Examining Factors Facilitating Career-Changing Teachers’ Adaptation to Change and the Challenges They Encounter

The present case study was designed to examine factors that facilitate the adaptation process of science teachers who were appointed or transferred to state schools, the challenges they encountered, and how they coped with these challenges. It was carried out with the participation of six science teachers (three males, three females) working at state middle schools in Turkey. The data were gathered through interviews with the teachers and analyzed through content analysis using the NVivo program. The research results reveal that the prominent factors that facilitate teachers’ adaptation to school environments are their professional love, interest in students, effective communication, self-confidence, and empathy. It is also revealed that they encounter challenges with regard to teaching processes and teaching programs (e.g., incompetence in using instructional methods and techniques within the framework of the constructivist approach), the legislation/regulations by the Ministry of National Education (MoNE; e.g., extensive paperwork), school environment (e.g., physical inadequacies of the school), and discipline (e.g., establishing and maintaining classroom management). Finally, the findings indicate that teachers endeavor to overcome these challenges through cooperation with school administrators, colleagues, guidance counselors, and close relatives, and by accessing the needed information on the Internet (e.g., downloading annual and weekly plans)

Children and Discipline: Investigating Secondary School Students’ Perception of Discipline through Metaphors

This is a descriptive study investigating the perception of children about discipline through metaphors developed by them. A total of 445 students participated in the research and the data was collected with the “Discipline Metaphors Survey (DMS)” developed by the researchers. At the end of the study, 143 metaphors, 94 positive and 49 negative, about discipline were gathered. The participating children mostly perceived discipline as a phenomenon guiding their behavior, maintaining the order, and as being necessary for the social life. Learning and development, self-control, protection mechanism, planned and ordered study, as well as collaboration are further positive perceptions of discipline. Negative metaphors, on the other hand, were usually power and control oriented and the discipline committee was described as the ultimate authority entity. Based on the students’ views, discipline was provided through classroom rules and for misbehavior the teachers tended to use warnings, shouting/scolding and punishment. School rules, dress code as well as prohibited product checks at the entrance of the school, the Discipline Committee and discipline rules were reported as the most common practices of discipline in school. Most of the students who thought that punishment is necessary for discipline stated that the punishment should not involve physical violence and that it should be reasonable. Further expectations of the students found in the study included warning without shouting, doing enjoyable activities to address individual differences, informing everybody about the rules. Children’s perception about discipline was usually affected by their teachers followed by their family and the school administration respectively

Investigating Primary School Teachers’ Perception About Democracy Through Metaphor Analysis

The aim of this study is to examine democracy perception of classroom teachers via metaphor analysis. Study group for research is formed of 253 classroom teachers. “Democracy Metaphors Questionnaire” (DMQ) has been used in collecting data. Content analysis has been used on analysis of qualitative data of research and descriptive statistics have been used on quantitative data. The metaphors that teachers developed with a total 122 metaphor different from one another about democracy are gathered under “Indispensability”, “Equality”, “Social Order”, “Freedom”, “Endeavour”, “Power”, “Variety”, “Progression”, “Conservation”, “Personal Gains” and “Nothingness”. While first three themes under which women teachers gathered being indispensability, equality and endeavour metaphors, men teachers are gathered under indispensability, social order and freedom metaphors. Family environment and upbringing, relations with friends, culture of social environment, political activities in society and news in media tools have been the effective factors in forming democracy perception that the teachers possess

Examination of the Views of High School Teachers and Students with Regard to Discipline Perception and Discipline Problems

This research is a qualitative study comparatively examining the views of high school teachers and students related to discipline perception and discipline problems. The study has been realized at a vocational school during the 2014/2015 school term. Maximum diversity and criterion sampling methods have been followed for the formation of the study groups with 18 teachers and 16 students. The data collected through semi-structured interview forms has been evaluated by content analysis. As a result of the study, it has been observed that the teachers define discipline as a wholistic system, self-control and providing the necessary learning environment, while the students define it as self-control, obeying the rules and respect. The participating teachers, who agreed on the idea that discipline does not mean bullying or passivizing the individuals, described rudeness, lack of interest in the lesson and misbehavior as disciplinary problems. According to the teachers, not fulfilling the responsibilities and rudeness; according to the students, preventing the course from running and not being interested in the course are the most experienced discipline problems at their respective schools. Pursuant to the acquired results, the students differ from the teachers by thinkink that behavior such as not obeying the directives, using hazardous items and harming the environment/objects are the most common problems

Opportunities for changes in the drug product design to enhance medication safety in older people:Evaluation of a national public portal for medication incidents

