Investigation of the relationship between the humour styles and trait anxiety levels of students attending schools of physical education and sports

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between School of Physical Education and Sports students’ humour styles and trait anxiety levels. This study sample was composed of 607 randomly selected students attending five different Schools of Physical Education and Sports in Turkey during the spring term of the 2014–2015 academic year. As a result, significant and reverse relationships were found with positive humour styles ‘Self-enhancing humour’ and ‘Affiliative humour’ and positive and meaningful relationships were detected with negative humour styles ‘Aggressive humour’ and ‘Self-defeating humour’.     

Determination of the opinions of individuals aged 65 and over on aging in place: the case of Ankara

ABSTRACT

This study was planned to determine the opinions of individuals aged 65 years and older on “aging in place” and was conducted with 506 elderly individuals living in the Çankaya district of Ankara. In order to determine the level of satisfaction of the elderly with the environment they live in, the “Aging in Place Scale,” consisted of 15 items and three sub-dimensions, was used. In the study, the score received from the scale indicates the level of satisfaction of elderly individuals with the environment they have lived for a long time. In the study, the elderly were observed to receive scores well above the averages in all three sub-factors, and this situation demonstrated that their satisfaction levels were high. There was no statistically significant difference between the Aging in Place Scale and its sub-factors scores of the elderly and gender and housing ownership. A statistically significant difference was found between the “Attainable Social Support” sub-factor and the level of education and income, and Aging in Place Scale, “Perceived Social Support” and “Physical Competence” sub-factors with living situation. Furthermore, in the study, the relationship between marital status and Aging in Place Scale, its all sub-factors were also statistically significant. The obtained results were discussed within the framework of the studies in the literature, and suggestions were made to individuals, the related institutions and organizations for elderly individuals to age in place successfully.     

Collective Effects of Individual,Behavioral, and Contextual Factors on High School Students’ Future STEM Career Plans

This study explored the structural relationships among secondary school students’ conceptions, self-regulation, and strategies of learning science in mainland China. Three questionnaires, namely conceptions of learning science (COLS), self-regulation of learning science (SROLS), and strategies of learning science (SLS) were developed for investigating 333 Chinese high school learners’ conceptions, metacognitive self-regulation, and strategies in science. The confirmatory factor analysis results verified the validity of the three surveys. Moreover, the path analyses revealed a series of interesting findings. Learners with lower-level COLS, namely “memorizing,” “testing,” and “practicing and calculating,” tended to use surface learning strategies such as “minimizing scope of the study” and “rote learning.” However, learners’ higher-level COLS, namely “increase of knowledge,” “applying,” “understanding,” and “seeing in a new way,” had complicated connections with their SROLS and SLS. On the one hand, learners’ higher-level COLS had negative relations to “minimizing scope of the study” and “rote learning.” On the other hand, their higher-level COLS were powerful predicators for their metacognitive self-regulation and further affected their use of “deep strategy” and “rote learning.” Though Chinese secondary students with higher-level COLS usually have a negative view of “rote learning,” the functioning of their metacognitive self-regulation may change their initial attitudes towards the surface strategy. Learners with higher-level COLS still used “rote learning” as a prior step for achieving deep learning. Therefore, we concluded that the SROLS played an important mediating role between the COLS and SLS and may change learners’ original intention to utilize learning strategies.     

The mediating roles of internal context variables in the relationship between distributed leadership perceptions and continuous change behaviours of public school teachers

This study aims at building a theoretical base for continuous change in education and using this base to test the mediating roles of two key contextual variables, knowledge sharing and trust, in the relationship between the distributed leadership perceptions and continuous change behaviours of teachers. Data were collected from 687 public school teachers. The results showed that the combined effect of knowledge sharing and faculty trust in principal mediated the relationship between teachers’ distributed leadership perceptions and continuous change behaviours. The directions of the coefficients of the relationships between the independent variable and the dependent variable suggested that higher distributed leadership perception leads to increased knowledge sharing and trust in principal, which in turn was associated with greater continuous change behaviours. The study showed that school systems have an extensive capacity for self-improvement, even in the absence of a pre-developed change plan.     

Professional competences to teach English at primary schools in Turkey: a Delphi study

This research aimed to uncover the teacher competences that are necessary to provide age-appropriate English language teaching to primary school students in Turkey. The Delphi technique was implemented to propose a list of competences created through consensus among a panel of experts that consisted of 15 teachers and 16 teacher educators. The data were collected by administering three questionnaires in three rounds. Central tendency and consensus were measured through median and inter-quartile range, respectively. The findings led to a list of 29 teacher competences which were categorised into five groups: ‘theoretical and practical knowledge’, ‘knowing the young learner’, ‘planning and organising teaching’, ‘managing teaching’, and ‘competence in English’. Implications were made for improving the effectiveness of English language teaching to young learners: these included the design of pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes to equip teachers with the necessary skills and knowledge to teach English to young learners.     

Interaction between seed size and NaCl on germination and early seedling growth of some Turkish cultivars of chickpea （Cicer arietinum L.）

Chickpea is an important food legume crop of Turkey and is largely grown for human consumption on low moisture or salt-affected soils.The objective of the study was to find the effects of NaCl stress at electrical conductivities of 4.5,8.6,12.7 and 16.3 dS/m and seed sizes (7,8 and 9 mm) on germination and early seedling growth of three popular chickpea cultivars (AKN-97,Gokce and Uzunlu-99).Mean frequency of germination,germination time,germination index,root length,shoot length and seedling fresh weight showed seed size-dependent responses of cultivars to salt stress.In general,small seeds germinated and grew more rapidly compared to medium and large seeds of the same cultivars against all levels of salt stress,with the best results in cultivar Uzunlu-99.No effect of NaCl treatments was observed on frequency of germination; however,a drastic decrease in early seedling growth was recorded at increased NaCl concentrations.Regression analysis results showed a significantly positive rela-tionship (P<0.01) between seed size and mean germination time,whereas a significantly negative relationship was recorded between seed size and germination index,root length,shoot length.Moreover,linear regression values apparently confirmed that increased seed size in each cultivar affected decreased germination index,root and shoot lengths with enhanced mean germination time.Thus,it was concluded that the use of small seeds could considerably reduce the production costs of chickpea in salt-affected soils.     

Polynomial solution of high-order linear Fredholm integro-differential equations with constant coefficients

In this study, a practical matrix method is presented to find an approximate solution of high-order linear Fredholm integro-differential equations with constant coefficients under the initial-boundary conditions in terms of Taylor polynomials. The method converts the integro-differential equation to a matrix equation, which corresponds to a system of linear algebraic equations. Error analysis and illustrative examples are included to demonstrate the validity and applicability of the technique.     

Modeling Environmental Literacy of University Students

The present study proposed an Environmental Literacy Components Model to explain how environmental attitudes, environmental responsibility, environmental concern, and environmental knowledge as well as outdoor activities related to each other. A total of 1,345 university students responded to an environmental literacy survey (Kaplowitz and Levine in Environ Educ Res 11:143–160, 2005). The structural equation model revealed that high levels of environmental knowledge stimulate a university student’s concern, attitudes, and personal responsibility toward environmental protection. More specifically, environmental knowledge was reported to be a significant predictor of environmental concern, attitudes, and responsibility. Environmental knowledge had significant indirect relationships with environmental attitudes and responsibility. Moreover, while attitudes toward the environment were found to be a significant determinant of environmental responsibility, environmental concern held significant association with attitudes toward the environment and outdoor activities. Findings promise to give clues for finding an answer to the question “how education for sustainability can be improved in higher education curricula?”