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.

The study focused on languages of education in Nigeria and extent of implementation in the (UBE) Schools in Ebonyi State. The study adopted a descriptive survey design. The population of the study constituted all the Universal Basic Education teachers in the 13 LGA of the State. A sample study of 555 respondents was selected using proportionate stratified random sampling technique which reflected teachers in the urban and the rural schools. The instrument used was questionnaire which was validated and trial tested for reliability and a value of 0.84 was obtained. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t- test was used to test the hypotheses at 0.05 alpha level of significant. Findings showed that languages in education were implemented to a low extent and that extent of materials that enhance languages’ effective implementation were made available to a low extent which were more experienced in schools in rural areas. It was recommended that teachers should embrace stipulations of the Government based on the National Policy on Education and that the government should embark on training and retraining of teachers on different languages in Nigerian Education and provide other resources for effective language implementation.

Three methodological approaches were applied to understand the role of interest and self-efficacy in reading and/or writing in students without and with persisting specific learning disabilities (SLDs) in literacy. For each approach students in grades 4 to 9 completed a survey in which they rated 10 reading items and 10 writing items on a Scale 1 to 5; all items were the same but domain varied. The first approach applied Principal Component Analysis with Varimax Rotation to a sample that varied in specific kinds of literacy achievement. The second approach applied bidirectional multiple regressions in a sample of students with diagnosed SLDs-WL to (a) predict literacy achievement from ratings on interest and self-efficacy survey items; and (b) predict ratings on interest and self-efficacy survey items from literacy achievement. The third approach correlated ratings on the surveys with BOLD activation on an fMRI word reading/spelling task in a brain region associated with approach/avoidance and affect in a sample with diagnosed SLDs-WL. The first approach identified two components for the reading items (each correlated differently with reading skills) and two components for the writing items (each correlated differently with writing skills), but the components were not the same for both domains. Multiple regressions supported predicting interest and self-efficacy ratings from current reading achievement, rather than predicting reading achievement from interest and self-efficacy ratings, but also bidirectional relationships between interest or self-efficacy in writing and writing achievement.  The third approach found negative correlations with amygdala connectivity for 2 reading items, but 5 positive and 2 negative correlations with amygdala connectivity for writing items; negative correlations may reflect avoidance and positive correlations approach. Collectively results show the relevance and domain-specificity of interest and self-efficacy in reading and writing for students with persisting SLDs in literacy.

This pilot study focuses on the impact of academic conferences from a gender-based perspective. What motivates faculty members to attend conferences? Which conferences do they choose? Can differences be found between men and women in their attitude to the effect of the conference and its contribution to their academic work, in light of many studies on the significance women attach to the value of family and its prioritization over their career? The study dealt with a case study of one university in Israel. Ninety four academic faculty members from a variety of departments completed a questionnaire, including 60.9% women and 39.1% men. The main finding is that, among both men and women, academic conferences are perceived as contributing to their professional development. Faculty members addressed the contribution of conferences to their professional development. Findings showed that professional focusing during conferences results in publications and develops interest in the conference – and not vice versa, i.e., it is not interest in the conference that leads to publications. It was also found that the size of the conference predicts the significance of the focus on professional aspects. From a gender perspective, women prefer small conferences. In addition, for women, although they prefer small conferences they attach significance to collaborations that lead to professional focusing on their fields of research. Women appear to bring their "family-oriented patterns" to their work, explaining their inclination to small and more intimate conferences. The research findings might have an impact on the consideration given to planning academic conferences in order to reach the academic outcomes expected by faculty members who perceive conferences as an essential platform for their professional development.  

The purpose of this study was to compare and associate BrainDance activity to a control group on reading scores as well as social, learning, and negative behavior. A total of 40 students in two classrooms participated in this study. A Likert scale and words per minute   reading scores followed by quantitative analysis using a t-test to document and assess students’ behaviors and reading scores. The findings indicated no significant difference in reading fluency, but the BrainDance group improved in four specific areas—focus, use of sense, multiple senses, and restlessness. There were positive correlations of social and learning behaviors, but negative correlations for learning and negative behaviors in addition to social and negative behaviors.

