Examining students’ perceptions of plagiarism: A cross-cultural study at tertiary level

Plagiarism continues to dominate the academic world as one of its greatest challenges, and the existing literature suggests cross-cultural investigation of this critical issue may help all shareholders who detect, are confronted by and struggle with this issue to address it. Therefore, the present study, drawing upon a cross-cultural investigation using a questionnaire, aimed to investigate the differences between three groups of students, namely, Turkish (n = 106), Georgian (n = 83) and German (n = 72) regarding their tendency to conduct academic theft. It also investigated ways in which to plagiarise and reasons for and awareness of this issue. The results show that lack of time, busy schedules and weak academic writing skills are the most frequent reasons for plagiarism. However, in contrast to previous studies, the role of the Internet was found to be minimal in relation to increasing plagiarism. It is also worth noting that the German participants were found to have a higher level of sensitivity to this academic malpractice and were seen to be much more successful at identifying it. The article concludes with workable suggestions on how to discourage academic theft at universities.     

Turkish School Counselors and Counselor Educators’ Perceptions about Multicultural Counseling

This paper examines the topic of multicultural counseling in Turkey, where school-based multicultural counseling services remain comparatively limited in scope and application. Participants consisted of twenty-three counselors working in secondary or high schools and fourteen counselor educators from several state universities. While the participants expressed mostly positive attitudes towards multicultural counseling, school counselors tended to regard it only as a client-focused, acculturation process. Not unexpectedly, counselor educators approached the process mainly in terms of how to effectively apply it toward various minority groups in Turkey.     

The number zero: preschool teachers’ perceptions and teaching practices: a Turkish sample

Children's intuitive understanding of numbers begins early in life, and their numbers-related knowledge influences instructors’ teaching practices. The number zero is more difficult to teach and learn than other numbers. The purpose of this study was to investigate how preschool teachers perceive the number zero and design their teaching practices for it. The participants in this case study were selected through convenience sampling. The findings indicated that the majority of the participating preschool teachers perceived the number zero as a symbol and considered children's age while developing teaching practices.     

Education and symbolic violence in contemporary Turkey

This article examines the perceptions of education in Turkey, which refer to a nebulous package of formal education and a cultured stance. Guided by the literature on symbolic violence, we argue that underprivileged groups misrecognize arbitrary hierarchies by considering them just and inevitable. Elite tastes have been internalized by other groups in a particular historical context of education and culture. We investigate the historical roots of this seemingly ahistorical constellation of power relations around education and then consider the implications for the neoliberal period. Then, we contextualize the responses to symbolic violence. Subordinate groups complicate the effects of symbolic violence by exhibiting diverse responses that range from outright submission to implicitly questioning cultural and moral boundaries, creating class and ethnic others in the process. This occurs by constructing cultural and moral boundaries, especially targeting the ‘vulgar’ culture of celebrities and Kurds.     

The effect of the visual awareness education programme on the visual literacy of children aged 5-6

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the “Visual Awareness Education Programme” developed to support the visual literacy skills of preschool children. The study group comprised 40 children (20 children in the experimental group and 20 children in the control group) attending preschool in the 2014–2015 school year. The pre-test post-test experimental model was used in the study. The “Visual Literacy Inventory for Preschool Children” and the “Children’s Visual Literacy Rating Inventory for Parents” were used to determine visual literacy level of children. Study results revealed significant differences in favour of the experimental group children in the sub-dimensions and the post-test scores of the “Visual Literacy Inventory for Preschool Children” and the post-test scores of the “Children’s Visual Literacy Rating Inventory for Parents”.     

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.     

A Politically Liberal Conception of Formal Education in a Developing Democracy

As discussed by John Rawls, in a well-ordered society, a public political culture’s wide educational role bears the primary responsibility for developing reasonable individuals for the stability of a politically liberal society. Rawlsian scholars have also focused on the stability and enhancement of developed liberal democratic societies by means of those societies’ education systems. In this sense, one thing that is common to Rawlsian scholars’ and Rawls’s own understanding of the role of education appears to be a concern over the stability of a politically liberal society since it is highly dependent on the character of its citizens. Also, it is usually believed that a politically liberal account of education can be implemented in a developed politically liberal society. In contrast, this study discusses the possibility of implementing a politically liberal account of education in a developing liberal society that may become a developed liberal democracy under an overlapping consensus.