Okul Öncesi Eğitime Katılım Fen Öz-yeterliğinin Gelişmesi Açısından Ne Ölçüde Önemlidir? PISA 2015 Verisine Dayalı Finlandiya, Singapur ve Türkiye Karşılaştırması

Preschool attendance rates have been increasing in recent decades yet there is some level of deviation throughout the participating countries in PISA. Finland and Singapore are the countries with a very high level of preschool attendance rates while the attendance rate in Turkey lags evidently behind the OECD average. In this study, we investigate the association between preschool attendance and science self-efficacy for these countries using the PISA 2015 data. PISA is an international survey study on 15-year-old students’ science, mathematics and reading literacies to evaluate the education systems in the participating countries. Regression analyses for each country have revealed that students’ preschool attendance is associated with their science self-efficacy scores to some degree in all three countries. The difference in self-efficacy seems to be getting larger as the preschool attendance increases. Singapore has the highest effect size while Turkey has the lowest one considering the magnitude of the association.Okul öncesi eğitime katılım oranlarında son yıllarda artış gözlenmesine rağmen PISA’ya katılan ülkeler arasında bu katılım oranları açısından belirli düzeyde farklılıklar bulunmaktadır. Finlandiya ve Singapur okul öncesi eğitime katılım oranının çok yüksek olduğu iki ülke iken Türkiye'de bu oran OECD ortalamasının belirgin bir şekilde gerisindedir. Bu çalışmada, bu üç ülke için öğrencilerin okul öncesi eğitime katılımları ile fen öz-yeterlikleri arasındaki ilişki PISA 2015 verisi kullanılarak araştırılmaktadır. PISA, 15 yaşındaki bireylerin fen, matematik ve okuma alanlarındaki okuryazarlık düzeylerini ölçerek katılımcı ülkelerin eğitim sistemlerini değerlendirmeyi amaçlayan uluslararası bir çalışmadır. Her bir ülke için yapılan regresyon analizleri, üç ülkede de okul öncesi eğitime katılımın fen öz-yeterlik puanını belirli ölçüde yordadığını ortaya koymuştur. Diğer bir ifadeyle, öğrencilerin okul öncesi eğitime katılım süreleri arttıkça fen öz-yeterlik puanlarının da arttığı göze çarpmaktadır. Bu iki değişken arasındaki ilişkinin büyüklüğü dikkate alındığında Singapur en yüksek etki büyüklüğü değerine sahipken, Türkiye etki büyüklüğünün en düşük olduğu ülke olarak dikkat çekmektedir

The impact of competitive aggressiveness on financial performance: A research on the leading industrial firms in Turkey

Günümüzde firmalar teknolojik gelişmelerin baş döndüren bir hız kazandığı, müşteri istek ve beklentilerinin sürekli değiştiği, buna paralel olarak ürün yaşam ömrünün kısaldığı, tahmin edilmesi zor ve karmaşık bir çevrede faaliyet göstermektedir. Firmaların bu değişim ve dönüşüme ayak uydurarak bu şiddetli rekabet halkasının içinde kendilerine yer bulması elzemdir. Sürdürülebilir bir büyümenin yanı sıra pazara hakim olma adına firmaların benimsedikleri rekabet yaklaşımları firmaların performansları üzerinde önemli etkiye sahiptir. Bu anlamda Türkiye’nin öncü sanayi işletmelerinin benimsedikleri rekabet yaklaşımları ile firma performansı arasındaki etkileşimin belirlenmesi önem arz etmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı firmaların agresif rekabetçilik eğilimlerinin finansal performansları üzerine etkisini incelemektir. Bu amaçla agresif rekabetçiliğin altı farklı finansal performans göstergesi üzerine etkisi araştırılmış ve regresyon analizi ile araştırmanın hipotezleri test edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda agresif rekabetçiliğin; firma performansı göstergelerinden Vergi Öncesi Kar/Aktif Toplamı, Faiz, Amortisman ve Vergi Öncesi Kar/Aktif Toplamı ve Satış Hasılatı/Aktif Toplamı oranlarını istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif yönde etkilediği tespit edilmiştir. Bu sonuç, firmaların agresif rekabetçilik eğilimlerini artırmalarının, hem karlılıklarını hem de varlıkların kullanım etkinliğini artırabileceğine işaret etmektedir.Today’s firms operate in difficult and complex environment in which technological developments are accelerating, customer demands and expectations are constantly changing at the same time the product life cycle decreases. Firms must adapt themselves to this change and conversion and take their place in this fierce competition ring. Besides sustainable growth, the competitive approaches adopted by the companies in order to dominate the market have a significant affect on firms performance. Therefore, to determine the relationship between their competing approaches adopted by Turkey's leading industrial firms and firms performance have crucial important. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of competitive aggressiveness tendencies on financial performance of firms. For this purpose, the effects of aggressive competitiveness on six different financial performance indicators is investigated and the hypotheses of the research is tested by regression analysis. As a result of this research,, it has been concluded that aggressive competitiveness has a significant and positive effect on Earnings Before Taxes/Total Assets ratio, Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization/Total Assets ratio and Net Sales/Total Assets ratio from the firm performance indicators. This result suggests that increasing the aggressive competitiveness tendencies of the firms may increase both their profitability and use efficiency of the assets

