showed that the learners considered the teacher as more responsible for most of the tasks during their own learning process. Fourthly, majority of the students tended to be spending quite little time for out-of-class activities to improve their English. The fifth result displayed that females and elementary learners had higher motivation in learning English, but a significant difference was not in the motivation level concerning the learners&amp / #8217 / major field. The sixth result pointed out that females used more metacognitive strategies in learning English / however, proficiency level and major field of the learners were not found to be significant factors in the use of metacognitive strategies. The seventh result revealed that responsibility perceptions did not show a significant difference regarding the respondents&amp / #8217 / gender, proficiency level and major field. Finally, the present study indicated that intermediate level language learners tended to do more out-of-class activities in learning English. On the other hand, the frequency of respondents&amp / #8217 / conducting out-of-class activities in learning English did not show a significant difference concerning the subjects&amp / #8217 / gender and major field. Key words: Learner Autonomy, Learner Responsibility, Self-regulated learner.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between university students&amp / #8217 / use of language learning strategies, achievement, gender, span of learning English, type of high school they graduated from, and attitude toward English. Two instruments were used for data collection purposes: The Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) developed by Oxford (1990) and Aiken&amp / #8217 / s Attitude Scale (1979). The instruments were administered to 153 university students from the different streams at the Preparatory school of BaSkent University, Ankara, Turkey. The data gathered was analyzed by using SPSS program / descriptive statistics, independent samples t-test, correlation, and one-way ANOVA. The results showed that Metacognitive strategies category was the most frequently used iv category by the students, followed by Social strategies category, Compensation strategies category, Memory strategies category, Cognitive strategies category and Affective strategies category respectively. The results also showed that there were statistically significant differences between male and female students&amp / #8217 / use of strategies. Female students used strategies from various categories with higher frequency compared to male students. There were statistically significant differences between students&amp / #8217 / strategy use with regard to type of high school they graduated from. There were no statistically significant differences between students&amp / #8217 / strategy use with regard to span of learning English. Affective and Social strategy categories were found to have statistically significant relation with the students&amp / #8217 / fall term language achievement scores. The results also revealed that students&amp / #8217 / strategy use had statistically significant relation with the students&amp / #8217 / attitude toward English.

This study analyzes the process of the diffusion of structures and practices in an organizational setting using the theory of new institutionalism as the theoretical basis. The explanation of the diffusion process has been subject to major variations due to epistemological and ontological reasons. Former theories of organizational reality looked at organizations as their sole units of analyses and accounted for the diffusion process accordingly / however, today, it is widely observed and accepted that organizational behavior is shaped by historical and environmental factors. This investigation aims to provide evidence for how certain structures and practices diffuse through organizational settings while others do not. Consequently, a qualitative design was conducted to explore the diffusion process in the case of the Council of Higher Education, a high-level bureaucratic organization in Turkey. Fifteen key informants, present or former university rectors and members of the Council, were interviewed and the accumulated data were analyzed qualitatively. Also, the findings were matched and supported with relevant documents analyzed additionally. The findings drawn from the investigation indicate that the emergence of the Council implicates a pattern visible throughout the history of Turkish higher education. The Council is spotted as an important agent in redefining Turkish higher education and thus creating a new organizational field for it. Yet, highly dynamic and interactive face of today&rsquo / s higher education calls for reconsideration of the Council and its functions. A major conclusion that can be reached in this context is that the issue of legitimacy depends on the satisfaction of several demands and expectations at various levels. Therefore, even a formal and regulative organization, such as the Council of Higher Education is prone to the pressures of the organizational field it operates within and is called upon to redefine its structures and implementations accordingly in order to secure its legitimacy.

This thesis aims to investigate the validity and reliability of the speaking exam at a Turkish University. For this study, data were obtained through questionnaires, interviews, the students&rsquo / speaking exam results, TOEFL exam results and departmental speaking exam scores. The results of the questionnaire were used to explore the face validity of the speaking exam. The interviews conducted to examine the content validity of the exam were analyzed in detail and common points from each interview were highlighted. To determine the predictive validity of the exam, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Simple Linear Regression Analysis were conducted. Furthermore, to investigate the construct validity of the exam correlation coefficients between speaking test scores and TOEFL subtest scores were calculated. To estimate the intra and inter-rater reliability level of the exam, correlation coefficients were calculated as well. The analysis of the results of the questionnaire indicated that the exam has satisfactory face validity. Moreover, the results of the interviews showed that the exam possesses the quality of content validity to a moderately high degree. It was found out that the speaking exam given in preparatory year education does not seem to predict the performances of the students in the departmental speaking exam. Moreover, the statistical analyses done to investigate the construct validity of the exam indicated that there are very low correlations between the speaking exam scores and the other subtests. It was discovered that the inter-rater reliability of the exam was not as satisfactory as it was expected as the inter-rater reliability of one pair was found relatively low. However, the speaking exam seemed to have satisfactory intra-rater reliability.

The main aim of this study was to analyze the implementation of problem-based instruction in electrical-electronics engineering education from the perspectives of tutors and students. Secondary aim of the study was to compare engineering students&rsquo / motivation and their use of learning strategies who received their first year curriculum in problem-based learning (PBL) format, in comparison to those who received their curriculum in a conventional lecture format. A multi-method research design that incorporated case study and causal comparative designs were employed in this study. Fourteen electrical-electronics engineering students and four tutors working as instructors at this department were selected for the case study. Observations, interviews, and document analysis were used to collect qualitative data. For the causal comparative study, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire was administered to 452 freshman engineering students twice as a pre-test and after a three months period as a post-test. Multivariate Analyses of Covariance was used to compare the two groups on the dependent variables of the current study. The findings of the case study indicated students&rsquo / and tutors&rsquo / perceptions and opinions about the implementation of PBL, its strengths and weaknesses, factors affecting tutors&rsquo / and students&rsquo / performance and their improvement suggestions. The results of the causal comparative study indicated that there was a significant difference between the two groups in favor of the group receiving PBL curriculum with respect to students&rsquo / extrinsic goal orientation and test anxiety / their use of elaboration strategy / their management of effort regulation, and time and study environment.

Online and Blended learning are becoming widespread along with the changing needs of society and advances in technology. Recently, there is a growing emphasis on building learning communities in order to increase the effectiveness of these learning environments. In recent years there is one promising theory that has generated considerable interest and has been widely adopted and studied by researchers: the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework developed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer (2000). The CoI framework, with its emphasis on critical thinking and collaboration, provides a well-structured model and set of guidelines to create effective learning communities in online and blended learning environments. The purpose of this study was to examine the development of a CoI in online and blended learning contexts in relation to students&amp / #8217 / perceived learning and satisfaction. A graduate course delivered online and blended format was the focus of the study. The data was collected through transcript analysis of online discussion, the CoI Survey, and interviews to examine social, teaching, cognitive presence postings patterns, to explore students&amp / #8217 / perceptions of each presence, learning and satisfaction, and to compare the differences between online and blended learning environments. Overall, all three sources of data indicated that a CoI developed in both courses. However, the study found developmental differences in the CoI presences regarding the course format. In terms of social presence, two categories &amp / #8211 / affective communication and group cohesion &amp / #8211 / were found different. Another difference between the two course formats was on the cognitive presence categories. Overall, the transcript analysis in this study found that integration was the most frequently coded phase in both courses. However, the integration phase was found to be significantly higher in the blended course compared to the online course. Finally, the survey analysis yielded higher perceptions of each presence in both courses. However, the students in the blended course had slightly higher perceptions of each presence. The only significant difference was found on teaching presence. The study also yielded some significant relationships among presences which varied according to the course.