Factors leading to “Permanent ABD Status”: An exploration in Turkish higher education

In the study, from a developed preliminary conceptual new institutionalist framework to determine the different strategic responses of organizations as a result of institutional pressures for conformity and predict the formation of alternative strategies; which strategic responses were given (acquiesce or defy or manipulate) from the Turkish higher education institutions that conform to the normatively presented quality management tried to determine. In the study, PLS-SEM algorithms were applied with SmartPLS software. The findings concluded that the "acquiesce" strategic response against normative pressure from the institutional pressures for the adoption of quality management in Turkish higher education, and the "manipulate" strategic response is given against mimetic pressure. According to the results obtained in this study, the acquiesce response as a strategic response to the normative pressures for higher education institutions to adopt quality management reveals that normative pressure is an essential tool for establishing quality in higher education. This indicates that success has been achieved in the systematic establishment of quality management on a national basis in Turkiye. Conformity to ESG standards brings success to Turkish higher education and enables Turkiye to complete its integration with Europe in higher education as soon as possible.

The moulds of masculinity and femininity determined by society are not only determinants of the way in which individuals behave in society, but also determinants of the production and distribution of the resources. The steady development of societies can be achieved when men and women have the equal power with equal opportunities and resources to shape their own lives and to contribute to their families, societies and countries. The internationally recognized indicators of aforesaid gender mainstreaming are the areas of Economic Participation and Opportunity, Educational Attainment, Health and Survival, and Political Empowerment. In Turkey, even though the legal basis of equality of women and men in these areas have been strengthened through legislative regulations enforced, the need to overcome the obstacles women face when participating to social life as complete and equal individuals and taking all precautions for this is still ongoing. In this study, gender equality in the Turkish higher education system was examined. For this purpose, the schooling rates in higher education, employment rates and participation rates in decision making mechanisms in management of women were examined in the light of gender equality indicators. In this study, which was conducted by document reviewing among qualitative research methods, official websites and documents of international organizations and Turkish official institutions were examined in order to access reliable documents related to Turkish Higher Education and gender equality variables. The survey concluded that while the schooling rates in the Turkish higher education and employment rates of women are high, the proportion of female academicians decreased as the academic degrees increased and that the horizontal disintegration patterns between the scientific areas are more visible on the basis of sub-branches. Furthermore, it has been found out that women are not adequately represented in decision-making mechanisms, even though they provide the necessary conditions.

Recently, internationalization of higher education has been high on the agenda in Turkey. Stakeholders have continuously been developing policies to improve the international outlook of Turkish higher education system. Attracting a higher number of international students to universities in Turkey is an essential aspect of these policies. With this nationwide struggle, the number of inbound international degree-seeking students in Turkey has increased from 16,656 to 185,047 in the last two decades. Achieving this dramatic increase is beyond any doubt worth appreciation. Nevertheless, a closer look reveals that the ratio of international students to local students is still lower than in most OECD countries. Moreover, a vast majority of international students come from a quite limited number of neighboring and Turkic countries. Last but not least, the policy lacks a well-planned, long-term strategy for diversifying and increasing the international student population in Turkish higher education in the upcoming decades. In the light of this analysis, this chapter provides several recommendations to enhance inbound international student mobility in Turkish higher education.

Sports sciences and sports education are applied in various scientific disciplines of Turkish higher education. Sport Sciences are applied in many universities in Europe to sports education students in higher education and to students in other departments for to meet social needs. In this regard, restructuring sports education is a new requirement in Turkey in terms of European sports education cooperation and developments. The aim of this study is to examine European Higher Education Qualities and Turkey's Higher Education Sports Education Process for to set forth an understanding regarding mission and vision in the forthcoming years. ISCED, EASM, and AEHESIS sports education models and European Union education process are analyzed within the scope of the research. Eventually, Turkey is in a restructuring process in terms of physical education and sports education in higher education, Bologna process and qualities. Within the scope of this regulation, anew sports education and basic field qualifications curricula should be updated by considering determination of basic fields. Turkish Higher Education Qualifications Framework (TYCC) basic field qualifications that are formed based on the ISCED concerning Coaching Education, Sports Management and Recreation Departments should be reclassified.

