Perceived social support,quality of life and satisfaction with life in elderly people

The aim of this study examines the relationship between quality of life, satisfaction with life and multidimensional perceived social support in people aged 65 years and older. The implementation part of the study was carried out with elderly people living in the city center of Burdur, Turkey. Data were collected in March 2018 from 517 participants and then assessed. The results of the analyses revealed that perceived social support explained 11.7% of the total variance in the satisfaction with life, 22.1% of the total variance in the quality of life. In addition to, the perceived social support and the quality of life explained 28.6% of the total variance in the satisfaction with life. And the quality of life was the most influential variable on the satisfaction with life. The findings of this study suggest that making improvements to the elderly people social support and quality of life will increase their satisfaction with life.     

Cultural Responsiveness of School Curriculum and Students' Failure in Turkey

Education should develop the common values needed to enhance the unity and progress of a multi-ethnic, multicultural society. In order to enhance effective learning, students' varied backgrounds should be taken into consideration when designing a curriculum. Clearly, if the curriculum is dominated by the culture of an ethnic majority, and the existence of different ethnic and cultural groups are ignored, the students of non-majority origin perceive themselves to be distinct and may develop antagonistic attitudes toward education, which often lead to failure.In some parts of Turkey, especially the Eastern and Southeastern regions, the majority of the population is of different ethnic origin. ahin and Gülmez (2000b) studied the efficiency of education and the factors affecting the success of students in both regions. They found that illiteracy in those regions was higher when compared with the other regions, that females received less education, and that secondary school students were less successful in nationwide examinations such as OSS (selection examinations for OYS) and OYS (student placement examinations for university entrance). Ethnic diversity alone is not as effective when maintained by cultural diversity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the differences in cultural values of students with different ethnic backgrounds. Differences in curriculum and teaching materials were analyzed with regard to the perceptions of those students who identified themselves as ethnically different and not of Turkish origin.The results of this study indicate that the quality of the school curriculum and text books assessed were significantly different for those students identified to be not of Turkish origin and therefore appeared to be culturally unresponsive, a factor which may lead to the educational failure for many students of different ethnic origins.     

The algorithm of mathematical modelling for learning styles of pre-school children

This study examines pre-school children's learning styles by utilising a mathematical model. The model uses a Euclidean geometry algorithm to generate a graphical representation of the learning styles. The algorithm of the developed mathematical model was developed as a practical application of the theoretical assumptions. Index of Learning Styles for Children (ILSC), developed by one of the researchers, has been applied to a total of 301 five-year-old children. Results of the study indicate that children utilise the active, cognitive and visual learning styles under the control of the right hemisphere, and the sequential (analytical) learning styles under the control of the left hemisphere. The modelling algorithm reveals that the children's learning style preferences are shifted towards the right hemisphere at the rate of 8%. The results also provide empirical support that the developed model can mathematically explain the theoretical assumptions it is based on.     

The Effects of Gratitude Journaling on Turkish First Year College Students’ College Adjustment,Life Satisfaction and Positive Affect

This study examined the effects of gratitude journaling on first-year college students’ adjustment, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Students who scored high (i.e., scores between 35 and 56) on the Perceived Stress Scale (Cohen et al. in Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 24, 385–396, 1983) and low (i.e., scores between 48 and 144) on the University Life Scale (Alada? et al. in Türk Psikolojik Dan??ma ve Rehberlik Dergisi, 2(20), 41–47, 2003) were invited to participate in the study. Among the 24 students who met the criteria, 21 volunteered to participate. Students in the experimental group (11) kept a gratitude journal for 3 weeks, whilst those in the control group (10) were not involved in any gratitude-related activity. Results indicated that students in the experimental group had significantly higher post-test scores on gratitude, adjustment to university life, life satisfaction, and positive affect. Results related to gratitude interventions, positive emotions and college student adjustment are discussed.     