Energy literacy is a minimum required capacity for developing a sustainable society that participates in and discusses on energy and environmental (EE) issues. Understanding the energy literacy structure is of significant importance for providing effective energy education to promote people’s awareness of EE issues. In this article, an energy literacy structural model integrated with the Theory of Planned Behavior and Value-Belief-Norm Theory was investigated for 1070 lower secondary students (ages 13-15) in Japan. Structural equation modeling uncovered that the awareness of consequences is the most powerful predictor for the causality between basic energy knowledge and energy-saving behavior through the attitude toward the energy-saving behavior. A conditional process analysis elucidated that (1) the conditional effect of basic energy knowledge on the awareness of consequences depends on scientific literacy, critical thinking ability, and environmental worldview, and (2) the conditional direct and indirect effects in the mediation model of awareness of consequences on the attitude toward energy-saving behavior through the ascription of responsibility depend on environmental worldview or values and family discussion of energy-related issues. The energy literacy model proposed provides a theoretical contribution to the development of an effective energy education program.

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.

This study analyses the relationships between schools’ structural capital, teachers’ organizational commitment and job satisfaction. 32 schools were selected randomly with cluster sampling method from the primary schools at Hatay city in the 2017-2018 academic year. Of the 300 questionnaires that were distributed, 264 were found to be validated and taken into analysis. The final structural equation model suggests that schools’ structural capital perceived by teachers is positively related to teachers’ organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Organizational commitment is a full mediator in the relationship between structural capital and job satisfaction. Teachers working at schools which are perceived to have a high level of structural capital, feel more committed to their school and thereby get satisfied with their job. School administrators are recommended to invest in promoting the level of school’s structural capital, if they want teachers to be more committed and satisfied which are key factors of performance at schools.

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 was conducted to investigate the predictive role of homophobia and unconditional self-acceptance on respect of differences in psychological counselor candidates. Participants were 239 psychological counselor candidates. The Respect of Differences Scale, the Homophobia Scale, and the Unconditional Self-Acceptance Scale were used to collect the data. Path analysis was used to determine the influences of variables on respect of differences. The independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA were used to determine differences between participants in terms of gender and grade. The results of the analysis indicated that homophobia and unconditional self-acceptance are predictors of respect of differences, and place of living and traditionally have an indirect effect on respect of differences. In addition, female participants reported a higher level of respect of differences than male participants. Similarly, first year college students reported a higher level of respect of differences than fourth year college students.

Understanding the structure of energy literacy is of importance to provide an effective energy education. This article reports the difference in attributes of energy literacy by applying the energy literacy structural model proposed in our previous study through lower secondary school students in Thailand (N = 635) and Japan (N = 1070). Results indicated that Thai students scored higher than those of Japan except the basic energy knowledge and awareness of consequences. On the other hand, the amount of basic energy knowledge did not affect to increase the entire energy literacy of Japanese students. Moreover, mean values of Japan tended to decrease with the school year progression. The energy literacy model was able to support our previous outcome that the awareness of consequences plays a critical role to link between basic energy knowledge and energy-saving behavior. The social expectations or pressures may affect the structure of energy literacy of Thai students. This study suggested that the energy education required in Thailand is to enable students to derive solutions by their own critical thinking based on knowledge relevant to the energy and environmental issues. While, for Japan, it may be necessary to implement energy education as early as possible to enhance students’ awareness of consequences in an appropriate manner incorporating with family participation and visiting energy-related facility. These findings contribute the development of energy education for improving energy literacy in an effective manner.  

The aim of this study is to identify parental involvement types and determine what type of parental involvement the parents of middle school children prefer. Moreover, it is aimed to examine the parental involvement types with regard to the parents' gender, their educational background and the socio-economic status of the school. The population of the study comprises the parents of the six grade students study in  29 middle schools during 2018-2019 academic year in Denizli province in Turkey. The sample of the study consists of 243 volunteer parents in three different schools with low, medium and high socio-economic level based on their residential area according to the information obtained from the National Education Directorate. According to the data obtained from the scale, it was seen that parents were more likely to use parenting, learning at home and decision-making as parent involvement types; on the other hand they used 'collaborating with community' the least. Parental involvement types did not differ significantly according to gender. Whether parents are female or male did not affect the types of participation. This may be related to parents' trust in school. It may be stated that the school, which had a higher social status, met the expectations of parents and did not require active participation. Parental involvement types varied significantly depending on the parents' educational background.

