Essays in skill development and peer effects

This dissertation consists of three self-contained chapters. The underlying themes are the determinants of skill development and the role of social influence on individual decisions. The people that surround us, independent of whether we chose them or interact with them by chance, have a great influence on our decisions. The existence and impact of peer influences have been documented in various areas. At the same time, it has been shown in different ways, how important parental investment and the environment an individual grows up in is for human capital development. In Chapter 1, I combine the two main topics and show how parental investment depends on the social interactions of their child. Chapter 2 investigates the long-run consequences of shocks on the socio-emotional development during adolescence and documents gender differences. In Chapter 3, we underline the importance of social interactions in the decision when to enter parenthood and provide insight on potential spillover mechanisms. In chapter 1, I investigate whether and in how far parents adjust their parenting behavior in response to their child's close peers as defined by friendship nominations. I distinguish between two types of parenting behavior: parental investment, in particular quality time, such as help with homework and joint activities, and parenting style (monitoring). I show the extent and means of parents' response to two different skills of peers: first, cognitive skills as measured by peers' scholastic performance, and second, peers' non-cognitive skills as measured by self-esteem. Moreover, comparing constant to time-varying peer groups, I allow parents to react to peer skills and peer characteristics. This chapter contributes to the literature by expanding the focus on how parents respond to the skills, behavior, and characteristics of close peers. Moreover, this study adds to the literature on social interactions, showing how parental behavior might moderate /reinforce the effects of peers, and school-level policy interventions aimed at changing student compositions. The following three main results emerge from my analysis. First, parents compensate for cognitive skill losses of their child's peer by increasing monitoring. I provide evidence that parents consider both cognitive performance and non-cognitive skills of peers in their investment decision. Response patterns indicate that verbal investment and monitoring are perceived as substitutes to peer cognitive skills, and joint activities are seen as complements to the self-esteem of peers. Second, I document gender differences in the response of monitoring. While cognitive skill losses of sons' peers are compensated, for daughters, increased peer self-esteem is reinforced. Overall, adjustments in time investment are mainly driven by parents that have no close relationship with peers' parents and parents that expect their child to attend college. However, results do not differ by parental education. Adjustments in monitoring and verbal investment are mainly driven by children with below-median cognitive skills, suggesting that parents try to prevent negative spillovers on their "at risk child". Third, by exploiting repeated information on friendship nominations, I show that parents take peer characteristics along with peer skills into account. In addition to compensating cognitive skill losses, mothers compensate for decreases in the fraction of white friends, reinforce higher fractions of peers with educated parents. Fathers' response and parental monitoring are mainly driven by changes in peer group characteristics rather than peers' skills. Chapter 2 is joint work Ghazala Azmat and Katja Maria Kaufmann. We analyze the determinants and consequences of socio-emotional development during adolescence. We causally estimate the impact of a large macro shock, the German Reunification, on the socio-emotional development of East-German adolescents, finding substantial negative effects in the short-run. In particular, we document an immediate increase in youths' anger and anxiety by 33 and 36 percent of a standard deviation, respectively, and a decrease of more than 40 percent of a standard deviation in youths' self-confidence. Contrary to the belief that boys are more strongly affected by negative changes in their environment, we show that these effects are similar for male and female youths, and in terms of self-confidence even stronger for girls. Next, we link changes in these socio-emotional dimensions to a wide range of behavioral outcomes and document stark differences by gender. In line with the "fragile males" hypothesis, we find that changes in the socio-emotional development lead to an increase in externalizing behavior, such as physical fighting and destroying property, and behavioral control problems like alcohol and tobacco consumption among boys only. Looking at internalizing behavior, which is often linked to mental-health problems, we find a strong association between changes in socio-emotional development and increased internalizing behavior, but only for girls. Ultimately, however, the effects on longer-run outcomes such as subjective health, well-being, and educational attainment are grave, and similar, for both genders. Our results highlight that even though boys and girls can be affected similarly in terms of their socio-emotional development, these changes translate into different types of behavior. Overall, this suggests that successful policies require careful targeting. Chapter 3 is joint work with Katja Maria Kaufmann. We analyze family peer effects in the adult fertility decision. Using Dutch administrative data, we provide well-identified causal evidence that a sibling's fertility is contagious, for women starting one year and for men, starting two years after a sibling enters parenthood. Specifically, a sibling entering parenthood within the last two years can triple the probability of becoming a mother, and double the probability of becoming a father in any given quarter. Prominent mechanisms of peer effects include, for instance, social learning, or conforming with the norm. We focus on the first child of an individual so that learning from the sibling's (or the sibling's partner's) experience is most pronounced in our analysis. This finding is validated by weaker (in some cases negative) spillovers found for individuals strongly attached to the labor market. In the sense that, for instance, the main breadwinner of the household has to be strategic in decisions affecting their labor supply and is thus less affected by fertility spillovers. Additionally, two sub-mechanisms prevail. First, we document stronger spillovers for siblings of the same gender (men with brothers), and siblings that are close in age (women and siblings up to one year age difference). This result shows in the context of sibling competition that conforming with the sibling is more likely as an underlying mechanism than differentiation from the sibling. Second, we confirm that support provided by the grandmother is a decisive factor. Siblings seem to compete for grand-maternal resources shown by stronger results in case the grandmother is available in terms of time (i.e. not active in the labor market) and geography (i.e. distance in residences). While there is a big literature on peer effects, decisions to enter parenthood have been so far mainly considered in the context of teen fertility. Our results contribute to the literature by highlighting that social influences within the family are non-negligible in the fertility decision and could be an influential mediator of policy interventions

