Journal of Higher Education and Science

219-235

Authors: Mehmet AKÖZER, Emel AKÖZER

In policy statements on ethics of scientific research and in codes of conduct developed since the mid–1990s it has often been deemed sufficient to provide an instrumentalist justification of scientists' responsibilities towards science and the scientific community, addressing essentially the need “to build trust between science and society.” This paper aims to demonstrate the feasibility and importance of an ethical justification of such responsibilities with reference to Kant's moral philosophy and Popper's critical rationalist epistemology that has its roots in the former. It argues that it is possible to derive internationally recognized standards for research integrity in a consistent manner (without recourse to ethical pluralism) by postulating respect for truth – science's epistemic goal – as a moral duty, and by adopting the “absolute inner worth” (dignity) of each and every human being as the supreme limiting condition for scientists' subjective goals in their search for truth, and for the means and methods employed for achieving these goals. Recognition of human being's rational nature and moral autonomy and respect for her absolute inner worth, which, in accordance with the Kantian categorical imperative, ought to be the objective principle of all action, also provides an insurance against temptations of ideological prejudgements, by fixing scientific inquiry on the route to its epistemic goal, and thus advances cognitions of the understanding. Conversely, incorporating presuppositions irreconcilable with this absolute worth at any stage of research, from hypothesis formation to the interpretation of findings, may be considered as an advance indication of a research program's epistemic defectiveness and its inevitable failure. As an exemplary incident of fateful programmatic failure caused by relativizing human worth in a research initiative, the paper traces the consequences of the influence that genetic determinism has exerted on science from roughly the last quarter of the 19th century to the present.

255-262

Authors: Gülseren KOCAMAN, Havva ARSLAN YÜRÜMEZOĞLU

In Turkey, for years, there have been unplanned increases in the number of nursing students, which adversely affected the quality of nursing education. The evaluation of the current situation in nursing undergraduate and graduate programs in terms of the number of faculties will provide data which will shed light on forward planning. The purpose of this study is to describe the profile of undergraduate and graduate students and the faculties between 1996 and 2015 and to assess needs for educators. The data of this descriptive study were obtained from three major reports prepared on nursing education, guidelines and statistical yearbooks of the Student Selection and Placement Center, and university web pages. In Turkey, as of June 2015, there are 133 nursing undergraduate programs held in 92 state and 41 foundation universities. The total number of nurse educators is 1894. While the number of nurse students per faculty member was 58 in the 1996-1997 academic school year, it is 74 in the 2015-2016. However, when the other instructors are included, these rates are 25 and 30 respectively. While the quotas for undergraduate nursing have increased 21.8 times between 1997 and 2015, the numbers of faculties and other instructors increased 8 and 8.7 times respectively. The number of people who received master’s and doctoral degrees from the graduate programs since the 2000-2001 academic year is 2788 and 650 respectively. In the 2014-2015 academic year, the number of master and doctoral programs reached 57 and 30 respectively. Although the number of undergraduate students increased rapidly in the last 20 years, the increase in the number of nurse educators continued to lag behind it. No more students should be enrolled for programs in which the number of faculties is inadequate. To meet the requirements for faculties, urgent interventions should be planned.

272-284

Authors: Iqbal M. KHAN, Usman KHALIL, Ifra IFTIKHAR

The subject of educational leadership would usually commence immediately by approaching the topic & work related to it. This paper is attempting to enhance the scope to examine some aspects of leadership and then to synthesize these to the concept of educational leadership. In Pakistan educational leadership is a stroke of luck, not a nourished and groomed phenomenon. It appears on an adhoc basis in the educational environment; few & far between examples of educational leadership exist. But to explain this phenomenon, enhancing the scope of leadership may be one way of explaining it better. We have also attempted to evaluate educational policy from high benchmark countries in education such as USA, Canada, UK and a comparison of Pakistani education policy and practice. However the limitation of this paper is that we did not have sufficient data and information on principals of educational institutes of Pakistan and education policy and the historical perspective of the same. But the comparison makes an interesting case. There is a shortage of principals that have a vision and ability to lead in education, as they are not selected on merits; ill-educated; not sufficient grounding for the position of principal. The need is to break away from ‘policy mechanic paradigm' and go for ‘classroom culturalist model' and this is influenced by the quality of leadership. The objective of this research are to understand what leadership in reality is and how it translates in the context of education, and to understand what a good model of educational leadership is and how to develop this in the context of cultural and regional factors in Pakistan.

