The aim of this study was to investigate the VMLSE perception levels of eighth grade students and differentiations based on variables of gender, state of success, final grade and ability to relate mathematical concepts to daily life and examine their views on this issue. The exploratory design of mixed method, which includes both quantitative and qualitative methods, was used in the study. The survey method was used in the quantitative dimension of the study. In qualitative dimension, phenomenological design which is one of the qualitative research designs is used. The data obtained from the quantitative dimension by VMLSE perception scale were analyzed by t-test and one-way analysis of variance. The data obtained from the semi-structured interview form were analyzed by using the content analysis method for the qualitative dimension of the research. As a consequently, there was a significant difference in VMLSE perceptions based on the variables of final grade, finding one’s self successful in the field of mathematics and ability to relate mathematical concepts; however, there was no significant difference based on gender. Additionally, it was found, the students had the idea that having VMLSE perception would affect mathematics success positively. 

Biological evolution stands out as critically important content for K-12 education as it is considered a cornerstone of the biological sciences. Yet, it remains one of the most socially controversial topics related to science education. In this exploratory study, we are seeking to understand the ways elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) use their views of science to justify including or excluding alternative explanations to evolution in the science curriculum. This investigation included 76 PSTs who were enrolled in an elementary science methods course. Data came from an activity designed by the authors entitled “Science in the Public Schools – School Board Scenario.” The scenario proposed that the local school board was considering a motion to alter the science curriculum by introducing creationism and intelligent design (ID) to the unit on biological evolution and the PSTs had to offer their informed recommendations. The two researchers independently read and coded the data using an inductive, constant comparative approach. Findings revealed that 32 would not add creationism or ID, 26 would add both, 9 would add creationism, 6 would add ID, and 3 would only mention them. PSTs came up with diverse explanations for their decision on if to include alternative explanations when teaching evolution. Common rationales emerged within each group and are further explored.

In this study, it was aimed to find out the characteristics of inspiring teachers who inspired teacher candidates to do teaching profession properly. In the study, “An Exploratory Sequential Design” a mixed method where qualitative and quantitative approaches are used concomitantly, was employed to determine the inspiring teacher characteristics. In this design, two steps were respectively followed by the researcher. In the first step grounded theory research design as a qualitative research design was used and in the second step survey research model as a quantitative research design was used. Inspiring Teacher Scale (ITS) was developed by the researchers to collect the data. In the second phase, the study group was extended to continue the quantitative studies. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used first to analyze the data. The results of analysis have demonstrated that the items loaded on four factors, which reflect inspiring teacher characteristics as “teacher communication”, “personal characteristics”, “professional development” and “supporting students in different ways”. Findings suggest that ITS, which has four-factor structures with 36 items, can be suggested as a valid and reliable instrument to determine the characteristics of inspiring teacher. Therefore, in this study the characteristics inspiring teachers were specified according to opinions of teacher candidates and presented to be o model for teacher candidates.

This paper is based on a research that explored how Inuit community members in Nunavut Territory, Canada, conceptualized quality education in the socio-cultural context of the territory. Data were collected through telephone interviews of 13 Inuit community members in Nunavut and document reviews both of which were conducted in 2010. The data analysis showed that Inuit community members are r gravely concerned with:(1) the low grade twelve graduation rates and high dropout rates in the territory schools;(2) School improvement planning that engages Inuit communities; (3) Integration of school with the larger community; (4) Communicative engagement with parents and other community stakeholders; (5) Culturally relevant school programming and pedagogy; and (6) Culturally appropriate disciplinary methods. In the conclusion, the paper spells out the policy implications of the findings.

This article introduces a model entitled, “Responsive Teaching through Problem Posing” or RTPP, that addresses a type of reform oriented mathematics teaching based on posing relevant problems, positioning students as experts of mathematics, and facilitating discourse.  RTPP incorporates decades of research on students’ thinking in mathematics and more recent research on responsive teaching practices.  Two classroom case studies are presented.  A high school unit on functions is explored utilizing individual research on the part of the teacher to enact RTPP lessons.  A middle school teacher enacts a RTPP lesson on proportions and utilizes this model to bridge students’ incorrect additive reasoning strategies with correct multiplicative reasoning strategies.  The results showed that both teachers were able to elevate students’ roles in classroom discussions through implementation of RTPP.  Individual research conducted by the high school teacher informed his RTPP approach while participation in professional development sessions with a classroom embedded component influenced the middle school teacher’s enactment of RTPP lessons.  Both teachers used specific teacher moves within RTPP to relinquish their role as mathematics experts in order to elevate their students’ roles in classroom discussions.  The RTPP cycle is offered as a potential model for studying mathematics teaching and learning across a variety of secondary mathematics classrooms.