Art is one of the most powerful ways of expressing an individual's internal state, expectations and needs with an aesthetic attitude. Different materials can be used during the expression process including colour, line, sound, movement, word, object and so on. Although the materials used in these branches of art are different from each other, the path followed in the application process and the final results are the same “to reveal an aesthetic product”. In order for an artistic practice to mature and reach the beautiful one, the practitioner must have the art education discipline and acquire certain knowledge, skills and understanding of the art field concerned. The art of painting, which is one of the plastic arts, provides the ability to search for beauty through lines and colours on two dimensional surfaces, to create compositions and express the individual's self with this composition, also has its own beauty value criteria. From this point of view, it was aimed to determine the opinions of the prospective teachers studying in the Department of Painting Education in the study about the beauty criteria that should be in the picture. In this study, survey method which is one of the quantitative research methods was preferred. As a data collection tool, a five - point Likert - type scale was developed by the researchers, and 25 items were used. 110 prospective teachers from various grades participated in the study. The results of the research showed that the prospective teachers greatly contributed to the beauty criteria that should be in the picture.

This paper sought to look at collaboration as an effective tool for mathematics classroom instruction. Four preservice teachers in a qualitative case study taught mathematics to three senior secondary school classes in two secondary schools in Northern Nigeria for a period of 15 weeks spread over three years. During this period 12 students volunteered to participate in four focus group discussions on the effectiveness of the pedagogy in their classrooms. Observations, research journals and focus groups were used to collect data for the study. A Narrative approach to data analysis was used to analyses the data collected. The findings of the study suggested that, the preservice teachers had initial challenges introducing the framework into their classrooms, they, however, gradually adopted the pedagogy into their classroom teaching. The study suggested that the preservice teachers used collaborative groupings and higher ordered questions to foster collaboration among their students. Some benefits of this strategy were also highlighted from the study. Prominent among them was the effective teacher-student and student-student relationship, help students see mathematics problems as common problems and reduced the domineering attitude of mathematics teachers who see themselves as possessing the monopoly of knowledge. Other findings observed in the study include the replacement of the teacher-centered approach to teaching with a student-centered approach. Therefore, it is suggested that, if collaboration is introduced into Nigerian mathematics classrooms, the traditional teacher-controlled mathematics classroom instruction that has bedeviled our classrooms will be reduced, and a new student-centered learning approach will be put in place.

Computational thinking is a way of thinking that covers 21st century skills and includes new generation concepts such as robotics, coding, informatics and information construction. Computational thinking has reached an important point especially in the field of science in line with the rapid developments in technology. Robotics applications, software-based activities, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) education and problem-based studies are some of the areas where this thinking is used. In this study, which is based on this point, it is aimed to develop a scale for computational thinking. Exploratory sequential design, one of the mixed research methods, was used in the study. First of all, a detailed literature review was conducted and needs analysis was carried out. This study consists of two stages. In the first stage, exploratory factor analysis was performed and analyzed with SPSS 23 program. In the second stage, confirmatory factor analysis was performed and analyzed with LISREL 9.2 program. As a result of the study, the goodness of fit indexes of the scale was found. According to this; X²/df value 1.81; NNFI value 0.97; NFI value 0.93; CFI value 0.98; RMR value 0.05; SRMR value 0.04; AGFI value 0.91 and GFI value was found to be 0.93. When the reliability values of the study were examined, Cronbach’s Alpha value was found to be 0.86. As a result of the research, a computational thinking scale consisting of 3 factors and 30 items was developed. This scale was developed for prospective teachers and can be used at all levels of prospective teachers.

The character strengths and virtues approach is a classification system to examine the characteristics of good character in terms of twenty-four strengths and six virtues. This study was designed to investigate the psychometric properties regarding the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the VIA-Youth. A tool developed to evaluate the character strengths of youth. In addition, character strengths were examined in terms of life satisfaction, values and demographic characteristics. 1963 high school students between 14-19 years participated in this study by completing VIA-Youth and the Human Values and Life Satisfaction inventories. The results confirm the six-factor model in the theoretical framework. It has also been concluded that character strengths affect life satisfaction and values and that socio demographic features are related to strengths. The adaptation of this inventory into Turkish culture contributes to the current understanding of the universal aspects of character strengths for studies within the context of positive youth development. Besides the adaptation, the relationships between character strengths, values, demographic characteristics and life satisfaction were discussed and suggestions were made.

