Emotional labor and burnout among Turkish primary school teachers

Emotions play a critical role in teaching, especially in primary schools. Teachers have to manage their feelings in order to sustain a positive classroom climate. Managing feelings as a requirement of work is called emotional labor, which is a relatively new area of research in teaching. The main aim of this research was to investigate the type of emotional labor strategies Turkish primary school teachers often use and whether emotional labor is a predictor of burnout for primary teachers in a Turkish context. Also, the authors explore if there is a significant variation in emotional labor in terms of gender and school type (public/private). A survey was conducted with the participation of 370 primary school teachers from Ankara, Turkey. Results indicated that Turkish primary school teachers mostly engage in genuine emotions in their relationships with students. Female teachers use deep and surface acting strategies more often than males. Also, private school teachers were found to use deep acting strategies and display genuine emotions more often than public school teachers. Finally, it was found that emotional labor is a significant predictor of burnout among Turkish primary school teachers.     

Development and validation of perceptions of online interaction scale

The aim of this study was to develop a measurement instrument which is compatible with literature, of which validity and reliability are proved with the aim of determining interaction perceived by learners in online learning environments. Accordingly, literature review was made, and outline form of the scale was formed with item pool by taking 14 expert opinions. As a result of exploratory factor analysis of data obtained from participation of 177 learners from eight different universities, it was seen that the scale consisted of 30 items and 3 dimensions. These dimensions are learner–content interaction, learner–instructor interaction and learner–learner interaction. Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient of the whole scale was .95. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that fit indexes of the structure provided a good and acceptable fit. Based on these findings, Perceptions of Online Interaction Scale is a valid and reliable tool that may be used in measuring interaction occurring in online learning environments.     

Invention characteristics and the degree of exclusivity of university licenses: The case of two leading French research universities

This paper examines the determinants of university exclusive versus non-exclusive licenses. We specifically focus on the effect of the characteristics of the licensed invention (i.e. stage of development, specificity and appropriability). We rely on a unique and original dataset of 91 inventions contained in 62 intellectual property licensing contracts executed in the period of 2005–2014 by two leading French research universities. We cannot find a significant relation between the characteristics of the invention and the degree of exclusivity. In particular, as opposed to theoretical predictions, embryonic inventions are not significantly linked to more exclusive licenses and generic inventions are not significantly linked to non-exclusive licenses. Furthermore, inventions that are both generic and embryonic are not significantly linked to exclusive licenses per field of use. These results, although still exploratory, contribute to feed the discussion about the performance of university-industry technology transfer since they suggest that performance might be improved by taking more into account the characteristics of the licensed invention.     

Les Disparités d'alphabétisation et de scolarisation en Turquie

The struggle against illiteracy is a problem of great importance in Turkey as in many other countries. In Turkey the democratisation and secularisation of education have been a difficult process. Despite strong educational efforts in recent years, the country still presents various forms of inequality, such as considerable disparities between women and men, between town and country and between different regions. Unequal socio-economic, cultural and educational development, and attachment to cultural traditions are some of the factors that influence these inequalities. At the same time, Turkey is confronted by the sore problem of the education of linguistic minorities (especially the Kurds), who are not officially recognised as the cultural policy of Turkey aims to assimilate them. Thus, in the 1920s the Kurdish language was forbidden along with all languages other than Turkish, the official national language.     

Validation of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale–Short Form across different age groups in the Turkish context

A short 12-item version of the Career Adapt-Abilities Scale–Short Form (CAAS-SF) was validated across three different age groups in the Turkish context. Scale scores demonstrated adequate to high internal consistency and 4-week test–retest reliability, good fit with the original four-factor model, factorial invariance across gender and age groups, strong convergence with the 24-item version, negative associations with trait anxiety and work stress, and positive associations with career decision self-efficacy. It was concluded that the Turkish version of the CAAS-SF appears to be a valid and reliable measure for assessing career adaptability and using it in career education and counseling process.     