292-303

Authors: Soner DOĞAN, Cahit KAVTELEK

The aim of this study is to evaluate lifelong learning institution administrators' opinions on the concept of lifelong learning within the scope of metaphor analysis. The study was structured by the qualitative research approach and, descriptive analysis, content analysis and constant comparison technique were employed during the process of interpretation of the data. The study group was composed of 417 lifelong learning institution administrators from all regions of Turkey participated in the “Workshop on Basic Principles of Adult Education” held in Antalya by the Ministry of National Education, General Directorate of Lifelong Learning. The metaphors expressed by the administrators under the study were structured in 86 categories under 6 themes including necessity, man-made, health, continuity, life and instructive. Accordingly, it can be said that lifelong learning institution administrators consider the concept of lifelong learning as necessary for human, beneficial for human beings and an indispensable element for human life.

316-323

Authors: Sevda KÜÇÜK, Samet KAPAKİN, Yüksel GÖKTAŞ

With the augmented reality applications via mobile phones created in recent years, ‘mobile augmented reality’ studies have revealed. In this study, it is focused on using ‘mobile augmented reality’ applications in anatomy education. The purpose of this study is to determine the medical faculty students’views on anatomy learning via ‘mobile augmented reality’ technology. Explanatory design with mixed methods was applied in this study. The purposive, random sample consists of 34 sophomore students, studying medicine. As data collection tools, questionnaire and interview form were used. Descriptive analysis methods were used in the data analysis. Results showed students’ views toward ‘mobile augmented reality’ based learning were highly positive. Students especially emphasized how ‘mobile augmented reality’ based learning generated sense of reality, materialized the subjects, increased interest in the lesson and was beneficial for individual study by providing a flexible learning environment. In conclusion, it would be beneficial for ‘mobile augmented reality’ applications to be incorporated in anatomy education.

335-346

Authors: Dilek KEKEÇ MORKOÇ, Cumhur ERDÖNMEZ

Instead of Web 1.0, which is one-way communication process of the methodologies used in teaching together with the pace of technology, which has become an indispensable passion of our age in accordance with the parallel development, Web 2.0, the content of which can be changed and developed, has started to be used. Today, many social networking sites have emerged and the use of these social Networks, especially among younger users, have began to increase rapidly. The Web 2.0 applications are able to carry all kinds of information and training content to an easily and quickly accessible platform. The use of Web 2.0 technology field is rapidly expanding day by day. In the light of studies carried out, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Çanakkale Vocational School of Social Sciences have registered 1140 students majoring in the 1st and 2nd grades of all programs in 2013-2014 academic year (spring) II. semester. A sample of 651 persons (57%) from this main mass accessed has been formed and provided their participations in the research. In this study, by being detailed Akıncı-Vural and Bat's ‘social media usage ınformation, a survey study to be determined what social networks they use and their usage habits' and also, a survey purposed specifying the ‘effects of the social media to learning and teaching process' carried out by Onyebuchi in 2009 has been taken as reference. In this study, through information and communication technologies, the students' internet and social media usage habits, the determination of their social media level of knowledge and the determination of the effectiveness and credibility of the use of social media in their educational processes at university-level have been intended.

361-366

Authors: Neşe ALKAN

Scientific, economic, social, technological, cultural and political transformations in our rapidly changing world force all institutions to adapt to these new conditions. Among these, higher education institutions are undergoing some changes themselves. On the other hand, being obliged to move ahead of time, they are educating scientists, economists, sociologists, engineers and politicians for the future. The purpose of this article is to examine and emphasize the necessity of a change in the role of psychologists working at universities whose mission is to educate the mind and manpower of the future. The transformations observed in the countries that pioneered education and science for the past 50 years imposed new, non-traditional roles to psychologists. Traditionally, psychologists who work at higher education institutions fulfill their role by working with individual and groups of students, on solving and preventing various problems. However, in today's universities, psychologist are expected to work with the entire university community, which constitute the context and environment that the university students interact. Being aware of the fact that students are not isolated entities at universities, psychologists are required to take part in various educational and strategic managing activities that at some point influence individual students. Within a holistic perspective, this article discusses the changing needs of the universities and possible novel tasks of the psychologists which are beyond the walls of counseling centers.

