Journal of Higher Education and Science

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.