A comparative overview of citizenship education in Cyprus

Cyprus is a Mediterranean island divided into two political sections. For political agreement to be possible between the North (Turkish) and South (Greek), Cyprus should give full consideration to citizenship education at schools with the aim of transmitting shared values and helping students become EU citizens. In this research, two citizenship textbooks which were designed and used for eighth grade level were examined using content analysis. One was a Greek book used in South Cyprus and the other one was a Turkish book used in North Cyprus. Both textbooks were prepared and published in the respective mainland states (Greece and Turkey) and reflected the culture of these countries. Although Turkey is a candidate state for the European Union, the Turkish book focuses on empowering local citizen identity in the nation state and does not discuss broader issues related to global citizenship. By contrast, the Greek textbook covers both national and global issues concerning citizenship. Silman and ?ağlar suggest that North and South Cyprus should design their own citizenship books to promote the concepts of interdependence, multiculturalism, democracy, human rights and respect for cultural diversity. The researchers believe that this could facilitate a possible political agreement between the two sides.     

Development and Validation of an Instrument to Measure University Students’ Biotechnology Attitude

The impact of biotechnologies on peoples’ everyday lives continuously increases. Measuring young peoples’ attitudes toward biotechnologies is therefore very important and its results are useful not only for science curriculum developers and policy makers, but also for producers and distributors of genetically modified products. Despite of substantial number of instruments which focused on measuring student attitudes toward biotechnology, a majority of them were not rigorously validated. This study deals with the development and validation of an attitude questionnaire toward biotechnology. Detailed information on development and validation process of the instrument is provided. Data gathered from 326 university students provided evidence for the validity and reliability of the new instrument which consists of 28 attitude items on a five point likert type scale. It is believed that the instrument will serve as a valuable tool for both instructors and researchers in science education to assess students’ biotechnology attitudes.     

The gap between expectations and reality: integrating computers into mathematics classrooms

As a result of dramatic changes in mathematics education around the world, in Turkey both elementary and secondary school mathematics curriculums have changed in the light of new demands since 2005. In order to perform the expected change in newly developed curriculum, computer should be integrated into learning and teaching process. Teachers’ beliefs play a key role in this integration process. Negative beliefs against using computer in mathematics teaching may lead to failure of this process. With the help of this study, it is aimed to detect mathematics teachers’ beliefs concerning Computer Assisted Mathematics Instruction (CAMI). Within the scope of this aim, the conducted questionnaire (The opinions of teachers about using computer in Mathematics Instruction) has been carried out on 91 mathematics teachers in the city of Trabzon. The acquired results have shown that mathematics teachers have developed negative opinions against CAMI. This state has revealed that there is a huge inconsistency between curriculum’s positive expectations arising from computer usage and teachers’ convictions.     

The Relationship Between Some Psychological Factors and their Effect on the Performance of Grid Questions and Word Association Tests

This paper reports: (i) the relationship between certain psychological factors (i.e. field dependence/field independence, convergence/divergence and working memory capacity); and (ii) the effect of these factors on the performance of the grid-type of questions and of word association tests in biological concepts.     

Assessing supervision requirements of PhD students: The case of construction management and engineering in the UK

There is an acknowledged problem with high non-completion rates of PhDs in the UK. Studies show that one of the major reasons for this is deficiencies in the supervision received. However, the unique and one-to-one nature of student/supervisor relationships makes it difficult to investigate the extent of these deficiencies. This article proposes a framework to evaluate the supervision requirements from the students' perspective. The supervision is divided into three elements: personal, indirect research-related and direct research-related help. The perceived short falls between expected and provided supervision for each element are then identified. A questionnaire survey is designed to act both as a test of the framework and to assess supervision requirements and their provision for PhD students in the construction management and engineering discipline in the UK. In addition, the student population is characterized and selected attributes; age, sex, industrial experience, full- or part-time status, nationality and funding sources, are compared with their supervision requirements. The results showed that the biggest discrepancy between expected and provided supervision was in direct research-related help. The framework is most valuable at individual level and for the framework to be effective communication is seen as being critical.     

Analyzing digital divide within and between member and candidate countries o f European Union

The main purpose of this study is to analyze whether a digital divide exists among European Union (EU) members, new members, and candidate countries. Beyond this, the second goal is to find out if a digital divide has a significant association with the process of becoming an EU member. First, member, new member, and candidate countries are classified into three groups, and MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) is applied to determine differences among these groups in terms of Information Society levels. Then, Information Society variables are analyzed using Discriminant Analysis. According to the results of the research, there is a significant level of digital divide in the EU and a certain information society level currently is not associated with EU membership. The EU must address the digital divide among member countries if they are to become a close-knit community, and to continue to be one of the most competitive economic powers in the world. Finaly, the EU might consider using information society level as an objective criteria along with other objective and subjective criteria currently being used as EU membership criteria.     

Engineering Courses Taught in Foreign Languages in Bucharest,Romania

A new engineering department, in which all activities are carried out in foreign languages, was set up in 1990 within the Polytechnical University of Bucharest. The following paper describes the nature and structure of this department, known as the Department of Engineering Sciences, as well as its objectives and details about the teaching activity.     

An empirical evaluation of government scholarship policy in Malaysia

In Malaysia, government scholarships have been utilized on a large scale in order to achieve the employment restructuring objectives of the New Economic Policy (NEP). This article provides an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of this policy instrument, based on a comprehensive survey of the 1982/83 graduates. The results show that scholarship policy is now: (1) generating a mismatch in the High-Level Manpower (HLM) market and (2) that these scholarships are distributed in a heavily regressive manner, benefiting students from the wealthier and higher-income families.     

The impact of using mobile-supported learning management systems in teaching web design on the academic success of students and their opinions on the course

This research aimed to examine the impact of using mobile-supported learning management systems (LMS) in teaching web design on the academic success of students and their opinion on the course; and it was conducted on 70 volunteer students (35 experimental, 35 control) enrolled at Giresun University, Technical Sciences Vocational School, Computer Technologies Department, Program of Computer Programming in Spring 2015–2016. After the eight weeks long implementation of Mobile Moodle, which is a mobile-supported LMS, as a supplement to traditional learning methods; t-test was used in order to determine whether the methodology mentioned had a significant impact on the academic success of web design teaching. As a result of the t-test implemented; it was seen that there was a significant level of difference in favor of the experimental group; between the academic success of students in the experimental group where mobile-supported LMS is used and the academic success of the students in the control group where traditional learning methodologies are used. Also, it has been determined that using Mobile LMS has increased the students’ interest.     

Enhancing Pre-service Elementary Teachers' Conceptual Understanding of Solution Chemistry with Conceptual Change Text

This paper reports on the use of a constructivist-based pedagogy to enhance understanding of some features of solution chemistry. Pre-service science teacher trainees' prior knowledge about the dissolution of salts and sugar in water were elicited by the use of a simple diagnostic tool. The test revealed widespread alternative conceptions. These evaluation data were used to produce two segments of ‘conceptual change text’: concise summaries that present alternative and scientific conceptualizations for the concepts under study. The texts were administered to 21 pre-service elementary trainee teachers whose understandings of number of conceptions were subsequently re-evaluated employing a pre-test post-test approach in which their answers and reasons for their answers were solicited. The findings suggest that these pre-service elementary trainees' alternative conceptions are changed to become more in accord with the scientific view, with more participants providing correct answers along with correct reasons than before the intervention. This work suggests that the use of conceptual change text may provide a simple and cost and resource-effective way to aid conceptual understanding for the dissolution of ionic solids in water including the effect of solute surface on the dissolution process.