Sparsity and Independence: Balancing Two Objectives in Optimization for Source Separation with Application to fMRI Analysis

Because of its wide applicability in various disciplines, blind source separation (BSS), has been an active area of research. For a given dataset, BSS provides useful decompositions under minimum assumptions typically by making use of statistical properties—types of diversity—of the data. Two popular types of diversity that have proven useful for many applications are statistical independence and sparsity. Although many methods have been proposed for the solution of the BSS problem that take either the statistical independence or the sparsity of the data into account, there is no unified method that can take into account both types of diversity simultaneously. In this work, we provide a mathematical framework that enables direct control over the influence of these two types of diversity and apply the proposed framework to the development of an effective ICA algorithm that can jointly exploit independence and sparsity. In addition, due to its importance in biomedical applications, we propose a new model reproducibility framework for the evaluation of the proposed algorithm. Using simulated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data, we study the trade-offs between the use of sparsity versus independence in terms of the separation accuracy and reproducibility of the algorithm and provide guidance on how to balance these two objectives in real world applications where the ground truth is not available.     

Information retention’s relationships with flow,presence and engagement in guided 3D virtual environments

The purpose of this study was to examine the correlation of different variables with information retention in guided 3D virtual learning environments by employing three experimental designs. In each experiments, different participants were included in the same population and different variables were considered. Information retention test, flow, presence, engagement scales were used as data collection tools. Namely measures of flow, presence and engagement were examined to see their correlation with retention in experiment 1, 2 and 3. As a result, not the total score of flow but focused attention, enjoyment and skill dimensions has a weak but significant correlation with information retention, while the challenge has a moderate and significant negative correlation. In the second experiment, retention had a significant, low-level relationship with teaching presence and cognitive presence, but it did not have a similar relationship with social presence. In the third experiment, information retention significantly correlated with affective and cognitive engagement, but not with behavioral engagement. Although the three studies’ participants were from the same population, It was seen that the differences in the level of relationship between information retention and the variables studied in each study. Nevertheless, it was found that the levels of flow, presence and engagement of students are important for information retention in a guided 3D virtual learning environment. The study is thought to guide researchers to design 3D virtual learning environments for different purposes, considering these variables.     

Relationship Between Hemodynamically Significant Ductus Arteriosus and Ischemia-Modified Albumin in Premature Infants

Hemodynamically significant ductus arteriosus (hsPDA) may alter organ perfusion by interfering blood flow to the tissues. Therefore, in infants with hsPDA, hypoxia occurs in many tissues. In this study, we aimed to investigate the diagnostic significance of serum (ischemia-modified albumin) IMA levels as a screening tool for hsPDA, and its relation to the severity of the disease in the preterm neonates. For this purpose, seventy-two premature infants with gestation age <34 weeks were included in the study. Thirty premature infants with hsPDA were assigned as the study group and 42 premature infants without PDA were determined as the control group. Blood samples were collected before the treatment and 24 h after the treatment, and analyzed for IMA levels. IMA levels in the study group (1.26 ± 0.36 ABSU) were found to be significantly higher than control group (0.65 ± 0.12 ABSU) (p < 0.05). In infants with hsPDA, a positive correlation was found between IMA and PDA diameter (ρ = 0.876, p = 0.022), and LA/Ao ratio (ρ = 0.863, p = 0.014). The cut-off value of IMA for hsPDA was measured as 0.78 ABSU with 88.89 % sensitivity, and 90.24 % specificity, 85.71 % positive predictive, 92.5 % negative predictive value [area under the curve (AUC) = 0.96; p < 0.001]. The mean IMA value of the infants with hsPDA before treatment was 1.26 ± 0.36 ABSU, and the mean IMA value of infants after medical treatment was 0.67 ± 0.27 ABSU (p = 0.03). We concluded that IMA can be used as a marker for the diagnosis and monitoring of a successful treatment of hsPDA.