Theses supervised by Dr. Öğr. Üyesi İlker Kalender
14 theses · İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University
Karar ağacı analizi kullanarak üniversite öğrencilerinin öğretim elemanı değerlendirme formlarındaki memnuniyetinin yordayıcılarını belirlemek
Student evaluation of teaching is a prevalent method to assess instructional quality and student satisfaction in higher education all over the world. However, there is an ongoing debate as to which characteristics of instructors make them effective. This study aimed to discover which instructional characteristics can predict student satisfaction levels. To this end, a CHAID analysis, a form of decision tree analysis, was conducted on SPSS to reveal the relationships between instructional characteristics of instructors and student satisfaction level measured by a SET form. The study was conducted at an English language preparatory school of a non-profit private university in Türkiye. 4281 forms including 23 Likert-type questions were analyzed. The findings show effectiveness and being supportive are the most significant predictors of student satisfaction. Following them, enabling students to evaluate different perspectives, encouragement to share views, feedback, and positivity are highly valued by students. Less significant predictors are found to be variety of activities, asking questions to encourage students to express opinions, subject knowledge, guidance, encouraging active participation, preparedness, and recommending publications in English. All in all, 13 of 23 items were significant predictors of student satisfaction.
Öğretmenlerin kaynaştırma eğitimine karşı tutumları ve yeterlikleri
This study was conducted to systematically review the literature examining the attitudes and efficacy of teachers towards inclusive education in different regions between 2014 and 2024. As a result of the inclusion and exclusion criteria determined within the study's scope, 95 research articles were identified from the Web of Science and Scopus databases and were examined by following systematic analysis steps. Articles were categorized according to demographic, professional, and contextual factors, including methodology, data collection tools, sample size, and teachers' specializations. Results indicate that quantitative methods were most commonly used, with in-service teachers as the most frequently studied group. Sample sizes ranged from 8 to 4567, with a preference for small-scale studies. Primary school teachers represented the most frequently examined specialization, and nearly all studies focused on K–12 educators. The findings section discusses teacher attitudes, factors influencing these attitudes, teacher efficacy, and related variables. Implications for practice and suggestions for future research are also presented.
Matematik ve bireylerin kendileri ile ilgili değişkenler kullanılarak farklı sosyo-ekonomik düzeylerdeki öğrencilerin problem çözme becerilerinin kestirilmesi
The purpose of this study is to examine relationships between math- and self- related variables and problem-solving skills of students on PISA 2012 Turkish sample. Students' socio-economic status was used as a control variable. Turkish sample was divided into 4 groups using PISA's ESCS index to create socio-economically different subgroups. The data were analyzed with hierarchical multiple linear regression in three blocks. The finding illustrated, firstly, socio-economic status gives positive association with problem-solving in each block. One of the mathematics factors is that self-efficacy has highly positive relationship with problem-solving. The other factors give different results for different social groups.
Öğrencilerin problem çözme becerilerinin ev ve aile ile ilişkili faktörler, okul türleri ve duyuşsal değişkenler ile yordanması
Problem-solving skill is one of the important qualifications that individuals need to have to cope with challenges in daily life. That's why, developing this skill is one of the purpose of Turkish mathematics curriculum. This study investigates which factors among background related, school types, and affective variables have relationship on problem-solving skill. The study was based on data set from PISA 2012 cycle. The sample was 4,848 Turkish students from twelve different school types. The possible relationship between students' problem-solving skills and the variables were investigated by using hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis. The results showed that school types significantly predicted problem-solving skill. Also, this study revealed that mother education level was important on defining problem-solving skill and self-efficacy more affects the skill than other math-related variables
PISA 2012 sonuçlarına göre matematik okuryazarlık düzeyini etkileyen matematik ile ilişkili değişkenlerin ülkelerarası karşılaştırılması
The purpose of the current study is to investigate the relationship between mathematics related affective factors and mathematics literacy levels across Brazil, Norway, Singapore and Turkey. The countries selected according to their rankings on PISA 2012 cycle. Singapore was a high-performer country, Norway was an average-performer country, Turkey was a below-average-performer country and Brazil was a low-performer country in PISA 2012. Multiple linear regression analysis was used separately for each selected country. Mathematics literacy score was used as a dependent variable, seven selected mathematics related affective factors (mathematics self-beliefs: mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics self-concept and mathematics anxiety; disposition and participation in mathematics related activities: mathematics intentions and mathematics behavior; motivational factors: instrumental motivation for mathematics and mathematics interest) were used as independent variables. The results indicated that all factors have significant effect on students' mathematics literacy achievement for all selected countries. In general, mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics self-concept, mathematics anxiety and mathematics behavior found that there is a same relationship for all four countries. Instrumental motivation for mathematics, mathematics intentions, and mathematics interest showed differences among countries.