AIMS: Medication safety requires urgent attention in hospital pharmacy. This study evaluated the medication‐related problems/errors as reported to the Dutch medication incident registry and disseminated for information to pharmacists. Through analysis by an expert panel we aimed to better understand which problems could have been mitigated by the drug product design. Additionally, the (wider) implications of the problems for current hospital/clinical practice were discussed. METHODS: Items were extracted from the public Portal for Patient Safety. Items were included if relevant for older people and connected with the drug product design and excluded if they should reasonably have been intercepted by compliance to routine controls or well‐known professional standards in pharmaceutical care. To explore any underreporting of well‐known incidents, it was investigated if different medication‐related problems could be observed in a regional hospital practise over a 1‐month period. For 6 included items (cases), the implications for hospital/clinical practise were discussed in an expert panel. RESULTS: In total, 307 items were identified in the Portal for Patient Safety; all but 14 were excluded. Six cases were added from daily hospital practice. These 20 cases commonly related to confusing product characteristics, packaging issues such as the lack of a single unit package for an oncolytic product, or incorrect or incomplete user instructions. CONCLUSION: Medication registries provide important opportunities to evaluate real‐world medication‐related problems. However, underreporting of well‐known problems should be considered. The product design can be used as an (additional) risk mitigation measure to support medication safety in hospital practice

Prevalence of sleep disorders in the Turkish adult population epidemiology of sleep study

Sleep disorders constitute an important public health problem. Prevalence of sleep disorders in Turkish adult population was investigated in a nationwide representative sample of 5021 Turkish adults (2598 women and 2423 men, response rate: 91%) by an interviewer‐administered questionnaire. Insomnia was defined by the DSM‐IV criteria, habitual snoring and risk for sleep‐related breathing disorders (SDB) by the Berlin questionnaire, excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) by the Epworth sleepiness scale score, and restless legs syndrome (RLS) by the complaints according to the International Restless Legs Syndrome Study Group criteria. Mean age of the participants was 40.7 ± 15.1 (range 18 to 90) years. Prevalence rates (men/women) were insomnia 15.3% (10.5%/20.2%; P < 0.001), high probability of SDB 13.7% (11.1%/20.2%; P < 0.001), EDS 5.4% (5.0%/5.7%; P: 0.09), RLS 5.2% (3.0%/7.3%; P < 0.001). Aging and female gender were associated with higher prevalence of sleep disorders except for habitual snoring. Prevalence rates of the sleep disorders among Turkish adults based on the widely used questionnaires were close to the lower end of the previous estimates reported from different parts of the world. These findings would help for the assessment of the health burden of sleep disorders and addressing the risk groups for planning and implementation of health care

Bridging the gap in African biodiversity genomics and bioinformatics:Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project:

The Open Institute of the African BioGenome Project empowers African scientists and institutions with the skill sets, capacity and infrastructure to advance scientific knowledge and innovation and drive economic growth

A study on environmental knowledge and attitudes of teacher candidates

5th World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES) -- FEB 05-08, 2013 -- Rome Sapienza Univ, Rome, ITALYWOS: 000335471202086The main purpose of this study is to investigate knowledge and attitudes of teacher candidates in Social Sciences Education and Science and Technology Education department towards environment. 323 teacher candidates as 171 female and 152 male participated in the study. 43 % of participants find the Internet and television more effective in environmental awareness. They think shortening of natural resources is the biggest problem of the world while urbanization is the biggest issue of Turkey. Teacher candidates have a moderate level environmental knowledge; have more positive attitude in terms of environment but low level environmental behaviors. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Near E Univ, Ankara Univ, Bahcesehir Uni

Investigating classroom management profiles of pre-service teachers (Cukurova University sample)

5th World Conference on Educational Sciences (WCES) -- FEB 05-08, 2013 -- Rome Sapienza Univ, Rome, ITALYWOS: 000335471202084The main purpose of this research is to detect classroom management profiles of pre-service teachers and investigate whether these profiles show significant differences in terms of some variables. Classroom Management Profile (CMP) by Santrock (1996) was used to collect data. The data was gained from 1238 pre-service teachers from different departments of Faculty of Education during 2012-2013 year. At the end of the study, it was found that pre-service teachers have high Authoritative and Laissez-faire classroom management profile. There was no significant difference among Laissez-faire, Indifferent and Authoritarian classroom management profiles, however, female preservice teachers have higher profile in Authoritative dimension. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Near E Univ, Ankara Univ, Bahcesehir Uni