In the study, a meta-analysis was conducted to determine the effect of the use of the learning cycle model on the achievements of the students. Doctorate and master theses, made between 2007 and 2016, were searched using the keywords in Turkish and English. As a result of the screening, a total of 123 dissertations, which used learning cycle models to increase the achievement of students, were included in the analysis. As a result of this study, it is confirmed that the effect of learning cycle models on students’ achievement is positive and the determined effect size was found out as 1.164 (% 95 CI, SE = .071) according to random effects model.. In the study, moderator analysis was made according to the learning cycle models, type of the dissertations, disciplines, and education levels of students. The analyses showed that among the learning cycle models, the highest effect size was determined in the 4E Model (2.659), among the dissertations the highest effect size was in master thesis (ES = 1.231), among the disciplines the highest effect size was in the other lessons (ES = 1.637) and among the educational levels the highest effect size was in the high school students (ES = 1.237).

This article examines the ethical dilemmas that are specific to qualitative research methodology. These dilemmas concern the issues of withdrawal from the study, anonymity and confidentiality, which are discussed. Each aspect examines how it was dealt with using the researcher’s reflections. The research was positioned within an interpretive paradigm and used the small scale qualitative research design in one rural and one urban contexts of Lesotho. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select the participants from the larger population. Using a semi-structured interview guide, participants were interviewed individually while others were engaged in focus group discussions. A lesson learnt is that ethics in methodology, when conducting research in an African context, do not always follow what is proposed in the Western literature. It is recommended that a context should be considered when applying ethics in qualitative research studies in Africa since some ethics in research are context-specific.

The fact that the prospective Turkish teachers’ having a command of different methods and techniques as being Turkish teachers of the future is important in terms of its positive effects on the comprehension and expression skills of the middle school students. This study used the case study design and the qualitative approach. The aim of the research was to test the effectiveness of literature circle method and contribute to the field in theoretical and practical context. Fourty-six prospective Turkish teachers were conveniently sampled from the state university in Istanbul, to participate in the study. During six weeks, the opinions of prospective Turkish teachers who applied literature circle method were collected through unstructured interview forms. The data collected were subjected to a content analysis. It was concluded that prospective Turkish teachers found the method of literature circle favorible, in terms of cooperation, solidarity, gaining different perspectives, revealing hidden talents, developing self-confidence, aesthetic pleasure, enriching vocabulary and catching the details.

Collecting data among participants belonging to a group, community or organization is a crucial step in social research. However, generally speaking, in the social sciences, the issue of access to the research field has not been widely or systematically studied and remains under-theorized. The goal of this study is to draw the participants’ perspective on the question of accepting research into their classrooms and participating in it, an object that has usually been overlooked in studies on research field access. This article presents the results of a qualitative, exploratory study aimed at documenting teachers’ representations relating to whether or not they wish to participate in research projects, when requested to do so by researchers. The analysis brought out a system comprising five categories of representations relating to participation or non-participation in an educational research project. These representations are related to 1) the teacher’s daily tasks; 2) the teacher's professional development; 3) the teacher's professional identity and professional ideal; 4) the institutional and collegial context; and 5) the teacher's responsibility toward students. We discuss these categories and their implications for further research. 

The study aims to determine the reason for choosing the teaching profession identifying how history teacher candidates perceive the concepts of "teacher" and "teaching". The study was conducted with 115 history teachers enrolled in an initial teacher training programme in a university located in Turkey’s Central Anatolia Region in the 2014-2015 academic year. To investigate the candidate teachers’ perceptions of the teaching profession, the research participants filled in blank space from a questionnaire administered by the researchers. The collected data was analysed using the content analysis method and this gave rise to specific metaphors with associated categories. Thus, 19 metaphors and 6 categories for the teacher concept; 26 metaphors and 7 categories for teaching; 15 reasons and 3 categories for the reasons of choosing the teaching profession emerged. Research findings illustrate that the candidate history teachers’ perception of the teaching profession are positive. However, the participants used predominantly negative metaphors, in describing the difficulties history teacher candidates encounted regarding “teaching”. In relation to teaching profession choices, the most occurring reason was the love for the profession; other factors affecting the candidates’ preference were the reasons articulated in the categories of “need” and “responsibility”.

