Vocational Education and Training (VET) is an education type which is at the center of on-going discussions and high expectations. Countries frequently revise VET policies according to the structure of their education systems, and economies. When highly discussed issues related with VET examined in various countries it seems they are mostly similar and these issues continue their existence in different scales. Because of the fact that VET-related issues are not arisen from just themselves but directly related with external factors, it is almost impossible to generate permanent and sustainable solutions for VET without making improvements for those external factors. There are similar issues related to VET in Turkey as well. In this study, prominent VET-related issues are addressed in details, background of problematic fields is mentioned and holistic suggestions for solutions and models are proposed within the scope of Education Vision 2023, announced by Ministry of National Education. In addition, concrete steps which are taken by Ministry of National Education in accordance with proposed solutions are briefly explained.

The main aim of education in nursing schools is to develop critical thinking skills and psychomotor abilities with universal ethical values so that students can present nursing care to healthy and patient’s individuals and their families. Because of the multidimensional of care, the curriculum should be developed by evaluating learning outcomes so that nurses can improve their individual caregiving capabilities. It seems that the nursing education curriculum has been trying to establish a standard for many years. In this study, nursing education curriculum and learning outcomes were emphasized in order to contribute positively to the nursing education and the graduated student profile. Learning outcomes include knowledge, attitudes, and skills that a student must have at the end of the learning process. These outputs are the skills of the cognitive, affective/psychosocial and psychomotor domains planned for each course at the end of the training. Cognitive learning consists of knowledge, understanding, practice, analysis, synthesis and evaluation steps. Teaching basic concepts in this learning is the first step. Affective/psychosocial learning contains feelings. Positive and negative emotions, attitudes, values, information, personal and social characteristics that the individual possesses are evaluated within this learning. Psychomotor learning focuses on physical skills involving the coordination of brain functions and muscle movements. In order to reach the learning objectives determined during the completion of nursing education, learning outcomes are added to the curriculum. Thus, it is assumed that cognitive, affective/psychosocial and psychomotor learning outcomes in the curriculum have been achieved. It will be possible to increase the quality of nursing education by evaluating the learning outcomes of the curriculum in addition to the studies aimed at developing the nursing curriculum.

The purpose of this study is to carry out a descriptive content analysis of the studies that have been considered in recent years within higher education of Turkey (HET). In this research, the thematic, phenomenal and conceptual contents of the studies dedicated to HET were extracted and abstracted in a generalized manner, and it was investigated which methodological approaches were operated by the researchers to attain their studies. This systematic review is descriptive content analysis and includes a total of 119 studies’ descriptive analyses in the context of HET. The contents of the studies were analysed through both qualitative and quantitative lenses. The thematic, phenomenal and conceptual analyses of the study-based contents were patterned by keyword analysis. Involved studies contents have been found to show a quantitative increase especially in 2000 and beyond. The studies examined tended to use the qualitative paradigm as the type of research approach. Furthermore, involved studies incorporating any data gathering process grasped data from a limited number of sources. There have been no interventional studies in the context of the HET. Therefore, improving the HET, as well as, arriving at sufficient and necessary extends pertaining pedagogy, management and quality, may be attached to the following dimensions: decreasing of the position papers consisting of subjective over-interpretations, collecting first-hand data while conducting research, engagement of researchers in data gathering, analysis and interpretation processes, increasing the frequency of interventional studies, benefiting from both positivist and interpretivist paradigm’s methodological outcomes and assertions for actualising the higher education research in a more systematic and pragmatist manner.

The aim of this study was to examine the level of mobbing among Teaching Staff Training Program (TSTP/OYP) research assistants and to examine the relationship between subjective happiness and mobbing exposure. The sample of the study consisted of 213 OYP research assistants from all over Turkey, 115 of whom were female while 98 were of whom are male. The data collection tools of the study include the Negative Acts Questionnaire-Mobbing (NAQ) which was developed by Einarsen and Raknes (1997), and adapted into Turkish by Cemaloglu (2007); and the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) which was developed by Lyubmirsky and Lepper (1999) and adapted into Turkish by Akin and Satici (2011). Although study results revealed there were no significant differences in terms of gender, the mean mobbing exposure score was found to be higher in male academicians. In terms of marital status, it was found that married academicians had higher mobbing exposure scores. Also, the mobbing levels of OYP Research Assistants were found to be a significant predictor of subjective happiness.