A History Lesson Designed with the Digital Storytelling Method: Kara Fatma Example

Due to the reflections of the changes and developments in science and technology in the field of education, students need educational opportunities that can meet their changing learning needs. Based on this need, the main purpose of this study is to evaluate the digital storytelling process in history teaching and the contribution of this method to history teaching through the views of students. To achieve this goal, a history lesson about “Kara Fatma”, one of the heroines of the National Struggle in the 12th Grade Turkish Republic History of Revolution and Kemalism course, was designed using the digital storytelling method. A seven-week-long study was planned. The qualitative research method was used in the study. The study group consisted of 15 volunteer 12th-grade students. A semi-structured interview form was used to determine the evaluations of the students about the digital storytelling process, and a checklist was employed to evaluate students’ digital stories. The study data were analyzed with content analysis. As a result, it was found that students only used internet sources during the evidence search process, their knowledge of history was enriched with digital storytelling, and that they had difficulty eliciting material for their stories from a huge stack of information. It was concluded that this application contributed to making history lessons fun and could contribute to the presentation of brief and concise, but not long and boring, information and the use of critical thinking skills in lessons. Thus, it has been understood that digital storytelling may contribute to the development of historical literacy in students

Kariyer devreleri ile örgütsel vatandaşlık eğilimi arasındaki ilişki: Sakarya Üniversitesi İ.İ.B.F. örneği

06.03.2018 tarihli ve 30352 sayılı Resmi Gazetede yayımlanan “Yükseköğretim Kanunu İle Bazı Kanun Ve Kanun Hükmünde Kararnamelerde Değişiklik Yapılması Hakkında Kanun” ile 18.06.2018 tarihli “Lisansüstü Tezlerin Elektronik Ortamda Toplanması, Düzenlenmesi ve Erişime Açılmasına İlişkin Yönerge” gereğince tam metin erişime açılmıştır.Örgütsel vatandaşlık kavramı ülkemiz davranış bilimleri literatüründe görece yeni bir olgudur. Bu tür davranışların iş tatmini, örgüt kültürü, örgütsel bağlılık gibi diğer örgütsel davranış kavramları ile ilişkisi üzerine yayınlar bulunmasına rağmen demografik unsurlarla ilgili pek fazla yayın bulunmamaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı da bu anlamda bir katkı sağlamaktır. Kariyer devrelerinin örgütsel vatandaşlık eğiliminde etkili bir unsur olup olmadığını belirlemek amacıyla yapılan bu çalışmada literatürdeki bulgulara dayalı olarak anket ve mülakat olmak üzere nicel ve nitel yöntemler birlikte kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın ilk aşamasında nicel araştırma kapsamında demografik değişkenleri, kariyer devrelerini ve örgütsel vatandaşlık davranışına ilişkin sorulan içeren, geçerlilik ve güvenirlilik testi yapılmış bir ölçekten uyarlanan standardize bir anket kullanılmıştır. Bu aşamanın evrenini Sakarya Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi akademisyenleri oluşturmaktadır. Yapılan analizler yardımıyla kariyer devreleri ile örgütsel vatandaşlık davranışı eğilim arasındaki ilişki belirlenmeye çalışılmıştır. Araştırmanın nicel aşamasında ortaya çıkan kısıtlar nedeniyle 9 akademisyen ile derinliğine yan-yapılandınlmış mülakatlar yapılarak araştırma ikinci bir aşamaya taşınarak nitel bir boyut kazandırılmıştır. Bu aşamada amaç, nicel aşamanın bulgularına daha derin ve detaylı bir bakış açısı kazandırmaktır. Anahtar kelimeler: Kariyer devreleri, Örgütsel vatandaşlık davranışı, Akademisyen

