New higher education trends such as massification, quality development efforts, and increased competition at both national and international levels have forced higher education institutions to change consistently and increase their capacity. As a result, universities have entered a new era in which their financial needs dramatically increased. Given the fact that the significant parts of the higher education expenditures are traditionally covered by the state budget in most countries, we are in a very critical period. Yet, the sources allocated from the state budget are not sufficient to fulfill the needs of universities in most of the time. In this regard, how to meet the increased financial needs of higher education is one of the most important issues which higher education systems have faced. Therefore, it is very important to investigate the financial structures of universities in different countries and provide informed alternatives for Turkey. The aims of this study are investigating the current situation and trends regarding to higher education financing in developed countries and providing suggestions on higher education financing in Turkey

In this study, the internationalism strategies and policies of Turkish higher education institutions and their reflections has been compared with the way in which the higher education institutions practise in the United Kingdom. This study has been conducted with regard to the foreign students enrolled on the Turkish programmes, the position of the universities at the international rankings (Times Higher Education Rankings) and the number of the international academic staff in Turkish universities. The results showed that although Turkish universities and Turkish Council of Higher Education have not completed their process of making a compatible internationalism policy, especially the internationalism strategies of the foundation universities have been more successful and these universities have showed much better results in the rankings by means of their successful internationalism strategies and policies. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true that the internationalism strategies in the non-profit universities are very healthy due to the fact that the state universities showed great success in recruiting more international students.

Self-concept, self efficacy, and self-regulation are three important factors that predict the success of L2 learners to a large extent. Therefore, the present study was designed to measure the academic self-concept, self efficacy, self-regulation level of higher education students in relation to academic achievement and self-evaluation and secondarily to investigate the correlation between academic self-concept, selfefficacy, and self-regulation. In the present study, academic self-concept was conceptualized as comprising of two main components: academic confidence and academic effort. The participants of the study are 130 higher education EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners enrolled in English Language and Literature department. Liu and Wang’s (2005) academic self-concept scale was used as the main data collection tool. It consists of two sub-scales; academic confidence and academic effort scales. A four-item questionnaire was formed by examining the literature in order to measure self-efficacy and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ), developed by Pintrich et al. (1991), was used to measure self-regulation beliefs of students. Descriptive, variance, correlation and regression analyses were conducted in order to analyze the data. The results indicated that higher education Turkish EFL learners have a moderate-to-high level of self-concept, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and self-evaluation. High achieving students were found to have higher levels of selfregulation, self-evaluation and academic confidence. Correlation analysis indicated that all of the variables of the study are highly correlated with academic success and regression analysis revealed that self-efficacy was the most important predictor of academic success.

The purpose of this study is to measure the attitudes of faculty members regarding a performance evaluation system. Scan model has been carried out on 122 university faculty members that work for a university chosen by deliberate sampling method. The survey questionnaire was developed from the study of Tonbul and the corresponding area of literature determined by Turkish Council of Higher Education relating to “criteria for promotion and appointment of positions”. The data were analyzed using SPSS 17 with the reliability analysis, factor analysis, variance analysis, Kruskal Wallis-H, Mann Withney-U tests and means. According to findings of the research, the most significant performance dimensions perceived by faculty members were respectively research, education and training, community service and management support. Besides, university members looked favorably on a performance evaluation system assessing their performance periodically