109-124

Authors: Mehmet AKÖZER, Emel AKÖZER

Scientists' moral responsibilities have become a focus for the scientific community over the postwar decades. International and regional networks of leading academic bodies have responded to a widely perceived increase in scientific fraud and the ensued loss of public trust in science during the 1980s, and initiated a discussion with a view to codifying good practice in research. While scientists' “external” responsibilities towards society and the humankind have been variously addressed, codes drafted since then mainly dwell on problems of misconduct concerning scientists' “internal” responsibilities towards science and to the scientific community. They also reflect an ethical pluralism, which declines justifying moral standards in research with reference to universal ethical principles. However, the need for such justification has been first recognized decades ago, during the Doctor's Trial in Nuremberg, where the shortcomings of the established ethos of science and the inadequacy of the Hippocratic ethics in safeguarding human rights in research had become flagrant, with the resultant Nuremberg Code of 1947 introducing a human rights perspective into Hippocratic ethics. This paper argues for the necessity of an integral ethical justification of scientists' both external and inner responsibilities, as put down or assumed by internationally acclaimed codes of conduct. Such necessity is validated by the evidence that a historical current to monopolize ethical thinking in the name of science and nullify philosophical ethics lies at the root of an anti–morality that relativized human worth and virtually legitimized human rights violations in scientific practice. Kantian ethics based on humans' absolute inner worth, and Popperian epistemology rooted in respect for truth and for humans as rational beings, pledge an ethical justification of moral norms in science so as to reinforce the latter against intrusions of anti–morality. The paper concludes with an attempt to such a justification for scientists' external responsibilities.

136-147

Authors: Serdar YARLIKAŞ

The purpose of this research is to investigate the development of management information systems field by evaluating the theses conducted at universities in Turkey in the departments of management information systems and science of management information systems. First, this study aims to determine the distribution of the theses in terms of years, subjects and the research methods used. Another purpose of this study was to determine which of the related disciplines of management information systems are used most in the theses. In addition, as a result of the study, the compatibility degree between the theses written and the courses taught in the graduate programs of management information systems were determined. In this research, content analysis method is used. Through this method, each of the theses was evaluated with a 10-question ‘thesis evaluation question set' constructed towards the purpose of the study. Through this evaluation, the current situation of the field was determined. It was observed that the number of doctoral theses associated with the field was less. Using the combination of qualitative and quantitative techniques most in the theses denoted that the interdisciplinary approaches were adopted in the theses associated with management information systems. It was observed that the literature analysis and survey techniques were the most studied research methods in the theses. Besides, statistical techniques were used highly in the theses. As a result of this study, it was concluded that out of the associated disciplines of management information systems, management science, computer science and statistics disciplines were more associated with the investigated theses. When the study results were evaluated as a whole, it was seen that significant progress was made in the discipline of management information systems compared to the early 2000s.

156-164

Authors: Zeynep TURAN, Yüksel GÖKTAŞ

The purpose of this study is to determine the students’views on ‘flipped classroom’ method. The study was carried out within 10 weeks with 58 early childhood education students. The case study method was used in this study. The data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews and student view questionnarie. Descriptive analysis method was used in the data analysis process. Study results showed that students had very positive views about the ‘flipped classroom’ method. Students stated that ‘flipped classroom’ method increases the retention of learning, facilitates the learning, is entertaining and flexible. Despite many advantages students stated that this method had also some disadvantages such as the lack of technical tools, being very time consuming and the need for watching videos before lesson.

178-186

Authors: Dilek MERİÇ, Nuray TOKGÖZ

Farabi Exchange Program provides mobility of students and academic staff among Turkish higher education institutions. The purpose of this research is to explore institutional image of Anadolu University according to Farabi students and to investigate what priorities or criteria they have when they prefer Anadolu University and to explore which factors impact the decision process. With this purpose, a survey design is used as a research method. The study covers surveys of 132 of 180 students who preferred Anadolu University through Farabi Exchange Program in the academic year of 2013-2014. Research results revealed that the incoming Farabi Exchange Program students perceive the institutional image of Anadolu University positively. Although the university itself has the most important effect on the decision process, it is found that other factors like the city and the faculty/ the department also have impact on the university preferences of Farabi students. No empirical research has been found investigating the institutional image and its role in the decision process of the students benefiting from the Farabi exchange program in the literature. This study is important since it contributes to the empirical literature and provides university administrations with practical information about factors affecting university preferences.