Purification and characterization of dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase enzyme from sheep liver and determination of the effects of some anaesthetic and antidepressant drugs on the enzyme activity

Dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD, E.C. 1.3.1.2) was purified from sheep liver with a yield of 16.7%, purification fold of 407.5 and specific activity of 0.705 EU/mg proteins. The purification procedure consisted of ammonium sulphate fractionation, DEAE ion exchange chromatography and 2',5'-ADP Sepharose-4B affinity chromatography. The molecular weight determined by SDS-PAGE and was found 111 kDa. Optimum pH, ionic strength temperature and stable pH were determined as 8.0, 0.9 mM, 50 degrees C and 6.0, respectively. The kinetic parameters (K-m and V-max) of the enzyme were determined with NADPH as 22.97 mu M and 0.17 EU/mL, respectively. The same parameters were determined with uracil as 17.46 mu M and 0.14 EU/mL, respectively. Additionally, in vitro inhibitory effects of some antidepressant drugs including escitalopram, fluoxetine, mirtazapine, haloperidol and some anaesthetic drugs including propofol and lidocaine were investigated against DPD. In addition, IC50 values for each active drug obtained for escitalopram, fluoxetine, mirtazapine, haloperidol, propofol and lidocaine were determined as 1736.11, 13.24, 86.65, 99.03, 0.21 and 15.07 mu M, respectively

SOSYAL HİZMETLERDE KARİYER YÖNETİMİ

Yaşlı, çocuk ve dezavantajlı kişilerin bakımı, kadına ve aileye yönelik uygulamalarla sosyal hizmet kurumları toplumsal açıdan önemli bir görevi yerine getirmektedir. Bu yüzden sosyal hizmetler istihdam açısından gelişmekte ve bir çalışma alanı olarak önemi artmaktadır. Bu çalışmada sosyal hizmetlerde kariyer uygulamalarına değinilmiştir. Sosyal hizmetlerde çalışma alanları geniş olmasına rağmen özel sektör kuruluşlarının aksine kamuda kariyer uygulamaları-terfi ve transferler yönetmelikler ile belirlenmiştir. Başarı ve yetkinliklerden ziyade kıdem kariyer uygulamalarında öne çıkmaktadır. Ayrıca sosyal hizmet uzmanlarının tükenmişlik ve cam tavan gibi kariyer sorunları ile karşılaştıkları görülmüştür

Assessment of Carotid Intima-media Thickness in COVID-19 Survivors

Background and Aim:Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) infection is associated with cardiovascular diseases in the acute and chronic stages. One of the most common causes of death worldwide is atherosclerosis. Carotid intima media thickness is a method used in the early diagnosis and follow-up of atherosclerosis. This study describes endothelial dysfunction and the risk for pre-atherosclerosis using carotid intima-media thickness (CIMT) measurements in patients with a history of COVID-19 infection.Materials and Methods:This was a prospective case-control study of 121 patients with 121 COVID-19 infections and 40 healthy controls. Groups were compared according to demographic characteristics, body mass index (BMI), and carotid intima-media thickness. Data obtained were analyzed using SPSS version 22.0.Results:There was no statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of age, gender, BMI, and blood pressure values. The CIMT value of the group with COVID-19 infection was significantly higher than the control group (P = 0.003).Conclusion:The findings of this study show that CIMT, which is an indicator of early atherosclerosis, was increased in patients with COVID-19

