UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ VIEWS ABOUT EMERGENCY DISTANCE EDUCATION DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

With the Covid-19 pandemic, which was effective all over the world in early 2020, emergency distance education applications started. Universities in Turkey also suffered from this situation and quickly started their own distance education applications using their own facilities. Different applications carried out by universities have had different reflections upon education. For example, while some universities provided compulsory live classes, some universities did not. Students are the most important component of this process. In this respect, the purpose of this study was to examine university students' views about emergency distance education during the Covid-19 pandemic. In this qualitatively designed study, 32 students from 4 different universities were asked for their views. An online questionnaire form made up of open-ended questions was used as the data collection tool. The data were analyzed using the content analysis method, and the themes were created. As a result, two of the four universities used the software of Microsoft Teams as a distance education system, while others preferred the software of Moodle and ALMS. It could be said that the students who used Microsoft Teams, which is an integrated system where live lessons can be held, were more satisfied in this process. In addition, the students' views about the distance education system, the positive and negative aspects of the system, live course practices, communication with the instructor, getting feedback, socialization, motivation, academic performance, comparison with traditional teaching, etc. were reported and interpreted within the scope of the theories of Uses and Gratifications and Diffusion of Innovations. It was seen that among the university students almost all of whom were anxious before the distance education, the worries of those who took live lessons and used an integrated system were completely removed. In this respect, within the scope of the distance education system, it could be stated that the elements of live lessons and interaction have great importance for students. Article visualizations

The Effect of Banking Sector Efficiency on the Economic Development in West Africa

The primary goal of this research is to analyze whether the financial efficiency of the banking sector in the Economic Community of West African States region estimated by financial indicators as Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE) and Net Interest Income (NIM) affects the economic development measured by the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. The choice of these profitability and rentability variables is inspired by the World Bank’s indicators of financial institutions efficiency at country level. This research investigated the impact of banking sector efficiency on the economic development in country members of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) from 2010 to 2019. This study uses quantitative methodology in order to attain the main objective. The research proposes to develop a methodology, through theoretical study as well as making use of related literatures, which can be used in determining the impact of banking sector performance and economic development in West African region. The required data can be classified into two main categories: the factors that determine bank efficiency, and the economic indicator that explains growth in the region. The goal is to analyze whether the financial efficiency of banks lead to growth in the economies of countries. In our model, the banking sector efficiency measured by financial indicators as ROA, ROE, and NIM indicates the explanatory variables while annual growth rate of GDP for economic development measures the predicted variable. The model uses Panel Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) to test the hypothesis from EVIEWS software. The result of our survey suggests that among all the explanatory variables only the return on asset (ROA) has statistically significant influence on the gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate meaning that the banking sector financial performance measured by ROA has significant impact on the economic growth in West Africa. The research shows that the main actors in banking sector and authorities should focus on the efficiency of banking system in order to drive a sustainable economic growth. In addition, this research obviously provides some important information to researchers, governments, financial analysts, banking policy makers and supervisory authoritie

Seamless Learning: A Scoping Systematic Review Study

In recent years, a new concept called seamless learning has appeared. This concept depends on the premise that learning should be maintained without interruption in different environments. Seamless learning is also important not only for meeting the expectations of the new generation whose life styles and learning needs are different but also for supporting the new paradigms in education. In this respect, the present study aimed to demonstrate the results of content analysis on the articles related to concept of Seamless Learning in Scopus database between 2009 and 2018. A total of 58 papers were examined to determine the concept list, top journal list, most cited papers, research methods and models, participants, data collection tools and variables in these articles. The study is considered to be important as no detailed content analysis has been conducted on the concept of seamless learning concept. The research results revealed a considerable increase in the number of studies on the concept of seamless learning by year. Singapore was the leading country in seamless learning research. It was seen in these studies that conceptual/descriptive methods were prominent as the research methods; that K-12 students were preferred more as participants; and that the most common data collection tools included interview and academic achievement tests. Lastly, in the studies examined, academic performance and perception were among the most popular dependent variables

Capital Structure Determinants in Transitional Economies

Most of the empirical studies about capital structure tend to focus either on overall developed markets or on emerging countries. This paper aims to analyze the determinants of the capital structure of the companies in the Western Balkans (WBs) using a panel of 30 non-financial firms listed in Zagreb Stock Exchange, Belgrade Stock Exchange, and Macedonian Stock Exchange over the period of 2012–2017. The leverage ratio is modeled as a function of firm-specific characteristics. The results that firms in WBs tend to rely more heavily on short-term than long-term debt. There is a significant negative impact of liquidity, profitability and tax on both leverage level and short-term debt ratio. The long-term debt ratio is significantly positively affected by the growth opportunities of these companies and by its past level. Our results are consistent with the findings of previous empirical studies about emerging and transition economies, indicating that companies in WBs follow the pecking order theory

The impact of ESG performance over financial performance: A study on global energy and power generation companies

