The economics of higher education and tests of equity criteria in Turkey

Unequal opportunities are a fact of life in most societies. Imbalances exist in each society under all conceivable economic environments. To alleviate these imbalances, most governments tend to interfere in the market. In this respect Turkey is no exception. Thus, the government established the Turkish Higher Education Council in 1982 with the hope of improving educational resource allocation. This paper investigates the private costs of public higher education in Turkey. It also tests whether a structural cost difference exists between the universities in the three biggest cities of Turkey and the rest of the country's fifteen Universities. Does the highly subsidized Turkish Higher Education ensure equity of resource allocation? The findings show that, among the factors contributing to higher education, the number of faculty members has the lowest price elasticity of demand. In the case of assessing whether there are structural cost differences between the universities in developed and underdeveloped regions the findings show that imbalances between the two regions still exist.     

ArchiBabel: Tracing the Writing Architecture Project in Architectural Education

Though much recent scholarship has investigated the potential of writing in creative practice (including visual arts, drama, even choreography), there are few models in the literature which discuss writing in the context of architectural education. This article aims to address this dearth of pedagogical research, analysing the cross‐disciplinary Writing Architecture Project based in the undergraduate course of Queens University Belfast's School of Architecture. Over the course of four years, teaching staff, in partnership with the university's Learning Development Service, technicians and specialist librarians, have addressed an unfortunately persistent struggle for both architecture students and professionals alike to research and construct argument in written form. The article examines the current problem as identified in the literature before analysing the efficacy of the variety of teaching methods used in the Writing Architecture Project, with conclusions about the project's success and continuing challenges.     

Impact of satisfaction and commitment on teachers’ organizational citizenship

This study examined the impact of job satisfaction and organizational commitment on teachers’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in a structural equation model. The study was employed to a group of teachers and their supervisors. The results indicated that job satisfaction and commitment to the school had an impact on OCBs of the teachers and organizational commitment mediated the relation between job satisfaction and OCB.