This study describes the development and validation of a psychometrically-sound instrument, the Active Learning Strategies Inventory (ALSI), designed to measure learners’ perceptions of their active learning strategies within an active learning context. Active learning encompasses a broad range of pedagogical practices and instructional methods that connect with an individual learner's active learning strategies. In order to fulfill the study's goals, a conceptual framework on learners’ active learning strategies was developed and proposed, drawing upon the research literature on active learning. The development and construct validation of the Active Learning Strategies Inventory (ALSI), based on the conceptual and methodological underpinnings, involved identifying five scales of learners’ active learning strategies: engagement, cognitive processing, orientation to learning, readiness to learn and motivational orientation. An item pool of 20 items was generated following an extensive review of the literature, standardized card sorting procedures including confirmatory factor analysis and scale validation of a pilot (n = 407) survey. The ALSI scale demonstrated strong internal consistency and reliability with a Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.81 to 0.87. High item loading scores from the factor analysis provided initial support for the instrument's construct validity of the five-factor model. The ALSI scale provides a reliable and valid method for researchers and academicians who wish to measure learners' perceptions of their active learning strategies within an active learning context. Finally, we discuss the implications and address the limitations and directions for future research.

The purpose of this study is to examine the mediator role of cognitive flexibility and difficulties in emotion regulation in the relationship between resilience and distress tolerance amongst college students. The sample of the study involved 1114 students (771 females, 343 males) from various universities in Turkey. The mean age of the sample was 20.65 (Sd=2.77). The Resilience Scale, Distress Tolerance Scale, Cognitive Flexibility Scale, and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) had been used to collect data. In this study, a Serial Multiple Mediation Model was used, as proposed by Hayes. The findings showed that people with a higher level of distress tolerance possess higher degrees of cognitive flexibility and that cognitively more flexible individuals experience less difficulty in emotion regulation, and thus, lower levels of difficulty in emotion regulation were associated with an increase in resilience. Furthermore, the model in its entirety had proven to be statistically significant, accounting for 42% of the total variance.

“Mathematical knowledge for teaching” is a concept indicating the requirement for a specific kind of knowledge required to teach mathematics. Mathematical knowledge for teaching necessitates a more complex structure than what is required to carry out mathematical tasks and the knowledge to do that. The purpose of this study is to realize the adaptation of “Mathematical Knowledge for Teaching -Geometry (MKT-G)” Test that was initially conceived in English to Turkish (or to Turkish culture). During the adaptation process; after the translations of the items, focus group interviews were held with a group consisting of mathematics teacher educators and experienced mathematics teachers, and then the data from 243 elementary mathematics teachers was analyzed via  Item Response Theory (IRT). As a result of the analysis of the test items, psychometric values of the test items indicated that the items in the test performed well in Turkey. Besides, validity and reliability arguments were also tested. As a result, the Turkish version of the MKT-G test is highly reliable and valid to measure the teachers’ knowledge of teaching geometry.

This research aims to reveal the first-year experiences of social studies teachers who have just started their profession in the public sector. Also, it aims to reveal what awaits teachers in the school environment and the current experiences of teachers at the beginning of the profession. Case study design, one of the qualitative research designs, was used in the study. The study group of the research consists of 34 social studies teachers working in secondary schools affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (Turkey) in the districts of Ankara. Participants were selected on an equal basis from all districts of Ankara province. Purposeful sampling, one of the non-random sampling methods was used in determining participants. In addition, criterion sampling was also used in the purposeful sampling phase. The obtained data were subjected to the content and descriptive analysis. As a result of the research, following the latest changes and developments and developing their basic knowledge and skills seems important for teachers who started their profession in the public sector. The multidisciplinary of the social studies branch, attractivity, and the fact that there are no alternatives comes to the fore in teachers' decision-making process to become social studies teachers. In addition, teachers participating in the research suggested to new teachers that they should master their fields, maintain their personal development, get to know the target group, and maintain strong communication in school.