Drawing on other disciplines to define quality in bioethics education

In light of the lack of scholarly studies on the determination of quality in bioethics education, this paper aims to elaborate the concept of quality, focus on its understanding in education and explore a definition of quality in bioethics education. The findings of the literature-based research indicate that quality is a multidimensional concept and its definition is largely dependent on the needs, expectations and perceptions of customers. Furthermore, in regard to quality in education, the plethora of stakeholders and different goals of each stakeholder preclude producing a unanimous definition of quality. After examining certain definitions and approaches of quality in other disciplines, quality in bioethics education is described as ‘conformance to the goals’. These goals refer to increasing ethical knowledge; improving ethical skills to strengthen ethical sensitivity, awareness and judgement; developing ethical behaviour; and promoting cultural competence.     

Gendered Speech in Society and the Academy: A Consideration of the 'Principle of Reversibility' and its Application

With reference to the question of women and of socio-cultural minorities in higher education, the author examines the concept of political correctness (PC). Based on the ''principle of reversibility'', it can be a liberating factor, but if it is manipulated by dominant socio-economic forces, it can also be a force favouring divisive social and economic control. The question is, how can the liberating aspects of PC be enabled to predominate over the others.     

Multiple Employment Issues at the “Babeş‐Bolyai” University in Cluj‐Napoca,Romania: A Case Study

This paper approaches the multiple employment issues in Romanian Higher Education with a special focus on “Babe?‐Bolyai” University (BBU) in Cluj‐Napoca. There are 119 higher education institutions in Romania and it is becoming increasingly common for the academic staff to have at least two to three paid teaching loads, while undertaking almost no relevant, internationally recognized, research. The paper analyses the environment in which BBU is acting; the dangers of decreasing the quality of teaching and research/services; possible types of desirable multiple employment and the measures taken to diminish the consequences of undesirable multiple employment.     

Analysing Concept Maps as an Assessment Tool in Teaching Physics and Comparison with the Achievement Tests

Concept mapping is a technique that paves the way to represent knowledge schematically. In this research, concept mapping was used as an assessment method on the impulse–momentum topic. The purpose of this study was to determine teacher candidates’ knowledge about understanding of the concepts of impulse and momentum by comparing and contrasting two different methods; namely, students’ concept maps and an achievement test. The mean of teacher candidates’ concept map scores are extremely low when compared with the scores of the achievement test. In addition, it was seen that although a great number of concepts were written down, not many relationships were established between these concepts. There is a weak correlation between the achievement test and the concept map scores since concept maps assess the students’ knowledge from a conceptual perspective while the achievement tests measure the level of students’ knowledge on the topic and his/her ability to apply this knowledge on different occasions.     

Preschool teachers’ views about classroom management models

This survey-based quantitative study investigates 310 Turkish preschool teachers’ views about classroom management, using the following six models of disciplinary strategy: behavioral change theory, Dreikurs’ social discipline model, Canter’s assertive discipline model, the Glasser model of discipline, Kounin’s model, and Gordon’s teacher effectiveness training (TET) model. Data were collected through a demographic information form and the Discipline Strategies Questionnaire. The results showed that the participant teachers usually agreed with items that reflected a child-centered approach to classroom management. Also, the respondents’ views of Dreikurs’ social discipline model and Gordon’s TET model differed according to their gender. The teachers’ views related to behavioral change theory and Gordon’s TET also varied markedly, depending on the ages of the children they taught.     

Bridging the Gap: A Manual Primer into Design Computing in the Context of Basic Design Education

Design education is in need of a wider restructuring to accommodate new developments and paradigmatic shifts brought forth by the information age, all of which capitalise a move towards complexity theory, systems science and digital technologies. The intention of this article is to approach one particular aspect of this need: that is, how basic design education can be reconsidered to establish the arguably broken link between the ‘learning by doing’ tradition of a Bauhaus‐oriented basic design education with the computational and parametric logic necessitated by contemporary design technologies. The authors present the overall outlines of a basic design course as offered in Beykent University Department of Industrial Design in Istanbul, Turkey. The programme consists of a series of exercises grouped in five modules and two ‘binders’ that are structured to link the fundamental notions and operations of design thinking covered in basic design courses of the first year with the analytical and computational‐reasoning competencies that are developed mostly in the later years of design education.