European Journal of Education Studies

20

Authors: Mehmet Ali Kandemir, Rahile Akbaş-Perkmen

The main purpose of the current study is to examine the construct, convergent and discriminant validity of the Sources of Mathematics Self-Efficacy Scale (Usher & Pajares, 2009) in a Turkish sample. Bandura’s Social Cognitive Theory (1986) served as the theoretical framework for the current study. According to Bandura (1986), people’s self-efficacy develops from 4 sources: (1) Mastery Experiences, (2) Vicarious Experience (3) Social Persuasion and (4) Physiological States. Research studies in this area revealed that mastery experiences and social persuasion are highly correlated. Even it is not clear that these two constructs are distinct constructs. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to examine the construct validity of the scale. In order to see if mastery experiences and social persuasion are two distinct constructs, discriminant validity was examined. The participants were 616 secondary school students in Turkey. 3-factor and 4-factor models were nearly identical in terms of goodness of fit of data in the confirmatory factor analysis. The analysis of discriminant validity revealed that mastery experiences and social persuasion are not two different constructs.

28

Authors: Fevzi Dursun

Improving quality and providing permanent learning in the teaching process undoubtedly depend on the time that teacher spends and active and voluntary participation of students. This study is important for providing perspectives about new techniques and suggestions to the teachers and related persons by determining actions and thoughts of teachers relating teaching process. Aim of the research is to determine teachers’ actions for increasing the quality of teaching process. The research was carried out by using screening model to determine the actions of subject-matter teacher, working in Tokat province, for increasing the quality in teaching. 50 primary and middle school teachers attended to the research, working in Tokat central district and filling out the form voluntarily in interview. 12 open-ended questions weren’t evaluated due to several missing information. Convenience sampling method was used in the research, one of the qualitative research techniques. The convenience sampling technique brings speed, easy implementation and economy. Six (6) open-ended questions addressed to 50 voluntary teachers to determine the opinions of teachers about increasing the quality of teaching process. Before the final form of the open-ended questionnaire, opinions of 2 specialists who have doctoral degree in Department of Curriculum and Instruction were obtained, and 5 subject-matter teachers who didn’t include in study group were implemented pretesting. Questionnaire with open-ended questions were designed and participants were asked to write their opinions in the form and send e-mails to researcher including the forms. In this method, participants were asked to answer the questions as they were asked in the interview. These answers were supposed to be in written form. Questions used to determine teachers’ opinions are as follows: 1. What does it mean to be an active student in teaching process? How do you evaluate this? 2. What can be done to make students active in teaching process? 3. How do you keep alive student’s interest (voluntary participation without boredom)? 4. How do you support permanent learning? 5. How do you support motivation? 6. Which activities do you implement activities to improve quality of teaching process? Content analysis method was used, one of the qualitative data analysis. In the process of reporting the data, reliability was attempted to increase by quoting teachers’ opinions directly. Participants were coded as TE1, TE2… In order to increase reliability, two researchers randomly coded 5 open-ended questions; coefficient of coincidence was computed .76 by using “agreeing/agreeing & disagreeing” formula. Findings were organized under the seven themes: motivation, active student, teacher, providing permanent learning, features of teaching environment, method, technique and restraining student’s activity.