The aim of this study investigate to the reasons why the usage of Social Network Sites (SNS) makes users happy. To this end, the study was conducted with as a qualitative research method. The phenomenological design, which is a qualitative research method, was utilized for determining why SNS usage cause happiness and having a better to understand of how SNS users describe SNSs and what they feel about it. The study group was composed of 137 university students (60 males and 77 females) attending the Faculty of Education, Faculty of Science, Faculty of Literature, and Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at a university in the southwestern of Turkey. A structured, open-ended interview was used as the data collection instrument. The contributors were asked the question “Why does SNS usage cause happiness?” and their answers were retrieved. The answers were encoded and entered to the NVivo software to conduct analyses. Based on the most frequent answers of the participants, three different experts were consulted and seven themes were created accordingly. These seven themes include Need for Stroke, Self-Concealment, Ease of Interaction, Ease of Accessing and Disseminating Information, Ease of Shopping, Leisure Activity, and Fear of Missing Out. Subcategories were also created for these seven themes. It was concluded that the theme of FoMO is nourished by all other themes.

This paper seeks to investigate the implementation of the Productive Pedagogies Framework in Nigerian mathematics classroom setting. The researcher adopted a qualitative case study approach to seeking data for the three research questions postulated for the study. Three mathematics teachers taught mathematics in two secondary schools in two Central states of Nigeria using the Productive Pedagogies framework introduced to them by the researcher. Two major instruments (observation and reflective interviews) were employed to seek information from the teachers and the students. While the researcher uses the grounded theory approached to interpret and or analyzed the data collected. The findings of this study suggest that the teachers made attempts to used Productive Pedagogies framework to achieved quality mathematics classroom instructions. This was demonstrated in their effort to used problem-solving to achieve intellectual quality classrooms instructions, making mathematics classroom instruction relevant to the world around their students, developing an atmosphere of friendship during classroom instruction and identifying and recognizing the differences existed among students during classroom instruction. It was observed that the used of the Productive Pedagogies can increase students’ engagement, collaborations, interactions, substantive conversations and effective inclusion during mathematics classroom instruction in which the research finally recommended the adoption of the Productive Pedagogies framework in the Nigerian mathematics classroom.

The aim of this study is to investigate teachers’ perceptions about the importance of learning innovation toward critical thinking ability in learning mathematics. The subjects in this study are the teachers and the students of grade Vin Al-Islam 6 Al-Fajar, Muhammadiyah 23 and Cokroaminoto Islamic Elementary School Surakarta. The research method used in this research is qualitative case study. The problem in the research is the students' mathematics score is low that is seen from the results of the daily test’s students which showed 85% get grades below the minimal mastery criteria there is 60. The analysis technique used is triangulation. Validation used is qualitative descriptive. Based on the results of interviews to a number of teachers who teach mathematics in the fifth-grade in Pasarkliwon sub-district, it can be concluded that students' critical thinking ability in mathematics is low so that it is required innovative learning model used by the teachers.

Spiritual growth and development is frequently cited as an outcome of participation in service-learning projects.  However, little research has focused on measuring the students' ability to understand the connection between the service-learning experience and their personal faith and the ability to live out their Christian values in the field.  Notably missing from this particularly limited area of study is the Christian values convergence of being able to understand the worth of all people and a desire to be engaged in serving the community. Encompassing both quantitative and qualitative research methods, this study investigates undergraduate business students’ perceptions of the impact of a semester-long urban service-learning project on their spiritual lives and faith formation.  Specific attention is given to exploring the students' perception of faith as demarcated by the Christian praxis of the students' relationship with God and with others.

The aim of this study is to collect and analyze children's comments on the pictures in children's story books. Four students studied in the first grade of a public primary school in Adana participated in the study. The research model is an example of phenomenology among qualitative research patterns. Focus group method was used as the data collection tool and observation method was used in a second exercise to support the first method. In focus group discussion "The City on the Wind" by Behic Ak, selected as the Book 1, was reviewed along with 4 participating students. In the second exercise, the book named "The Little Match Girl" selected as Book 2 was reviewed. Descriptive analysis and document analysis methods were used in the analysis of the research data. Students' comments on the pictures were collected under four different themes. "Description" among these themes was the most common in student expressions. The sentences for the themes of superficial interpretation, imaginative interpretation and critical understanding were less frequently used by students. Another finding of the study is the number of words students used to describe the picture. Students built short sentences not exceeding 2-3 words.  

Teacher Education Programs (TEPs) are intended to prepare students to become qualified professionals in the field of education. Yet, many preservice teachers (PSTs) have difficulty recognizing their new roles, not simply as students in the TEP, but as future educators. As PSTs progress through their coursework, field experiences, and student teaching, their perceptions of teacher knowledge evolves. Teacher educators may assist in positively influencing such transformation through reflective exercises, learning activities, and thoughtful discourse. The present research examines four classroom discussions centered on a mathematics and science activity. These discussions illustrate the changes in perspective with respect to mathematics and science teacher knowledge, among a cohort of elementary PSTs between the beginning and end of their first year in a TEP.   