196-202

Authors: Ezgi CEVHER

The majority of the students spend their time on making plans for their education and career. The career planning process varies for each student according to their experiences, interests, abilities and values. The students' awareness about their career aims at the first or last period of their education is an important factor in managing their future. In career planning, the aim which is desired to be achieved is put forth with the help of the curriculum vitae in line with the interest and expectations. The curriculum vitae is a presentation about the person's education, work experience, fields of interests, career aims, the owned skills and about the things what the person wants to do in the future. In the research the curriculum vitae of the students were examined according to content analysis in order to identify and determine the career plans of the students attending the department of office management and executive assistant. The students were especially asked to specify their” aims and objectives, fields of interests, past experiences”, and these curriculum vitaes were subjected to evaluation within the scope of “career planning steps”. The obtained findings revealed the self-awareness, knowledge skills and experiences of the students attending this department, whether they made researches about their career options or not. The universities offered suggestions by taking the “career development efforts” into consideration in order to shape the students' career plans and to help them determine their career aims.

214-218

Authors: Mehmet ŞEREMET

This paper focuses on the challenges of fundamental sciences departments in student recruitment by taking the employability agenda (particularly skills development) into consideration. In addition, this paper also exemplifies the similar cases from such countries as India and the UK. As a result, one of the main advantages owing the disciplines is to have healthy student-staff ratio. Said that, two main drawbacks are also available for the programmes; a high number of unemployed graduate students and non-employability-saturated curricula. Eventually, this paper brings a set of suggestions which might help the departments to sustain a healthy student intake in the near future.

1-13

Authors: Yüksel KAVAK, S. Sadi SEFEROĞLU, Kübra ATALAY KABASAKAL, Zeynep ŞEN, Gonca ULUDAĞ

The changes in the society change people's expectations from individuals and correspondingly expectations from educational institutions. Accordingly, different implementations are observed. One of the implementations is the Bologna process which is a reform process, aimed at establishing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Developing programs as part of the Bologna process is important because it both contributes to the efforts to be a part of global world in a rapidly growing world, and to the quality assurance. The purpose of this study was to investigate the curriculum developed in Bologna process in the faculties of law in Turkish universities. The survey model has been used in this research which is a descriptive study. As part of data collection faculties of law from 72 universities, including 28 state and 44 private universities were selected. Program packages and course catalogs of those faculties, accessed through their web sites were examined. In addition, five law faculties, which admit students with the highest scores according to the Student Selection and Placement System's results, were selected for detailed investigation. Curriculums packages and five core courses, which are common in the five faculties, were evaluated based on instructional methods and techniques, and evaluation system used and ECTS workload calculations. Results indicated that, in approximately half of the institutions packages examined, information about the program goals, key learning outcomes and occupational profiles of graduates were not available in the web pages of related institutions, contrary to the Bologna process' notion. It is also understood that the object of the law curriculum is to help graduates gain both professional and personal characteristics. On the other hand curriculum qualifications such as the level of knowledge, ability and learning outcomes are being specified based on the learning outcomes specified by National Qualifications Framework for Higher Education in Turkey. In course catalogs of the four courses which are common in the five faculties, some of the terms used were not found to be appropriate with educational science terminology. In addition, it is also observed that the most commonly used method in courses is ‘lecturing' and assessment methods consist of ‘midterm and final exams. In accordance with the research results, it could be concluded that issues related to accreditation and curriculum development in law faculties need to be given more attention. It could also be emphasized that collaboration among educational science specialists and law specialists need to be established in developing curriculum and improving instruction.

27-31

Authors: Mehmet ŞEREMET

In this study, the internationalism strategies and policies of Turkish higher education institutions and their reflections has been compared with the way in which the higher education institutions practise in the United Kingdom. This study has been conducted with regard to the foreign students enrolled on the Turkish programmes, the position of the universities at the international rankings (Times Higher Education Rankings) and the number of the international academic staff in Turkish universities. The results showed that although Turkish universities and Turkish Council of Higher Education have not completed their process of making a compatible internationalism policy, especially the internationalism strategies of the foundation universities have been more successful and these universities have showed much better results in the rankings by means of their successful internationalism strategies and policies. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily true that the internationalism strategies in the non-profit universities are very healthy due to the fact that the state universities showed great success in recruiting more international students.

