The purpose of this study was to compare Turkey and the European Union (EU)
regarding aspects (use, self-confidence and attitude) of students&rsquo / information and
communication technologies (ICT), the relationships between ICT aspects and mathematical
and problem solving literacy performances, and to understand education policy makers&rsquo / perceptions on ICT in Turkey. A multimethod (quantitative and qualitative) research design
was used in this study. Country groups &ndash / an EU member group, a new EU member group and
Turkey- were formed on the basis of the status of a country in the EU, and that of having
ICT data in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003.
This study has three focuses. The first focus of the present study was to examine
similarities and differences in ICT use, self-confidence in ICT and attitudes toward
computers in students from Turkey and the EU. The sample of this focus was those students
from the EU member group (N=56,610), the new EU member group (N=24,834) and Turkey
(N=3,231) who participated in the PISA 2003. Multivariate analysis of covariance -
controlling students&rsquo / economic, social and cultural status (ESCS) and attitudes toward
computers- and univariate analysis of covariance -controlling ESCS- were conducted to see
whether students&rsquo / ICT aspects differ across country groups. The first focus of the present
study indicated that Turkish students have lower self-confidence in using computer and the
Internet and they use the Internet less frequently than students in the EU. Contrary to this,
the findings of this focus revealed that Turkish students have relatively more positive attitudes toward computers and they use program/software more frequently than do students
in the EU.
The second focus of the present study was to model the relationships among ICT
factors and mathematical and problem solving literacy performances of Turkish and the EU
students. The sample of this focus was those students from the EU member group
(N=57,787), the new EU member group (N=25,359) and Turkey (N=3,590) who participated
in the PISA 2003. The proposed path analytic models were separately tested for each country
group. The second focus revealed that students&rsquo / socioeconomic and cultural status and selfconfidence
in routine computer tasks have positive and medium level relationships with their
mathematical and problem solving literacy performances, for all country groups.
Furthermore, students&rsquo / self-confidence in Internet tasks had a positive and low level
relationship with these performances for all country groups. On the other hand, it was found
that students&rsquo / frequency of computer and Internet use and their self-confidence in high-level
computer tasks have generally negative and small relationships with these literacy
performances in all country groups.
The third focus aimed to investigate education policy makers&rsquo / perceptions of the ICT
policy making and implementation process in Turkey, and their evaluations of the findings
of the quantitative phase of this study. The participants of this focus consisted of seven
education policy makers from the Ministry of National Education and universities in Turkey.
The data, collected with interviews, were content-analyzed by coding data, identifying, and
relating the categories and sub-categories, that is, open, axial and selective coding were
conducted respectively. In the third focus of the present study, participants specified the
primary issues of ICT policy making and the implementing process in Turkey and made
suggestions on these issues. Participants frequently related the findings of the quantitative
phase of this study to the economic, social and cultural status of students.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:METU/oai:etd.lib.metu.edu.tr:http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12609723/index.pdf |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
| Creators | Sahinkayasi, Yunis |
| Contributors | Yildirim, Soner |
| Publisher | METU |
| Source Sets | Middle East Technical Univ. |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Ph.D. Thesis |
| Format | text/pdf |
| Rights | To liberate the content for public access |
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