This investigation of failure in the first two grades and the effectiveness of group counseling upon the failing children seeks first to determine whether students who have failed hold a different self-concept or attitude toward school from those of students who have not. The second aim is to determine the effect of group counseling on self-concept and attitude toward school of failing students. The third purpose is to analyze the implications of these findings for elementary school counselors and teachers. The investigation's two phases include a survey study and an experimental study. The ninety-six subjects for the survey phase were selected by identifying forty-eight first and second grade students who failed their grade level in the 1972-1973 school year, and by randomly selecting a control group of forty-eight second and third grade students who had not failed a grade. For the experimental phase of the study, the forty-eight failing students were divided into an experimental group and a control group. Twenty-four were randomly placed in the counseling groups, with the remaining twenty-four as a control group.

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors that are related to scientific literacy of 15-year old students in Turkey in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) data. Two groups of variables were considered for the analyses. In the first group / number of books at home and attendance to preschool, attitudes towards school, student-teacher relation, feeling of loneliness, remedial study and homework and attending out-of-school courses were taken as variables that are related to scientific literacy. In the second group, basically, variables that are related to computer literacy and usage were considered. These variables are: frequency of using internet, frequency of using computer, basic computer skills, advanced computer skills and attitudes towards computer. The results indicated that quality of student-teacher relation, the number of books at home and attendance to preschool education, use of internet and basic computer skills are positively related to scientific literacy measures of the students. As expected, student feeling of loneliness has negative impact on literacy skills. Remedial classes conducted by schools and homework assignments have positive effect on school related attitude, but they cannot contribute scientific literacy skills of the students. Outside school private courses has positive relation with the scientific literacy, but this effect rather seems coming from family background characteristics. Use of internet and basic computer skills might have positive relation with both attitudes towards computer and scientific literacy, but use of software programs and advanced computer skills indicated negative relationship with the scientific literacy measures of the students.