It appears that university students mostly procrastinate their academic tasks during their education. The high expectations that university students set for their homework, writing projects, attendance to classes, preparing for exams, etc., their worrying about making mistakes, familial expectations, criticism from their family, not being sure about what they did and their thoughts for regularity or hopelessness taking place in their future thoughts may have an effect on exhibiting procrastination behaviors. Accordingly, the aim of this study was to investigate the role of perfectionism and hopelessness on academic procrastination behaviors of university students. The study had a relational design. The sample of the study consisted of 484 university students studying at Bayburt University during the fall semester of the 2016-2017 academic year. Students’ ages ranged from 18 to 27 (M=19.96, SD=1.50), 278 of (57.4%) of the participants were female, and 206 (42.6%) were male. In order to collect data, Personal Information Form, Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale, Academic Procrastination Scale, and Beck Hopelessness Scale were used. In analyzing data, Pearson’s correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were used. According to the results of the current study, there was a significant positive relationship between procrastination and hopelessness (r=.24, p<.001), procrastination and family criticism (r = .20, p <.001), and procrastination and doubts about actions (r = .12, p <.01), while there was a significant negative relationship between procrastination and personal standards (r=-.15, p<.01) and between procrastination and regularity (r=-.40, p<.001). In addition, the results showed that family criticism (ß=.12, p<.05), doubts about actions (ß = .14, p <.05), personal standards (ß=-.13, p<.05), regularity (ß=-.34, p<.05), and hopelessness (ß=.10, p<.05) explained 22%of the variance in academic procrastination (F(7,476) =18.95, p<.001). The results of the study showed that the dimensions of the multidimensional perfectionism and hopelessness are related to academic procrastination.

This study was performed in order to determine the effect of cerebral dominance in university students on entrepreneurship and assertiveness. The universe of the study consisted of all of the university students studying at the Bulent Ecevit University in the 2014-2015 academic year while the sample consisted of 1167 students from among those who agreed to participate in the study. Data was collected using a “General Information Form” for sociodemographic characteristics, the “Cerebral Dominance Tool”, the “Rathus Assertiveness Scale” and the “Entrepreneurship Scale”. The cerebral dominance and entrepreneurship scores of the cases were found to show significant difference according to gender (p<0.05), and the cerebral dominance score was found to differ according to a year of study and whether the mother of the participant was alive (p<0.05). A significant relationship between the variables of paternal survival and the relationship between parents and cerebral dominance, entrepreneurship, and assertiveness scores was also found (p<0.05). A significant positive relationship between the cerebral dominance scores of the cases and entrepreneurship was found (p<0.05) with entrepreneurship and assertiveness scores increasing alongside cerebral dominance scores. The level of cerebral dominance affects entrepreneurship in students. For this reason, it has been suggested that the factors affecting cerebral dominance should be determined and that the positive factors should be improved. Thus, the entrepreneurship and assertiveness aspects of the students can be improved.

The main aim of this research was to examine the cognitive flexibility and emotional reactivity levels of preschool teacher candidates. Within the framework of this main aim, it was investigated whether there was a significant relationship between the cognitive flexibility and emotional reactivity levels of preschool teacher candidates. In addition, it was investigated that whether the cognitive flexibility and emotional reactivity levels of the preschool teacher candidates varied significantly by age, grade level, income level, number of siblings, reasons of choosing preschool teaching program, type of place they live in, state of being interested in any type of sport and parental attitude they perceive, or not. The relational screening model was used in the research. The study group of the research consists of 143 university students studying in the preschool teaching graduate program of the education faculty of a private university in Istanbul province. ‘Personal Information Form’, ‘Cognitive Flexibility Inventory’ and ‘Emotional Reactivity Scale’ were used as data collection tools in the research. The Emotional Reactivity Scale was developed by Nock, Wedig, Holmberg and Hooley (2008) and adapted to Turkish by Seçer, Halmatov and Gençdogan (2013). The Cognitive Flexibility Inventory was developed by Dennis and Wal (2010) and adapted to Turkish by Sapmaz and Dogan (2013). The data were analyzed using the SPSS 20.0 program. First, it was determined whether the data showed normal distribution. Then, in accordance with the normality of the distribution; Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient Analysis, Kruskal Wallis H Test, Mann Whitney-U Test, One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Independent Group T Test were used to analyze the data. The results obtained from the research were as follows: As the cognitive flexibility level of preschool teacher candidates increases, emotional reactivity level of preschool teacher candidates decreases. The cognitive flexibility and emotional reactivity levels of the preschool teacher candidates did not vary significantly by age, grade level, number of sibling, type of place they live in; but varied significantly by income level, reasons of choosing preschool teaching program, state of being interested in any type of sport and parental attitude they perceive.