Gebelikte anksiyete ve prenatal bağlanma düzeyleri ile etkileyen faktörler

Purpose: The aim of this study was to determine the anxiety and prenatal attachment levels of pregnant women, examine certain related factors and evaluate the relationship between anxiety and prenatal attachment. Materials and Methods: The study is a cross-sectional study conducted on pregnant women applying to the pregnancy polyclinic of Sakarya Education and Research Hospital. The study group consisted of 502 pregnant women. Beck Anxiety Scale and Prenatal Attachment Inventory were used to determine the anxiety level of the prenatal attachment level, respectively. Results: Mean age of women participating in the study was 28.07±4.71 years (min:18, max:40). The mean scores of the pregnant women in the Beck Anxiety Scale and Prenatal Attachment Inventory were determined as 15.10±9.37 and 44.31±9.45, respectively. A negative medium level relationship is found between the points obtained in the Beck Anxiety Scale and the Prenatal Attachment Inventory. Conclusion: Anxiety disorders experienced during pregnancy have a negative impact on the maternal and fetal health and weaken the prenatal attachmentAmaç: Bu çalışmanın amacı gebelerin anksiyete ve prenatal bağlanma düzeylerinin saptanması, ilişkili bazı faktörlerin incelenmesi ve anksiyete ile prenatal bağlanma arasındaki ilişkinin değerlendirilmesidir. Gereç ve Yöntem: Çalışma, Sakarya Eğitim ve Araştırma Hastanesi gebe polikliniğine başvuru yapan gebeler üzerinde gerçekleştirilen kesitsel tipte bir araştırmadır. Çalışma grubu 502 gebeden oluşmuştur. Anksiyete düzeyinin değerlendirilmesi için Beck Anksiyete Ölçeği, prenatal bağlanma düzeyinin değerlendirilmesi için ise Prenatal Bağlanma Envanteri kullanılmıştır. Bulgular: Çalışmaya katılan gebelerin yaş ortalaması 28.07±4.71 yıl (min:18, max:40) idi. Gebelerin Beck Anksiyete Ölçeğinden aldığı puan ortalaması 15.10±9.37 puan, Prenatal Bağlanma Envanterinden aldığı puan ortalaması 44.31±9.45 olarak bulunmuştur. Gebelerin Beck Anksiyete Ölçeğinden aldıkları puanlar ile Prenatal Bağlanma Envanterinden aldıkları puanlar arasında negatif yönde orta düzeyde bir ilişki bulunmuştur. Sonuç: Gebelikte yaşanan anksiyete bozukluğu maternal ve fetal sağlığı olumsuz etkilemekte prenatal bağlanmayı zayıflatmaktadı

Assessment Of The Vıtamın B12 Status Of Pregnant Women And Theır Infants

Vitamin B12 deficiency is an important problem in pregnancy because it affects not only mothers but also their infants. Although vitamin B12 deficiency is seen all over the world and all age groups, its frequency is much higher in population which has low socio-economic level. The aim of this study was to evaluate the maternal vitamin B12 status and their effect on neonatal vitamin B12 status and to detect risk factors for vitamin B12 deficiency inGebelerde vitamin B12 eksikliği yalnızca anneleri değil aynı zamanda bebeklerini de etkileyen önemli bir sağlık sorunudur. Her ne kadar vitamin B12 eksikliği tüm dünyada ve tüm yaş gruplarında görülse de sosyoekonomik düzeyi düşük toplumlarda görülme sıklığı daha yüksektir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, İstanbul’un sosyo-ekonomik düzeyi düşük bir bölgesi olan Bağcılar’da, gebe kadınların vitamin B12 düzeylerini belirlemek, annelerin vitamin B12 düzeyinin yenidoğan bebeklerin düzeyine etkisini ve vitamin B12 eksikliği için risk faktörlerini belirlemektir

Assessment Of The Vitamin B12 Status Of Pregnant Women And Their Infants

Aim:Vitamin B12 deficiency is an important problem in pregnancy because it affects not only mothers but also their infants. Although vitamin B12 deficiency is seen all over the world and all age groups, its frequency is much higher in population which has low socio-economic level. The aim of this study was to evaluate the maternal vitamin B12 status and their effect on neonatal vitamin B12 status and to detect risk factors for vitamin B12 deficiency in Bağcılar where is a low socio-economic region in Istanbul.Materials and Methods:A total of 71 pregnant women and 71 infants were included in this study between March 2016 and March 2017. Age, gender, weight, gestational age, weight gain during pregnancy, body mass index (BMI), number of parity, socio-economic status, diet, daily vitamin intake were recorded. Blood samples for whole blood count and vitamin B12 were taken all subjects. The pregnant women and newborns were divided into groups based on their vitamin B12 levels. The risk factors were analyzed for vitamin B12 deficiency.Results:The mean vitamin B12 level was 172.23±102 pg/ml for pregnant women. The number of pregnant women in deficient group (<200 pg/ml) were 73% and 46% of the mothers had a serum vitamin B12 level lower than 150 pg/ml. B12 level of pregnant women those who have consumed sufficient amount of animal products were found as significantly higher than the consumed insufficient (p=0.001). The mean vitamin B12 level of infants was found as 352.1±339.2 pg/ml and the number of infants in deficient group were 26.6%. Also, 14% of the infants had a serum vitamin B12 level lower than 150 pg/ml. There was no correlation between the mothers’ B12 level and newborns’ body measurements and gestational age.Conclusion:The prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency in pregnant women in our region was very high and mainly cause was sub-optimal nutrition. Therefore, we suggest that the vitamin B12 status may be assess at the beginning of pregnancy in all women live in low socioeconomic region status