The process of supervision in the turkish educational system: purpose, structure, operation

The aim of this study is to provide information on the purposes, structure and operation of the process of supervision in the Turkish educational system. In this paper, the historical development of supervision services in the Turkish educational system, as well as the purposes and principles of educational supervision in Turkey and the structure of supervision in the Turkish educational system are defined. Moreover, the organization of sub-systems of the Ministry of National Education and that of supervision at elementary schools, hiring supervisors, their training, duties and responsibilities as well as working principles are presented. In addition, a detailed analysis of the supervision of institutions and teachers by supervisors is included.     

The effects of professional development activities on principals’ perceived instructional leadership practices: multi-country data analysis using TALIS 2013

The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which professional development predicts principals’ instructional leadership in order to identify whether a relationship exists between the duration of principals’ participation in distinct professional development activities and their perceived practice of instructional leadership while controlling for several principal and school characteristics. The data employed in this study came from the 2013 teaching and learning international survey, which was conducted by the organisation for economic co-operation and development. Four multivariate regression models with the country-controlled dummy variable were implemented in the analysis of the data. The results indicated that the more principals take part in contemporary professional development activities such as professional networking, mentoring and research activities, the more often they engage in instructional leadership practices. However, no relationship between more traditional types of professional development activities, such as courses, conferences, and observational visits, and principals’ instructional leadership, was found. The results have substantial implications for policy-makers and practitioners worldwide, suggesting that any professional development designed to get principles involved in more instructional leadership practices should be based on the contemporary type of professional development activities.     

On some difference sequence spaces defined by a sequence of Orlicz functions

INTRODUCTION Let w be the set of all sequences of real or com- plex numbers and R∞, c and c0 be the sequence spaces of bounded, convergent and null sequences x=(xk), respectively. A sequence x∈R∞ is said to be almost convergent (Lorentz, 1948) if all Banach limits of x coincide. Lorentz (1948) proved that 1 c? = ??? x =( xk ) :linm 1n ∑kn= xk s exists, uniformly in s???. Maddox (1967; 1978) has defined x to be strongly almost convergent to a number L if 1 linm 1n ∑k n= xk s? L=0,…     

Critical incidents in pre-service EFL teachers’ identity construction process

ABSTRACT

Knowledge and human identity are socially constructed phenomena. Like other aspects of human identity, teacher identity is shaped through social influences. Some of the social influences that contribute to teacher identity development happen through critical incidents that teachers or teacher candidates experience. The current study, adopting a critical incident analysis perspective, attempts to ascertain the nature of the critical incidents that 49 pre-service teachers of EFL have experienced throughout their English learning process. It also tries to uncover the effects of these critical incidents on their English learning and teacher identity. The data for the research was collected using a Critical Incident Form developed by the researchers and focus group interviews. The findings indicated that pre-service ELT teachers’ early learning experiences included certain critical incidents. An inductive quantitative analysis of these incidents revealed that they can be categorized into three themes: people, context, and outcome. Exploring the nature of critical incidents and their role in the construction of English language teacher identity will hopefully be a benefit to teachers and teacher educators.     

Change Readiness among Teaching Staff at Anadolu University,Turkey

Turkey’s Anadolu University is one of the world’s largest mega‐universities. It is engaged in strategic planning in response to changes in the expectations of the Turkish Higher Education Council and the community at large. In re‐examining its vision and strategic directions, Anadolu University needs to be informed on the knowledge, skills, and attitudes of its teaching staff, and the systems and support needed to assure their change readiness. This article examines the literature of organizational and educational change and its implications for the university. It reports on a study based on the relevant constructs from the literature and is designed to gauge the extent and nature of teaching staff knowledge, skills, practice, and research in educational and technological change, motivating and de‐motivating factors, change adopter types, and perceptions of the organizational climate for change. It considers the implications of these findings and draws conclusions about what would be needed to improve staff readiness for change.     

The development of Hyper-MNP: Hyper-media navigational performance scale

The present study aimed at developing a scale to evaluate navigational performance as a whole, which is one of the factors influencing learning in hyper media. In line with this purpose, depending on the related literature, an item pool of 15 factors was prepared, and these variables were decreased to 5 based on the views of 38 field experts. In the end, a 3-factor structured was obtained via a pilot application carried out with 32 Information Technologies (IT) students, via the confirmatory factor analysis conducted with 110 IT students and via the reliability analysis carried out with 33 IT students. The scale included 14 items, and the internal consistency coefficient regarding the whole scale was calculated as α?=?0.90. The results of the Pearson correlation analysis revealed that the test-retest correlation coefficients of the items ranged between 0.762 and 0.954. As a result of the analyses conducted, the Hyper-MNP scale was found to be a valid and reliable tool that can be used to measure the navigational performance in hyper media.     

Variation among schools on classroom practices in science based on TIMSS‐1999 in Turkey

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences among schools using student responses in the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study–1999 (TIMSS‐99) data. Schools were classified into two groups based on eighth grade students' overall achievement in science. Two different discriminant function analyses were performed to distinguish high‐ and low‐performing schools, based both on classroom practices and factor structures (student‐centered activities, teacher‐centered activities, attitudes toward technology use, socioeconomic status [SES], and doing well in science). The results indicate that there were significant differences between the two classifications of schools on ten variables regarding classroom practices and activities, and 29 variables regarding classroom practices, attitudes toward science, use of the computer and overhead projector (OHP), parental background characteristics, and need to do well in science. Contrary to general expectations, technology use (computer, OHP, etc.) was found to be negatively related to science achievement. Teachers should be trained on how to use technology in their classrooms. Turkey recently revised its curriculum to a student‐centered approach and this might increase students' ability to transfer knowledge into real life. Teachers and schools should pay more attention to SES effects. Teachers should also work toward building students' confidence in science. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 44: 1417–1435, 2007     

Readiness of teachers for change in schools

Theorizing on the role of teacher attitudes in change effectiveness, this study examined the predictive value of context (trust), process (social interaction, participative management and knowledge sharing) and outcome (job satisfaction and workload perception) variables for cognitive, emotional and intentional readiness of teachers for change. The study was designed as predictive correlational study. Data were collected from 1649 elementary teachers. Hierarchical linear regression analysis results indicated that background and context variables are weak predictors of readiness for change (RFC), while job outcome and process variables emerged as stronger predictors of RFC. The central role of job satisfaction and trust in predicting RFC suggests that readiness cannot be limited to times of change; rather, it is closely related to total experiences of teachers on their job. As a result, for a more effective management of teachers’ attitudes towards change leadership needs to hold a broader temporal and contextual understanding rather than demonstrating limited interventions during times of change.