Pictologics (PLS) is a language teaching method which relies on imaginative usage of pictures. The current paper reports the effects of applying this method on enhancing critical thinking ability of the Malaysian students. 69 students (32 boys & 37 girls) in two classes in a public primary school in Penang, Malaysia participated in this study. The experiment covered ten 1-hour sessions which were all audio-recorded and video-taped. The main objective was to engage the students in short conversations in English by using new words that they were learning via PLS. The following qualitative instruments were employed in this study: interviews with the teachers, focus group interviews with the students, a group interview with students’ parents, class check-list of the students’ behavior during the sessions, photos, and video footages. The findings reveal significant patterns of critical thinking among the students such as recognizing and criticizing assumptions, giving reasons to support a conclusion, incorporating isolated data into a wider framework, and using analogies to solve problems. The author strongly recommends application of adopted PLS techniques to be used either alone, or combined with the other conventional language teaching methods.

This research is part of developing study on the Civic education teaching material based on PBL. This research aims to determine the process of developing the teaching material of Civic education based on PBL for the fourth-grade of elementary school in order to improve students’ learning outcome. The result of the previous study shows that the teaching material does not currently fulfill the students’ need. Method of research used is a descriptive qualitative and quantitative. This research consists of two activities namely the composing of extensive and limited test. In the implementation, the extensive test has a broader scope than limited test. Methods of collecting data in this research are interview, observation, expert assessment and test. The instruments of this research are interview guide, field notes, expert assessment sheet and test sheet of the student learning outcome. Stages in this activity include the preparation of teaching material Civic education based on PBL, experts’ validation of Civic education teaching material based on PBL, and field trials. The result of this research is a draft of teaching material of Civic education based on PBL including introduction, content and closing. It is eligible used by nine experts. The student learning outcome that uses the teaching material Civic education based on PBL is improved.

The first step towards discussing a phenomenon or a concept in depth and with powerful scientific principles and methodology is to develop, adapt and utilize tools that accurately measure and discover the problem. For this purpose, the present study concentrated on paternalistic leadership, which is a new concept in the field of management, and reliability and validity studies on the scale (PLS) that was used to assess paternalistic leadership by Cheng et al. (2004) were conducted to add the scale to the national literature. The study was conducted on the data collected from 326 (EFA) + 255 (CFA) research assistants to determine the validity of the scale. In a determination of the reliability of the scale, item-total point correlations and Cronbach’s Alpha internal consistency coefficient were used. In order to determine how the scale works in different cultural and qualitative samples, the adaptation version was discussed by comparing with the previous factor analysis studies of the PLS. The analysis showed that adaptation version of the PLS, with the structure of its 3 sub-dimensional and 23-items, will able to be used in studies aiming to determine the characteristics of paternalistic leadership in the organizational structure and management processes of universities for the researchers working in the field of higher education.

This research aims to combine the results of the studies conducted  in educational organizations between the years 2008-2018 that investigated correlation between organizational trust, and organizational support, organizational citizenship, organizational justice, organizational commitment, mobbing, organizational silence, job satisfaction, organizational cynicism and ethical leadership and obtain an overall result. Within this scope, meta-analytic method was used in the study. A literature review was performed by using the concepts "trust" and "organizational trust".  A total of 43 independent studies were incorporated into the research by considering the selection criteria determined by the researcher. The total sample size (teacher, academician and school administrator) is 22859. The studies included in the research were analyzed according to random effects model (REM). According to the results of the analysis, there is a high positive correlation between organizational trust, organizational justice [r = .70] and ethical leadership [r = .82]; a moderate positive correlation between organizational trust and organizational commitment [r = .51], organizational support [r = .57], organizational citizenship [r = .43] and job satisfaction [r = .61]. In addition, there was a moderate negative correlation between organizational trust, organizational cynicism [r = -.62] and organizational silence [r = -.30]; and also a low negative correlation between organizational trust and mobbing [r = -.24]. Based on these findings, the high level of organizational justice, organizational support and ethical leadership perceptions of the education stakeholders increase level of organizational trust; whereas the high level of organizational trust increases their job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behaviors and organizational commitment, and reduces organizational cynicism and organizational silence perceptions. In addition, employees' exposure to mobbing causes a decrease in organizational trust levels.