What does school size do： Safety perceptions of educators and students

The purpose of this study is to find out how teachers, principals, vice principals and students perceive school safety and how that differs related to school size. 194 educators and 1420 students＇ views were elicited by two self-deviced school safety inventories conducted in 10 state high schools in Istanbul in 2008. Cronbach alpha value for educators＇ safety perception inventory Cronbach was found to be 0.941 and 0.902 for Student School Safety Perception Inventory. Frequency, percentage, t-test, Kruskall Wallis H-analysis and Man Whitney U-techniques were used as statistical analysis. After analysis, it appeared that perceived safety problems in school as disciplines, interpersonal relations, school building, school counseling differ related to school size. When the school size increases, teachers reported that safety problems increase as well. Schools with 500-1000 students were perceived less problematic in discipline and interpersonal relations. Violence, drug dealing, carrying gun, stealing, appeared as common safety problems at schools. Principals and vice principals appeared as more optimistic than teachers in safety problems at schools. Female teachers and principals perceived building related problems, counseling problems more serious then male colleagues. School principals should scrutinize school safety problems, should develop school safety plans comprehensively and should update it regularly. Standards related to school size should be developed and number of students in a particular school should be determined according to those criteria. Social and cultural facilities should be built in connection with the number of students studying at school. Arrangements related to school size should take into account students grade, sex, duty of educators. School environment＇s safety should be paid more attention.     

Game addiction and academic achievement

The primary aim of this study was to investigate the correlation between game addiction and academic achievement. The secondary aim was to adapt a self-report instrument to measure game addiction. Three hundred and seventy high school students participated in this study. Data were collected via an online questionnaire that included a brief explanation of the aim of the study, demographical questions, game addiction scale (GAS) and the grade point average of the current year. The GAS had two forms: (i) 21-item and (ii) 7-item. Game addiction and academic achievement were negatively correlated but this correlation was not supported by regression and structural equation modelling analyses. The present study primarily suggests that there may be a negative correlation between game addiction and academic achievement; however, this correlation may be qualified as negligible. In addition, the two forms of the GAS were adapted for Turkish language with reliability and validity to measure computer and video game addiction in adolescents as promising instruments.     

Can We Make Definite Categorization of Student Attitudes? A Rough Set Approach to Investigate Students’ Implicit Attitudinal Typologies Toward Living Things

This study investigates the possibility of analyzing educational data using the theory of rough sets which is mostly employed in the fields of data analysis and data mining. Data were collected using an open-ended conceptual understanding test of the living things administered to first-year high school students. The responses of randomly selected 60 students among the participants were analyzed using rough set approach on the basis of “nine attitudinal typologies toward wildlife” defined by Kellert (1996). Student responses were tabulated to be used in rough sets and upper and lower approximation analyses were carried out. Students were found to display the characteristics of four out of nine typologies. Analyses revealed that some students who possessed characteristics of a certain typology may partially display the characteristics of other typologies and these typologies could be determined using rough set theory.     

The impact of problem-based learning on engineering students’ beliefs about physics and conceptual understanding of energy and momentum

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of problem-based learning (PBL) on freshmen engineering students’ beliefs about physics and physics learning (referred to as epistemological beliefs) and conceptual understanding of physics. The multiple-choice test of energy and momentum concepts and the Colorado learning attitudes about science survey were used to collect the data. The sample consisted of 142 students enrolled in the PBL and traditional lecture classes in the engineering faculty of a state university in Turkey. The analyses showed that the PBL group obtained significantly higher conceptual learning gains than the traditional group and the change (improvement) in the PBL group students’ beliefs from the pre- to post test were significantly larger than that of the traditional group. The results revealed that beliefs were correlated with conceptual understanding. Suggestions are presented regarding the implementation of the PBL approach.     

Cross-cultural experience in preservice teacher education

The study investigated the effect of international student teaching experience on the professional and personal development of preservice teachers. Within the framework of their internship program, 26 graduate students in a private university in Turkey had a two-month internship in a mid western state in the United States, the main component of which was a six-week student teaching experience in high schools. Student teachers worked with mentors in pairs or triads in six high schools in different subject areas. They got involved in teaching practices, technology seminars, and diverse cultural activities during their internship. The student teachers and mentor teachers were surveyed through e-mail and three student teachers were interviewed to evaluate the outcomes of the program. The findings of the current research suggest that the international student teaching experience and the overall internship program with its cultural components contributed in a positive way to student teachers’ professional and personal development and helped student teachers increase their cultural awareness. The findings also suggest that the presence of international students in US schools and society in general helped American students and people have a better idea of other countries and cultures.     

An international collaborative investigation of beginning seventh grade students' understandings of scientific inquiry: Establishing a baseline

Although understandings of scientific inquiry (as opposed to conducting inquiry) are included in science education reform documents around the world, little is known about what students have learned about inquiry during their elementary school years. This is partially due to the lack of any assessment instrument to measure understandings about scientific inquiry. However, a valid and reliable assessment has recently been developed and published, Views About Scientific Inquiry (VASI; Lederman et al. [2014], Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 51, 65–83). The purpose of this large-scale international project was to collect the first baseline data on what beginning middle school students have learned about scientific inquiry during their elementary school years. Eighteen countries/regions spanning six continents including 2,634 students participated in the study. The participating countries/regions were: Australia, Brazil, Chile, Egypt, England, Finland, France, Germany, Israel, Mainland China, New Zealand, Nigeria, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United States. In many countries, science is not formally taught until middle school, which is the rationale for choosing seventh grade students for this investigation. This baseline data will simultaneously provide information on what, if anything, students learn about inquiry in elementary school, as well as their beginning knowledge as they enter secondary school. It is important to note that collecting data from all of the approximately 200 countries globally was not humanly possible, and it was also not possible to collect data from every region of each country. The results overwhelmingly show that students around the world at the beginning of grade seven have very little understandings about scientific inquiry. Some countries do show reasonable understandings in certain aspects but the overall picture of understandings of scientific inquiry is not what is hoped for after completing 6 years of elementary education in any country.     

Design and development of a smart storytelling toy

Because computers generally make children passive listeners, new technological devices need to support children's storytelling activities. This article introduces the StoryTech, a smart toy that includes a virtual space comprised of computer-based graphics and characters as well as a real space that involves stuffed animals, background cards and a receiver panel. When children put real objects on the receiver panel, the computer displays related backgrounds and characters. Through this flexible context, children are expected to tell a story about what they see on the screen. The aim of this article is to present the development period of the StoryTech and to provide design principles for smart toy technologies based on the usability study. The article focuses on attributes of new technology and the significance of supporting storytelling activities to find the best combination of and moderation between real and virtual spaces.