This study aims to analyze the impact of environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of global energy and power generation corporations over their corporate financial performance. The study explores the impact of the environmental, social and governance (ESG) operations and performance over profitability and market value of the corporations operating business in sensitive industries such as energy and power generation corporations using panel data regression. The ESG performance data and financial data of 192 energy and power generation firms from 2008 to 2019 were collected from the Thomson Reuters Eikon database for the statistical analyses. According to the results, ESG performance is correlated in a significant way with the financial performance of the energy and power generation corporations. The findings suggest that ESG performance has both positive and significant impacts over the profitability of the corporations but a negative impact over the market value of the corporations. This study adds value and importance to the ESG literature, sustainable business practice and sustainability reporting for the energy and power generation companies worldwide. Moreover, the findings of the study would assist the relevant investors, business analysts, industry regulators, policymakers, and decision-makers all other stakeholders who are interested in ESG and sustainability to take noteworthy decisions

The Case for Gold Revisited: A Safe Haven Or A Hedge ?

This paper attempts to analyze the relation among gold prices and other macroeconomic and financial variables and addresses the question whether gold is a safe haven or a hedge for investors. The study investigates the relationship by using an econometric analysis for top gold exporter and importer countries, for a sample period of 11 years from 2000 to 2011. The results are twofold (i) return of silver, USD returns and change in the volatility index influences gold returns positively whereas, Swiss Franc and Canadian Dollar returns influence gold returns negatively regardless of presence of the 2008 crisis. (ii) In times of stress, our findings indicate that Swiss Franc, Norwegian Krone and Canadian Dollar function as haven whereas, on average, Swiss Franc, Canadian Dollar and 10 year US treasuries function as a hedge against gold but the results show no evidence for the US dollar.

Capital Structure Determinants in Transitional Economies

Most of the empirical studies about capital structure tend to focus either on overall developed markets or on emerging countries. This paper aims to analyze the determinants of the capital structure of the companies in the Western Balkans (WBs) using a panel of 30 non-financial firms listed in Zagreb Stock Exchange, Belgrade Stock Exchange, and Macedonian Stock Exchange over the period of 2012–2017. The leverage ratio is modeled as a function of firm-specific characteristics. The results that firms in WBs tend to rely more heavily on short-term than long-term debt. There is a significant negative impact of liquidity, profitability and tax on both leverage level and short-term debt ratio. The long-term debt ratio is significantly positively affected by the growth opportunities of these companies and by its past level. Our results are consistent with the findings of previous empirical studies about emerging and transition economies, indicating that companies in WBs follow the pecking order theory

Effects of gender on credit card usage among university students in Turkey.

In recent years, much has been written about credit card usage among university students. Despite a vast number of studies, little has been written about credit card usage among university students in developing countries. This research surveyed university students in Turkey in an attempt to understand their uses of credit cards. In particular, we examined the impact of gender on credit card use. The literature on the impact of gender on credit card usage is a bit unsettled and this study seeks to add another dimension to the research in this area. Using both parametric and nonparametric measures, we sought to isolate gender and tested whether or not it affects the ways that young people in Turkey use credit cards. The importance of this research centers on the portrait it provides of credit card usage among young people in a developing country as well as to pointing the factors that may influence future credit card use

The Impact of Short Selling on Intraday Volatility: Evidence from the Istanbul Stock Exchange

This paper examines the interrelation between short selling and volatility as differing from previous research in that it focuses on intraday activities rather than the daily price movements. We demonstrate that the effects of short selling activity changes during the two sessions of the day and rest of trading hours. The study also presents evidence that there is a considerable amount of short selling activity in the Istanbul Stock Exchange(ISE), particularly at the beginning of opening sessions, which significantly impacts the volatility of the market for the rest of the trading day

The Behavior of Istanbul Stock Exchange Market: An Intraday Volatility/Return Analysis Approach.

This study investigates intraday effects in the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) during the latest period of financial turmoil which began in August 2007 and extended to February 2010. We tested for the possible existence of intraday anomalies using both return and volatility equations, empirically applying GARCH (p,q) models. The unique data set we utilized was compiled from 15-min intraday values of the ISE-100 Index which are formed by averaging historical ten-second tick data. This study contributes to the current literature in three distinct ways. Firstly, the basic characteristics of the unique data used in this research were investigated in detail. Secondly, four range-based volatility measures, namely Garman Klass (GK), Yang-Zhang (YZ), Rogers-Satchell (RS) and Parkinson (PK), were employed to take more precise measurements of volatility for intraday data analysis in order to identify the changes in general market sentiment using opening, closing, high and low prices. Thirdly, we estimated the relative efficiency of GK, YZ, RS and PK by applying GARCH (p,q) models. The results are quite promising, indicating that strong opening price jumps are present for daily and morning calculations. They illustrate that the YZ estimator has relatively more power in generating tolerable volatility patterns