Dil yeterliğinde öğrenme çabaları, öğrenme stratejileri ve sınav kaygısı: Fayda değer, öz-yeterlik inançları, ve İngilizce öğrenme nedenlerinin rolü
This study investigates the combined role of utility value, expectancy for success, intrinsic reasons and self-worth concerns, in predicting learning strategies and test anxiety. The study examined this potential prediction with 1,009 university students. The students were studying in a language preparatory program of a university. In the qualitative phase of this exploratory sequential mixed methods case study, semi-structured interviews faciliated understanding of students' perception of the motivational variables they believe are influential in their language learning process. Interviews were held with students from three different categories: non-repeaters (i.e., those who never failed), past-repeaters (i.e., those who had experienced failure), and current-repeaters (i.e., those who failed and were repeating the current period of study). Quantitative data were gathered through a survey approach and enabled exploration of the relationship among motivational components and learning strategies. Five hierarchical regression analyses was conducted. The regression analysis was conducted for effort regulation, learning strategies (i.e., rehearsal, critical thinking and metacognitive self-regulation) and test anxiety. The results of the regression analyses showed that, intrinsic reasons positively predicted learning strategies across the three groups of students. Self-worth concerns were found to positively predict test anxiety. The results of the study suggest that intrinsic reasons for have an important role in contexts where there is psychological pressure to be successful.
Lise öğrencilerinin okul alım sınavına göre ulusal ve uluslararası program ve sınavlardaki akademik başarılarının yordanması. Türkiye'den bir vaka incelemesi
Predicting students' future academic performance is an important discussion in the world of education that began to gain importance more than fifty years ago. Predictions of academic performance is of paramount importance in selecting the most appropriate students. Schools use admission criterion to select students to attend their programs. In this study, relationships between student's admission and exit performance were examined in a laboratory high school context. The school uses a two-stage high school admission exam. The first step consists of written tests of Turkish Language, mathematics, science, English and a non-verbal reasoning questionnaire, whereas the second stage includes essay writing in Turkish, and interviews about art, music, English, and Turkish. Students' exit performance is defined by the following scores: (i) IGCSE results in Turkish, English language, English literature, physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, (ii) IBDP component results in Turkish, English, physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics, (iii) first stage of Turkish university entrance examination results (iv) high school cumulative grade point average. Results indicated that different components of the admission system predict students' exit performance criteria differently.
İngilizce hazırlık okulunda madde-öğrenme hedefleri uyumu ve madde kalitesi
In this study, the alignment of test items and learning objectives and parameters of assessment items at a private university English language preparatory school were analyzed. For this purpose, all items in quizzes and midterms were examined in terms of their match with learning objectives. In the first stage of the study, item-objective alignment analyses were conducted separately for listening, grammar, speaking and reading domains. In the second stage, item difficulty and discrimination parameters of all items were calculated. Based on these alignment analyses, it was concluded that overall alignment seems quite good; however, few items did not match any objectives and some objectives were tested a lot more than others. Furthermore, there are some items that need revision according to item difficulty and discrimination parameters. At the end of the study, findings were discussed and several suggestions were provided.
Bir İngilizce yeterlilik sınavı okuma alt testinin bilgisayar ortamında bireyselleştirilmiş test ve geleneksel kağıt kalem test uygulamalarının karşılaştırılabilirliği ve sınıflandırma analizi
The current study compares the computerized adaptive test (CAT) and paper-based test (PBT) versions of an English language proficiency reading subtest in terms of psychometric qualities. The study also investigates classification performance of CATs not designed for classification purposes with reference to its PBT version. Real data-based simulations were conducted under varying test conditions. The results demonstrate that ability levels estimated by CATs and PBT are similar. A relatively larger item reduction can be obtained with 0.50 and 0.40 standard error thresholds and CATs terminated with 20, 25, and 30 items performed well with acceptable SE values. Reliability of CAT ability estimates was comparable and highly correlated with PBT estimates. For classification analysis, classification accuracy (CA) and classification consistency (CC) was also estimated using the Rudner method. Classification analyses were conducted on single and multiple cut-off points. The results showed that the use of a single cut-off score produced better classification performance, particularly for high and low ability groups. On the other hand, the use of multiple cut-off scores simultaneously yielded significantly lower classification performance. Overall, the results highlight the potential for CATs not designed specifically for classification to serve classification purposes and indicate avenues for further research. Keywords: Computerized adaptive testing, comparability, classification consistency, classification accuracy, Rudner approach, language proficiency
Dil karmaşıklığı ile ana dil değişkenleri ve okuma yetenek aralığı arasındaki olası ilişkiler: PIRLS 2016 ve PISA 2018'den bulgular
Reading is one of the most important skills for children to master during their time in school. It is strongly connected to life outcomes, and as such, education ministries place it at the centres of their education policies. English is one of the most challenging alphabetic languages to learn to read, and governments of anglophone countries have spent many years working to improve the effectiveness of their literacy education. However, when examining International Large-Scale Assessments, it is notable that although students in anglophone countries are able to achieve among the highest reading levels, their poorest readers lag much further behind than the poorest readers in similarly successful non-anglophone countries. This study made use of data from PIRLS (2016) and PISA (2018) to investigate possible relationships between range of reading ability and language complexity variables related to orthography and morphology, as well as between range of reading ability and home-language disparity in anglophone countries. Pearson correlational analyses showed that orthographic complexity and morphological complexity were moderately correlated with range of reading ability in both datasets. Orthographic transparency was found to be strongly correlated with range of reading ability in the PISA dataset and very strongly correlated in the PIRLS dataset. Morphological unpredictability was not found to be correlated with either dataset. Home-language disparity was not shown to be connected with range of reading ability in the PISA dataset, but in the PIRLS dataset, students who never spoke English at home were shown to have a wider range of reading ability than other students.