In this study, it was aimed to develop a scale in order to investigate middle school students’ considerations about mathematics. An evaluation was executed in terms of gender and grade levels in order to verify the scale. For this purpose, a screening model was used as a research model. A convenient sampling method was selected to determine a study group. In this context, the study was conducted with 659 middle school students. In order to identify the factor structure of the scale, exploratory factor analysis was executed and to verify this structure confirmatory factor analysis was also calculated. Furthermore, item analyses were performed. In order to determine the reliability of the scale, Cronbach alpha was also calculated. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, it was seen that the scale had two sub-factors. These factors were named as positive considerations and negative considerations. It was shown that the developed scale showed a perfect fit according to the confirmatory factor analysis’ results. The item analyses’ results showed that the items on the scale had high-level validity and were sufficiently distinguishable. According to the reliability analyses, it was revealed that both the whole scale and its sub-factors were found sufficiently reliable. In conclusion, it was concluded that the scale was a valid and reliable instrument that could be used to determine middle school students’ thoughts toward mathematics. In addition to this, it was found that even though gender had low effect on mathematical considerations, grade level had a high effect on them.

In the post-conflict societies, education can be a crucial component of political transformation, contributing to peace and reconciliation between former adversaries. However, education continues to be at the centre of ongoing disputes between Kosovo and Serbia, resulting in ethnically parallel education systems. Based on the case of Kosovo, this research examines how ethnic mobilisation and political dynamics are reflected in the Universities, and what can be done to establish integrated higher education. The article follows theory guided process tracing based on a case study and content analysis of relevant reports and legal acts by comparing parallel running universities of two major ethnic communities. The central claim is that dissolving of the parallel university and developing of unitary higher education system improves long-term ethnic relations. Further, it discusses citizenship education as an incentive in integrated higher education that promotes peace in post-conflict societies.

Authority is an essential part of learning-teaching processes. Generally, distinction is made between pedagogical authority and authoritarian use of power in educational studies. This distinction indicates continuous tension between positive and negative aspects of authority (Harjunen, 2009). Authority is constantly used in educational literature along with power embedded in authority. Power is discussed in relation to abuse of power as a means of oppression and domination in critical pedagogical studies (Rogers, 2011). Authoritarianism is used in the sense of “misuse, overuse, abuse of power” (Watt, 1982). Giroux (1988) and Freire’s (2005) proposals regarding these concepts, which discuss teacher’s professional power and pedagogical authority within confines of authority and authoritarian use of power dilemma, constitute the frame of this work. According to Giroux (2004), public and higher education are one of a few limited areas where students can learn how democratic living conditions can be improved and what individuals’ social citizenship skills mean. Professors’ pedagogical authority and universities playing a key role in the transformation of individuals and society in the face of students benefiting from education service is seen as a worthwhile subject for research. In this study, the opinions of graduate students who are studying in four different education programs under the institute of education sciences at a state university in Turkey, the source of the authority of the faculty and in it the pedagogical authority and authoritarianism dilemma of practical reflection and voltage aimed to analyze the empirical findings axis. It is aimed to analyze the source of the professor’s authority and its reflection on practice in duality and tension of pedagogical authority and authoritarianism through empirical findings. In this context, answers to such questions as what kind of authority professors use, what the source of their authority is, whether students can question this authority were asked for. The research was designed as a phenomenology from qualitative research designs. Criteria sampling technique was used in identifying participants. Semi-structured interview form including open-ended questions was used as a data collection tool. Students’ experience shows the source of the professor’s authority is not consistent with the qualifications they expect. Professor’s authority should be “knowledge in the discipline, the quality of work; however, students claimed professors’ authority comes from titles and legal authority.