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceptions of women academicians regarding “being a woman academician” through metaphors. The participants of the research are 67 women faculty members working in a newly established university in Central Anatolia Region in the 2013-2014 academic year. “Women Academicians Metaphors Survey” developed by the researchers was used as the data collection tool. Phenomenological design was used in the research and data was analyzed by using content analysis technique. As a result of data analysis, it was determined that women academicians developed a total of 65 metaphors. The metaphors developed by the participants were collected under nine conceptual categories. There are 18 metaphors such as ‘octopus’, ‘foodprocessor’, ‘cloned person’, ‘chameleon’, ‘shaman’, ‘Swiss army knife’ in the first category namely “woman academician as someone with multiple duties and responsibilities”. While the category of “woman academician as someone nourishing her vicinity with her productions” has nine metaphors such as ‘soil’, ‘scientist’, ‘cloud’, ‘water’; the category of “woman academician as someone diligent” consists of metaphors of ‘bee’, ‘ant’ and ‘high-speed train’. There are seven metaphors such as ‘tumbler’, ‘warrior’, ‘duck’ in the category of “woman academician as someone standing strong under difficulties”; six metaphors such as ‘non-fuel powered car’, ‘candle’, ‘devoted mother’ in the category of “woman academician as someone devoted”; five metaphors such as ‘miracle’, ‘superhero’ in the category of “woman academician as a miraculous presence”; four metaphors such as ‘salaried housewife’ and ‘employed housewife’ in the category of “woman academician primarily as a housewife”; three metaphors as ‘scales’, ‘tightrope walker’ and ‘pendulum’ in the category of “woman academician as someone having to maintain a balance”; three metaphors as ‘window dressing’, ‘plan B’ and ‘presence trying to become a whole’ in the category of “woman academician as someone unnamed”

The aim of this study is to determine views of academic staff who have been to the United States in order to do a research study by means of scholarships and support programs provided by the Higher Education Council or Scientific or Technological Research Council of Turkey about the scholarship programs. The qualitative study is carried out as a holistic multiple case study research design. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews from 10 academic staff who participated the scholarship program. Data were analyzed with content analysis technique. The results indicated that application process, time and financial resources were important for the preferences of academic staff in scholarship and support programs. The main reasons for applying the scholar program to undertake an international research study are grouped under three headings as academic, socio-cultural and foreign language improvements. The main influencing factors behind the researchers’ preferences to go the United States are its’ level of advancements in scientific research and peer influence. Concerning the duration of a research study in abroad the participants thought that 6 months to one year is adequate time and this time depends on the foreign language skills of the researchers, the field of study, subject and project. The main drawbacks of an international research study visit are the long waiting times for having the United States visa with no adequate support, the cost of health insurance and visa, lack of speaking foreign language skills, and adaptation time in the first arrival. As a result, the experienced participants suggested that the future scholarships have to cover health insurance; the researchers have to be supported for developing their foreign language skills and develop a clear research agenda and project prior to going abroad

This study was designed as a qualitative descriptive study to map out the challenges and suggestions in regard to the problems of professionalization of midwifery in Turkey and it was presented as a master thesis in June 2012. The study was conducted in seven universities in Turkey which provided master programs in midwifery. The study participants included twenty faculty members in midwifery departments in these universities who consented to participate. An interview guide consisting of 10 semistructured open-ended questions was used as an instrument of data collection and interviews were recorded. The process of data collections was conducted as face-to-face interviews by a researcher between 28th June 2011-7th December 2011. The recordings were transformed into text. Written audio recording outputs were analyzed by the content analysis which is one of the qualitative data analysis method. Major problems of professionalization of midwifery in Turkey were found as incompetent legislative regulations in midwifery, insufficient professional organizations, problems of autonomy, and insufficient scientific researches in the field. The participants suggested updating the legislative regulations, opening doctoral programs in midwifery departments, strenghtening professional organizations, supporting clinical midwifes to conduct scientific researches. In light of the results, it was concluded that professionalization of midwifery has still certain structural problems. It is maintained that regulations to be made in line with the suggestions in this study will certainly enhance professionalization of midwifery. It was pointed out that it is required to support graduate programs in midwifery, to open new doctoral programs, to support midwifery departments in terms of equipment and human resources, to clarify job definitions, to decrease the number of students in these faculties and to enact legislative regulations in regard to midwifery profession.