41-51

Authors: Fatma BAŞARIR, Mediha SARI

The purpose of this study is to analyze the perceptions of women academicians regarding “being a woman academician” through metaphors. The participants of the research are 67 women faculty members working in a newly established university in Central Anatolia Region in the 2013-2014 academic year. “Women Academicians Metaphors Survey” developed by the researchers was used as the data collection tool. Phenomenological design was used in the research and data was analyzed by using content analysis technique. As a result of data analysis, it was determined that women academicians developed a total of 65 metaphors. The metaphors developed by the participants were collected under nine conceptual categories. There are 18 metaphors such as ‘octopus', ‘foodprocessor', ‘cloned person', ‘chameleon', ‘shaman', ‘Swiss army knife' in the first category namely “woman academician as someone with multiple duties and responsibilities”. While the category of “woman academician as someone nourishing her vicinity with her productions” has nine metaphors such as ‘soil', ‘scientist', ‘cloud', ‘water'; the category of “woman academician as someone diligent” consists of metaphors of ‘bee', ‘ant' and ‘high-speed train'. There are seven metaphors such as ‘tumbler', ‘warrior', ‘duck' in the category of “woman academician as someone standing strong under difficulties”; six metaphors such as ‘non-fuel powered car', ‘candle', ‘devoted mother' in the category of “woman academician as someone devoted”; five metaphors such as ‘miracle', ‘superhero' in the category of “woman academician as a miraculous presence”; four metaphors such as ‘salaried housewife' and ‘employed housewife' in the category of “woman academician primarily as a housewife”; three metaphors as ‘scales', ‘tightrope walker' and ‘pendulum' in the category of “woman academician as someone having to maintain a balance”; three metaphors as ‘window dressing', ‘plan B' and ‘presence trying to become a whole' in the category of “woman academician as someone unnamed”.

68-79

Authors: M. Ertaç ATİLA, Ö. Faruk ÖZEKEN, Mustafa SÖZBİLİR

The aim of this study is to determine views of academic staff who have been to the United States in order to do a research study by means of scholarships and support programs provided by the Higher Education Council or Scientific or Technological Research Council of Turkey about the scholarship programs. The qualitative study is carried out as a holistic multiple case study research design. The data were gathered through semi-structured interviews from 10 academic staff who participated the scholarship program. Data were analyzed with content analysis technique. The results indicated that application process, time and financial resources were important for the preferences of academic staff in scholarship and support programs. The main reasons for applying the scholar program to undertake an international research study are grouped under three headings as academic, socio-cultural and foreign language improvements. The main influencing factors behind the researchers' preferences to go the United States are its' level of advancements in scientific research and peer influence. Concerning the duration of a research study in abroad the participants thought that 6 months to one year is adequate time and this time depends on the foreign language skills of the researchers, the field of study, subject and project. The main drawbacks of an international research study visit are the long waiting times for having the United States visa with no adequate support, the cost of health insurance and visa, lack of speaking foreign language skills, and adaptation time in the first arrival. As a result, the experienced participants suggested that the future scholarships have to cover health insurance; the researchers have to be supported for developing their foreign language skills and develop a clear research agenda and project prior to going abroad.

88-98

Authors: Muhammet ÖZDEN, Döndü ÖZDEMİR ÖZDEN

The aim of this study is to determine academic dishonesty behaviors based on the opinions of pre-service elementary and social studies teachers. This study was designed using a student self-report survey questionnaire. The sample of this study consisted of 445 pre-service teachers. The research data was collected using “the academic dishonesty behaviors opinion survey” developed for this research. The research data was analyzed using descriptive statistical techniques and chi-square test. Results indicated 23 items that pre-service teachers agreed on were about academic dishonesty. Of these 10 items were about academic cheating and 13 items were about plagiarism in assignments. The top three academic dishonesty behaviors based on participants opinion were respectively having another person take the test on behalf, stealing exam materials and handing in someone else's essay with his/her name on it. Most pre-service teachers did not accept 4 items as an academic dishonest behavior. These items were using old exam questions in order to prepare an exam, using someone else's notes in order to prepare an exam, to give information to other class students after taking the exam, and taking an exam after receiving information from students who already took the exam. In this study, another important finding was about gender differences; female preservice teachers showed more concern than male pre-service teachers about academic dishonesty behaviors. There were also a few limited significant differences both in grade and class level in all academic dishonesty behaviors.