The impact of competitive aggressiveness on financial performance: A research on the leading industrial firms in Turkey

Günümüzde firmalar teknolojik gelişmelerin baş döndüren bir hız kazandığı, müşteri istek ve beklentilerinin sürekli değiştiği, buna paralel olarak ürün yaşam ömrünün kısaldığı, tahmin edilmesi zor ve karmaşık bir çevrede faaliyet göstermektedir. Firmaların bu değişim ve dönüşüme ayak uydurarak bu şiddetli rekabet halkasının içinde kendilerine yer bulması elzemdir. Sürdürülebilir bir büyümenin yanı sıra pazara hakim olma adına firmaların benimsedikleri rekabet yaklaşımları firmaların performansları üzerinde önemli etkiye sahiptir. Bu anlamda Türkiye’nin öncü sanayi işletmelerinin benimsedikleri rekabet yaklaşımları ile firma performansı arasındaki etkileşimin belirlenmesi önem arz etmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı firmaların agresif rekabetçilik eğilimlerinin finansal performansları üzerine etkisini incelemektir. Bu amaçla agresif rekabetçiliğin altı farklı finansal performans göstergesi üzerine etkisi araştırılmış ve regresyon analizi ile araştırmanın hipotezleri test edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda agresif rekabetçiliğin; firma performansı göstergelerinden Vergi Öncesi Kar/Aktif Toplamı, Faiz, Amortisman ve Vergi Öncesi Kar/Aktif Toplamı ve Satış Hasılatı/Aktif Toplamı oranlarını istatistiksel olarak anlamlı ve pozitif yönde etkilediği tespit edilmiştir. Bu sonuç, firmaların agresif rekabetçilik eğilimlerini artırmalarının, hem karlılıklarını hem de varlıkların kullanım etkinliğini artırabileceğine işaret etmektedir.Today’s firms operate in difficult and complex environment in which technological developments are accelerating, customer demands and expectations are constantly changing at the same time the product life cycle decreases. Firms must adapt themselves to this change and conversion and take their place in this fierce competition ring. Besides sustainable growth, the competitive approaches adopted by the companies in order to dominate the market have a significant affect on firms performance. Therefore, to determine the relationship between their competing approaches adopted by Turkey's leading industrial firms and firms performance have crucial important. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of competitive aggressiveness tendencies on financial performance of firms. For this purpose, the effects of aggressive competitiveness on six different financial performance indicators is investigated and the hypotheses of the research is tested by regression analysis. As a result of this research,, it has been concluded that aggressive competitiveness has a significant and positive effect on Earnings Before Taxes/Total Assets ratio, Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization/Total Assets ratio and Net Sales/Total Assets ratio from the firm performance indicators. This result suggests that increasing the aggressive competitiveness tendencies of the firms may increase both their profitability and use efficiency of the assets

Türkiye’deki öğrencilerin fen okuryazarlığını etkileyen faktörler nelerdir? PISA 2015 verisine dayalı bir hiyerarşik doğrusal modelleme çalışması

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the student and school-level variables affecting Turkish students' science literacy using PISA 2015 data. In this way, we aim to build a hierarchical model of the variables predicting students' science literacy level. Particularly, when we consider the sharp decrease in Turkish students' success in PISA 2015, the implications of this study would be even stronger. Because of the nested nature of the data and a high intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value (0.52), we performed hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis. As a result, we constructed a model including nine student-level and four school-level variables to predict students' science literacy scores. We classified the student-level variables into three categories as personal characteristics, variables associated with learning time, and variables associated with teaching-learning process. Similarly, we classified the school-level variables into two categories: school resources and learning environment in the school. While "weekly science learning time" is the most prominent variable at the student-level, "science specific resources", at the school-level, seems to be the most powerful predictor of students' success. One of the surprising findings in this study is that there is a significant negative correlation between "out-of-school study time" and science literacy scores.The main purpose of this study is to investigate the student and school-level variables affecting Turkish students’ science literacy using PISA 2015 data. In this way, we aim to build a hierarchical model of the variables predicting students’ science literacy level. Particularly, when we consider the sharp decrease in Turkish students’ success in PISA 2015, the implications of this study would be even stronger. Because of the nested nature of the data and a high intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value (0.52), we performed hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) analysis. As a result, we constructed a model including nine student-level and four school-level variables to predict students’ science literacy scores. We classified the student-level variables into three categories as personal characteristics, variables associated with learning time, and variables associated with teaching-learning process. Similarly, we classified the school-level variables into two categories: school resources and learning environment in the school. While “weekly science learning time” is the most prominent variable at the student-level, “science specific resources”, at the school-level, seems to be the most powerful predictor of students’ success. One of the surprising findings in this study is that there is a significant negative correlation between “out-of-school study time” and science literacy scores. Keywords: Science literacy, PISA 2015, hierarchical linear modelling (HLM), science educatio