The aim of this study is to determine academic dishonesty behaviors based on the opinions of pre-service elementary and social studies teachers. This study was designed using a student self-report survey questionnaire. The sample of this study consisted of 445 pre-service teachers. The research data was collected using “the academic dishonesty behaviors opinion survey” developed for this research. The research data was analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques and chi-square test. Results indicated 23 items that pre-service teachers agreed on were about academic dishonesty. Of these 10 items were about academic cheating and 13 items were about plagiarism in assignments. The top three academic dishonesty behaviors based on participants opinion were respectively having another person take the test on behalf, stealing exam materials and handing in someone else’s essay with his/her name on it. Most pre-service teachers did not accept 4 items as an academic dishonest behavior. These items were using old exam questions in order to prepare an exam, using someone else’s notes in order to prepare an exam, to give information to other class students after taking the exam, and taking an exam after receiving information from students who already took the exam. In this study, another important finding was about gender differences; female preservice teachers showed more concern than male pre-service teachers about academic dishonesty behaviors. There were also a few limited significant differences both in grade and class level in all academic dishonesty behaviors.

Named as 4+4+4 by the public, the law which extends the compulsory education in Turkey to 12 years stage by stage and which demands some amendments in Elementary Education Law Number 6287 and some other laws came into force by being published in the Official Gazette with number 28261 on 11th April, 2012. Social Studies was continued to be implemented in the 5, 6, 7 and 8th grades as a major area course in the 4+4+4 education system. The changes and innovations that are performed in the program have created different effects on the administrators, the teachers and the students at the schools. In this research, it was aimed to determine the opinions of the social studies teachers about the chaotic situations caused by innovations and changes experienced in social studies. The Research is a special case study conducted with the qualitative research approach. As a result, teachers who participated in the survey evaluated the positive and negative aspects of the 4+4+4 education system application. It is determined that the teachers who find the system negative had chaotic situations about student’s age, physical environment, application-guidance, harmony wih school, continuity of the system and administration problems. It is concluded that in social studies teaching, teachers had chaotic situations because of deficiency of the program, inadequate time of lessons causing not to catch up with the scheduled time, harmony problems of the students who begin the secondary school just after the fourth grade and students’ insufficiency in cognitive and sensual developmental levels of readiness. It is determined that students had chaotic problems caused by the change of their physical environment, leaving their friends and leaving their class teacher while trying to adapt to their new branch teacher. It is determined that these results made the teachers face chaotic and complex situations and caused them not to be able to foresee the future.

The changes in the society change peoples expectations from individuals and correspondingly expectations from educational institutions. Accordingly, different implementations are observed. One of the implementations is the Bologna process which is a reform process, aimed at establishing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Developing programs as part of the Bologna process is important because it both contributes to the efforts to be a part of global world in a rapidly growing world, and to the quality assurance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the curriculum developed in Bologna process in the faculties of law in Turkish universities. The survey model has been used in this research which is a descriptive study. As part of data collection faculties of law from 72 universities, including 28 state and 44 private universities were selected. Program packages and course catalogs of those faculties, accessed through their web sites were examined. In addition, five law faculties, which admit students with the highest scores according to the Student Selection and Placement Systems results, were selected for detailed investigation. Curriculums packages and five core courses, which are common in the five faculties, were evaluated based on instructional methods and techniques, and evaluation system used and ECTS workload calculations. Results indicated that, in approximately half of the institutions packages examined, information about the program goals, key learning outcomes and occupational profiles of graduates were not available in the web pages of related institutions, contrary to the Bologna process notion. It is also understood that the object of the law curriculum is to help graduates gain both professional and personal characteristics. On the other hand curriculum qualifications such as the level of knowledge, ability and learning outcomes are being specified based on the learning outcomes specified by National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education in Turkey. In course catalogs of the four courses which are common in the five faculties, some of the terms used were not found to be appropriate with educational science terminology. In addition, it is also observed that the most commonly used method in courses is lecturing and assessment methods consist of midterm and final exams. In accordance with the research results, it could be concluded that issues related to accreditation and curriculum development in law faculties need to be given more attention. It could also be emphasized that collaboration among educational science specialists and law specialists need to be established in developing curriculum and improving instruction.