Today, web technologies have an important role for both individuals and institutions to present information and their services. Since there are a great number of public services including accessing to information through websites, accessibility of them is essential in order to ensure equality of opportunity for people with disabilities. This study, which was designed as a descriptive one, was conducted in order to evaluate the accessibility features of university websites, which have an important place among the public institutions, in terms of arrangements for users with visual and hearing impairments. To assess the accessibility level of websites of 179 universities in Turkey, this study employed an evaluation checklist including 20 checkpoints which had been developed in accordance with “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0”. The results obtained by the accessibility evaluation of university websites indicate that no website reached an acceptable accessibility level. The study discovered that there are a number of accessibility errors/drawbacks including in violation of presenting text content with the screen readers, providing text alternatives for prerecorded audio and video content, and providing sign language interpretation for prerecorded audio contents in video media. However, on the other side, there are some good practices of accessibility on most of the university websites including the visual presentation of text and images of text in an acceptable minimum contrast rate, using colors which could be perceived/seen by color-blind users, and providing users with control mechanism to pause or stop the audio or video content and to control audio volume. The results of this study could shed light on the fact that university websites are not accessible to all users. In this way, this study could help to increase awareness of the accessibility of university websites and to make changes in order to enhance web accessibility.

The success of educational services requires the collective movement of many actors (managers, trainers, administrative staff, students) and the necessity of a system that supplies integrity. However, the quality of services which was provided by these actors should be measured at different times and it should be focused on remedial measures by the context of measurement results. This research was carried out with the idea of contributing to services provided by registrar’s office under higher education institutions. In this study, it was aimed to determine expectations and perceptions in the quality of services which was received from registrar’s office by students. For his purpose, data collected by questionnaire from 507 students who have received services from Karabük University registrar’s office between September 2014-June 2015 period. By the result of analyzing survey data for service quality five dimensions including reliability, enthusiasm, physical features, empathy, and trust was reached. These dimensions were compared with demographic and other features of students’ expectations of service quality are prominent by dimensions of reliability, responsiveness, and confidence.

The purpose of this study is to determine the general characteristics of the doctoral programs conducted in the field of educational science in England, to compare with Turkey and to offer some suggestions for doctoral programs in Turkey. In this study, the comparative education method was used, and the data was collected by interviewing five Turkish doctoral students studying in England and examining websites of University College London, University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge. In the data collection process, interview and document review techniques were utilized. A semi-structured interview form consisting of 10 questions was developed by the researcher and implemented to doctoral students. The websites were analyzed in the context of document analysis. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used when analyzing data. As a result, significant differences were found between England and Turkey doctoral programs in terms of the student admission process, courses, teaching-learning process, and the approach of thesis advisors.

Higher education is seen as a source of competition for developed and developing countries. In this competitive environment, higher education has become increasingly popular in Turkey in recent times. Higher education systems are undergoing transformation by being influenced by developments such as the increasing number of students, increasing global and knowledge-based economic innovations and researches, and competition among higher education institutions. The review of these changes has led to reconsider the development of higher education system and management structures in terms of institutional aspects. Thus, it is aimed to evaluate the aim and structure dimensions of higher education in Turkey with the two countries that are thought to direct the developments related to higher education in the world. For this purpose, a phenomenological research design was conducted in the study. Criterion sampling and snowball sampling method is used to determine the participants. Study group involves 29 faculty members. The research data were collected through a semi-structural interview form and interviews were made a face to face. Descriptive and content analysis was used analysis of the data. Themes derived from the research were grouped into two dimensions, including aim and structure. As a result, it appears in the US, and UK universities had specific aims and visions, it is shared, and students and academics are quite conscious in this regard. It is seen that universities have uncertain aims in Turkey. It is observed that bureaucracy is high and universities subject to the upper structure in Turkey. In the UK and US administration is an undesirable position and it is seen as the statute in Turkey.

The purpose of this study is to find out the view of students, who are successfully completed the department of business administration and who are continuing their postgraduate education in business, to the operational research course, which is taken their undergraduate studies, and to make inferences about the course efficiency and quality. The sample of the research consists of 10 students who are studying in master degree at the Department of Business Administration in the Recep Tayyip Erdogan University in the 2017-2018 academic year. In this study, “semi-structured interview technique” was used and data is analysed by using content analysis which is one of the qualitative research methods. The results showed that participants generally had a positive attitude towards the operational research course, but they do not remember much about the content of the course. So, most of them argue that the course did not contribute to them. This is indicating that the course needs to be reviewed in terms of efficiency and quality. Based on the attendees’ views, various suggestions such as the content of the course, the place of the curriculum, and the manner in which the course was taught were also presented in order to increase the quality and efficiency of the course.