Üniversite düzeyindeki öğretime yönelik öğrenci değerlendirme anketlerinin boyutları
When instructional effectiveness is evaluated, it is essential to gather data from different sources to obtain valid judgments. Among several ways to assess instructional effectiveness, Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET), also known as Student Ratings of Instruction (SRI), is a process applied towards the end of the term in many academic settings to collect data generally through a form on the students' views about an instructor's in-class teaching performance. However, certain factors might affect students' responses to the items in the form during the SET process. That is, the dimensions of the form might be different from the initially developed one and different dimensions with different items might arise. The aim of the current study is to analyze the dimensions of an SET form in the preparatory school of a non-profit private university to see how different groups perceive the items in the SET form. The participants are all English language learners from different English language levels. The data were collected in the Fall term, in the 12th week of teaching, in the first contact hour. The data were analyzed through a software program running principal component analysis (PCA). The findings revealed that the structure of the form can be considered unidimensional and there is one dominant latent factor, named as instructional effectiveness by the researcher. In other words, the responses of the different groups are mostly related to instructional effectiveness and are not affected by other potential factors. Keywords: Student evaluation of teaching, instructional effectiveness, factorial structure
Türkiye'deki okul türleri ve coğrafi bölgeler arasında bilimsel epistemolojik inanç farklılıkları
The purpose of this study was to reveal differences in students' scientific epistemic beliefs between geographic regions and school type in Turkey. The geographic regions were selected as 12 NUTS-1 regions and school types were general secondary schools and vocational and technical secondary schools. The reason why this study was deemed necessary was that educational inequalities in Turkey seem to be decreasing the well-being of the citizens and the full economic potential of the country. Attention is especially drawn to science education because we live in the information age where ability in producing knowledge in science and technology is highly rewarded. Moreover, science education in Turkey has rooms for development. The data was pooled from the 2015 PISA cycle (which included 6 4-point Likert scale items on scientific epistemic beliefs), and a two-way ANOVA was carried out via SPSS to examine mean differences with respect to regions and schools, and also their interactions. Concerning significant results were revealed for the Northeast Anatolia Region's vocational and technical secondary students. Significant between school differences also seem to require more attention. However, practical significance of the study was small.
Karar ağaçları kullanarak ortaokul öğrencilerinin matematik başarılarının yordanması
In today's world, it is crucial to raise individuals who can think critically and flexibly, see things from a variety of perspectives, and develop creative solutions to common challenges in many countries including Türkiye. One of the ways to attain this purpose is to provide qualified mathematics education. During this qualified education determining the extent to which students meet the program goals is an important and fundamental part of the process of educating the individuals. Education should be provided in accordance with the requirements of the age using a curriculum with qualified measurement, assessment, and evaluation practices. This study aims to predict middle school students' achievement at four grade levels in mathematics at the end of the semester utilized as a predictor measurement and assessment approach. Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID), a decision tree analysis, was used to examine the importance of exams, quizzes, homework, and teacher observation in predicting the end-of-semester achievements. As a result of the study, when the first semester is examined in general, quizzes are mostly determined as the best predictor of student success, while exams are generally for the second semester. Implications for teachers and students are stated.
PISA 2018 verilerine göre sahtekârlık sendromu ile ilişkili öğrenci gruplarının karşılaştırılması
Fraudulent feelings affect some people in a way that they don't attribute their success to effort and intelligence. Instead, they feel that they succeed because of luck or a mistake. These people are said to have imposter syndrome (Koç Doğan & Yenel, 2022). Identification of factors associated with imposter syndrome during school years may help (Corkett & Benevides, 2011). The study aims to examine the differences between three student groups: students with imposter feeling, students with imposter syndrome, and students without imposter syndrome based on PISA 2018 data. The students were separated into three groups, which are students with imposter feeling, students with imposter syndrome and without imposter syndrome, according to their self-efficacy, fear of failure, and mathematical literacy performances. Comparisons among three groups were made with respect to variables that are associated with imposter syndrome. The means of each group were compared. Results indicated that imposter syndrome and imposter feeling could be related to students' economic, social, and cultural status, sense of belonging to the school, parental support, and attitudes toward competition.