A review of Turkish education graduate thesis

The aim of this research is to evaluate the studies especially in the subject area, department, sample level and descriptive sense; to guide the studies to be done with this perspective in the future; to obtain quality findings and to evaluate the past and present of the field of Turkish education by analyzing the master's and doctoral theses prepared in the field of Turkish education between 1992-2020 in Turkey. In addition, it is aimed to analyze the postgraduate theses in the field of Turkish education in a holistic and systematic way. In this context, the subject areas of the theses, the gender of the thesis authors, the main sciences of the theses, keywords have been delved into. Moreover, descriptive features such as the type of postgraduate theses that are the subject of the research, the year and university, the institute in which the respective theses were done, the generation of the university in which they were prepared have been investigated. The postgraduate theses examined within the framework of the research were carried out based on the data of the YÖK Publication and Documentation Department National Thesis Center. 59 theses in the Department of Turkish Education, 11 theses in the Department of Turkish Language Teaching, and 52 theses in the Department of Education of Turkish have been excluded from the scope of the research. The sample of the research consists of 1460 master's and 245 doctoral theses. Theses have been analyzed using the "Graduate Thesis Review Form" developed by the researcher in accordance with the qualitative research approach. In the analysis of the data obtained, the descriptive analysis technique, in which the findings are described and interpreted in a systematic and clear way, has been used. Findings have been discussed by presenting graphics, frequency and percentage tables. According to the findings obtained in the research, it has been determined that master's theses were more than doctoral theses in all years, doctoral theses increased proportionally, and postgraduate theses were in an upward trend in a holistic sense. It has been observed that the theses were mostly prepared in Gazi, Atatürk, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart, Dokuz Eylül and Bolu Abant İzzet Baysal universities. In the theses, it has been determined that while the rate of educational sciences institutes was 56.67%, the rate of social sciences was 42.27%. In the research, the universities have been divided into three generations according to their foundation years and as a consequence, it has been found that the theses were mostly made in the first, second and third generation universities, respectively. It has been determined that academicians who hold the title of doctoral lecturer/assistant professor doctor for master's theses and professor doctor titles for doctoral theses were more consulted. Although the academicians who advise the theses receive Turkish education in the first place in the fields of science, it has been observed that the influence of the basic fields of philology such as Turkish language, new Turkish literature, classical Turkish literature, Turkish folklore, contemporary Turkish dialects and literatures is intense. It has been determined that the most studied subject areas in the theses are children's literature, teaching Turkish to foreigners, writing education and narrative education. According to the gender of the thesis author, the ratio of male and female researchers has been found to be close to each other. According to the sample level, it has been revealed that the most studies were conducted with secondary school students, foreign students and teachers. Suggestions have been presented by taking the results obtained from the research into consideration.