The aim of this study is to investigate the perceptions of university students towards non-Euclidean geometries and to investigate the effectiveness of the learning environment created for the teaching of non-Euclidean geometries. For this purpose, a data collection tool has been developed within the framework of two expert opinions. Research data were collected observations and through a data collection tool consisting of 18 open-ended questions on Euclidean geometry, elliptic geometry, and hyperbolic geometry. In the first phase of the study, information about the non-Euclidean geometries of university students was collected through data collection tool. The students are 66 senior students in 10 different departments (37 females and 29 males). The data obtained were analyzed and it was seen that university students generally did not have any information about this subject or they had incorrect information. In the first stage, it is aimed to get information about the ways of thinking about the questions of university students and what kind of teaching materials should be used. In the second phase, a three-week program for teaching non-Euclidean geometries was applied to a total of 42 (25 females and 17 males) prospective teachers. After the course, the test was re-applied. In order to obtain deeper information, semi-structured interviews were conducted with five prospective teachers. In the findings, it was seen that the prospective teachers could not answer the questions or answer them wrongly before the application and they could answer the questions easily after the application. It was concluded that the learning environment created for teaching non-Euclidean geometries was effective. The findings were supported by pre-test post-test responses of prospective teachers, snapshots from web-supported drawings, use of concrete materials and interview sections. In the light of the findings obtained from the research, it was suggested to give more importance to the non-Euclidean geometries and teaching in the curriculum.

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the relationship between self-concealment, gender, past psychological help-seeking experience, self-esteem and loss of face among undergraduate students. Consistent with this purpose, a convenience sample of 334 students (220 females, 114 males) who were recruited from different faculties of a university in the Central Black Sea Region of Turkey consisted of study participants. Participants completed the Self Concealment Scale, Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, Loss of Face Scale and Personal Information Form. Data were analyzed using independent samples t-test, Pearson correlation analysis, and hierarchical regression analysis. Result of this study suggested that undergraduate students who had the past psychological help-seeking experience, who had high loss of face and who had low self-esteem more likely have high self-concealment. Study results may help to a more comprehensive understanding of self-concealment as a personality trait in countries neither exactly individualistic nor collectivistic cultures such as Turkey.

In recent years, many Turkish universities, particularly the foundation universities in the private sector, have adopted English either in part or in full, as the language of instruction. In practice, this has meant that English should be the only working language of instruction in all academic activities, ranging from lectures, seminars, presentations to thesis defenses. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that the ideals of policymakers are not always in tune with the actuals of the policy implementers (Jenkins, 2014; Karakas, 2016a). In the Turkish higher education, there is evidence that lecturers and students often breach the English-only policy by using a mixed-version of Turkish and English, which is widely known as Tarzanca (Tarzanish in English) in Turkey (Collins, 2010; Karakas, 2016b). This critical review seeks to explore the phenomenon of Tarzanish in general and its use in English-medium instruction (EMI) universities in particular. While doing so, it is also aimed to find answers to the following questions: (1) How is Tarzanish conceptualized and described in the dictionaries, literature, online sources (e. g. blogs, discussion forums, etc.) and by scholars? (2) What are its descriptive characteristics in terms of morphology, syntax, and lexis? (3) Why do EMI people (lecturers and students) resort to it? Moreover, (4) what can be done to resolve the issue of Tarzanish in EMI universities? Drawing on the answers to these questions, the paper suggests that the notion of Tarzanish means different things to different people, lay people and EMI people resort to it for different purposes, and its use by lay people and EMI people show divergences due to some variables such as the level of language proficiency and the domains of language use (e.g., tourism, business, and higher education). Finally, some suggestions have been offered for the solution of the issue of Tarzanish in EMI universities.

The aim of this study is to examine students’ perceptions about the quality of education and teaching in a teacher education program. For this purpose, “Student Course Experience Scale“ which was adapted to Turkish by Özcan (2013) and whose validity and reliability studies were completed was used. In addition, an online semi-structured interview form consisting of open-ended questions was used to get detailed views of students on the quality of learning-teaching processes. The study included 74 students enrolled in a pedagogical formation certificate program of a private university. For quantitative analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVA for independent samples were used, and for qualitative analysis, content analysis was used. Student perceptions of education and teaching quality did not differ significantly according to their gender or graduated programme. Findings from the data provide clues about student perceptions and understanding of the quality of their learning process, including where they need support, and in which areas they feel competent. The findings of this study provide insights for teacher training programmes, institutions, and teaching staff. This study also discusses the factors that should be considered for educating qualified and competent teachers.