Probleme dayalı öğrenme geleneksel öğretim yöntemine kıyasla fen eğitiminde ne derece etkilidir? Bir meta-analiz çalışması.

The main purpose of this meta-analysis was to investigate the effectiveness of PBL not only on student achievement and motivation in science, but also on attitudes towards science and skills in primary, secondary and higher educational levels. In addition, the effects of some moderator variables including publication type, research design, teacher effect, researcher effect, country, subject matter, school level, PBL mode, length of treatment, group size, type of questions and assessment instrument on the effectiveness of PBL were also examined in the scope of this meta-analysis. 147 effect sizes were revealed from 88 primary studies selected to be included in the meta-analysis based on the inclusion criteria. Random-effects model rather than fixed-effect model was chosen to be conducted to compute effect sizes indicating the effect of PBL on different outcomes while mixed-effect and fully random-effects model were used while performing analog ANOVA for moderator analysis. The results clearly show that PBL is more effective on different outcomes when compared to traditional teaching methods. The results indicate an overall medium mean effect size of 0.633 for PBL effectiveness. More specifically, PBL has a large impact with a large effect size of 0.820 on students’ achievement in science subjects in different levels and reveals medium effect sizes of 0.566, 0.616, and 0.565 for students’ attitude towards science, motivation in science and different kinds of skills, respectively. Moderator analyses indicate that publication type, country, subject area, school level and length of treatment have a noteworthy impact on the effectiveness of PBL.Ph.D. - Doctoral Progra

Analysis of Finnish Education System to question the reasons behind Finnish success in PISA

Finnish students have been showing outstanding achievement in each domain since the very first The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000. Finland has consistently been not only one of the top achievers but one of the countries with exceptional educational equity as well. In other words, very high literacy scores are just one side of the coin for Finland, what is more extraordinary is very little between-school variation, very high academic and social inclusion, and a high percentage of resilient students, which all point out the “Finnish Miracle” in educational equity. In this paper, we analyze the Finnish Education System to question the reasons behind this extraordinary success. We use three different sources to do that; a literature review, about 100 hours in-class observations, and the interviews with 11 teachers in an international school and a training school in Finland. The literature review covers a variety of related documents, such as articles, books and some official documents like national core curricula and Finnish Basic Education Act. We also scrutinized some other documents provided by The Ministry of Education and Culture, the highest authority regarding the education, and Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI). Based on the results of this study, we conclude that there is no single and isolated factor but there exists a system of interrelated factors to explain Finnish success. The quality of teachers and teacher education seems to be the most prominent factor in this system. Furthermore, the emphasis on the educational equity, long-term educational policy, culture of trust, reading habit of Finnish people can be the other reasons for this success. Finally, a high level of cooperation helps the educational system to work smoothly

A Research Methodology to Conduct Effective Research Syntheses

The need for comprehensive and systematic research syntheses has been increasing as the number of primary studies has proliferated in educational sciences in recent years. That is the main reason why diverse applications of meta-analysis, which is one of the most effective ways of research synthesis, has been encouraged in many disciplines including social and educational sciences. The main purpose of this article is to provide a conceptual framework for meta-analysis by questioning its criticisms and strengths over other methods of research synthesis. In addition, some methodological and statistical considerations like comparison of fixed-effect and random-effects models, different measures of effect size, unit of analysis, validity issues including publication bias and quality of primary studies, heterogeneity, moderator and power analyses in meta-analysis are discussed in detail. Moreover, brief information about software for statistical analyses performed in meta-analysis and a summary of standards for reporting meta-analysis are provided within the scope of this article. How well meta-analyses are conducted and reported is crucial since it has essential roles not only for cumulative nature of science but for policy makers and practitioners as well. Thus, we aim to provide the meta-analysts with an introductory-level guideline for their meta-analysis research