Turkey has been concerned about gender inequality in education for many years and has implemented various policy instruments. However, gender disparity still seems to prevail today. This study seeks to provide an insight to the gender differences in terms of enrollment rates, level of education, fields of education and number of graduates in Turkish higher education. The research was structured as a descriptive study. Being a descriptive study, secondary data obtained from the Council of Higher Education's website (CoHE), http://www.yok.gov.tr/ is used in this research and the present study takes the year of 2014/2015 for the selected criteria but just 2013-2014 as a reference for graduates. With the latest data available, the percentage of gender difference according to the number of both male and female students enrolled in higher education is calculated. Results presented in charts and graphs indicate that Turkey has made progress in reducing gender disparity in higher education while gender disparity is still severe and needs more emphasis.

To become third generation university, higher education (HE) institutions must compete, create value for internal and external stakeholders, and adapt to changing market conditions. The concept of organizational agility (OA) refers to a dynamic organization that can sense the change imposed by internal and external elements, routinely implement change, and has the capacity to learn continuously. Based on this concept, this research aims to develop a scale to discover the perceptional evaluations of academic and administrative staff of public universities in the context of OA, and thereby to establish an OA framework for public universities. The research was carried out in psychometric design. The resulting Organizational Agility Scale in Higher Education was pilot tested and administered to 893 academic and administrative staff from 10 public universities in Istanbul. The principal components analysis with varimax rotation supported four dimensions. Through confirmatory factor analysis, four-factor structure was found to be at acceptable level. Four dimensions of the scale (strategy and staff-oriented organizational design, internal stakeholder orientation, cooperation with external stakeholders, support for innovation) focus more on human side of higher education institutions and less on change management and responsiveness, compared to business agility. The findings imply that institutional and national efforts are needed to form a strategy and stakeholder-oriented organization design for universities. A separate OA framework should be constructed for private universities to reach a more holistic understanding of Turkish HE and to compare public and private higher education institutions and to discover how Turkish HE system can be more agile and responsive in national and international contexts.

This study aims to examine the changes in the procedures and principles of obtaining academic titles in Turkish higher education from the proclamation of the new Republic, and the appointment of those who have these titles to academic positions. By applying the document analysis method, the changes in the law of universities, higher education laws, regulations for academic staff promotion and appointment, published in the Official Gazette since 1933, were examined. A total of twenty-two laws and regulations and the related changes were examined, which revealed that the highest number of changes were made in the titles and appointments of associate professors and professors (totally forty-eight) in the law of universities and higher education law. Nineteen changes were made regarding academic titles in the academic promotion and appointment regulations. To conclude, despite its long-established structure, Turkish higher education has made many significant and frequent changes to its academic title awarding and appointment procedures, primarily due to sociopolitical reasons.

The development of higher education and research constitutes a possible pathway to innovation and global competitiveness. Nation states, however, often seek the quickest adaptations, with minimum investment, ignoring essential political and structural changes. Turkey maintains its highly centralized system of higher education observing the national policies in the field. This paper addresses the international aspects of Turkish higher education, with special focus on student and academic mobility. Present day Turkish higher education system has been shaped by two dominant major events: the post‐Soviet era and the country's integration into the European Union.

With the enormous scientific and technological developments, higher education institutions are facing rapid structural, social, technological changes. Because they are considered as an important center of talent development and knowledge production and sharing for countries. To fulfill their educational, social and economic needs, higher education institutions need to respond to changing education needs, to adopt the more flexible modes of organizational culture. Organizational culture is a promotive environment which influences values, assumptions and beliefs. In an innovative culture, people can easily develop new ideas and exhibit collaboration. Therefore, this paper examines the relationship between the organizational culture features and the perceptions and student reported implementation with regard to student-centered learning, collaborative learning and use of innovative educational technologies in Turkish higher education. Four universities were involved, and 894 students responded to a questionnaire comprising three groups of questions. The three groups of questions capture (i) demographic characteristics, (ii) student perceptions of organizational culture, (iii) students’ perceptions of and responses to educational innovations comprising the following scales in a survey study. The results show that features of organizational culture affect students’ perceived need for innovation, their views about innovative approaches to instruction, responsiveness to instructional innovations and the perceived implementation level of educational innovations. In addition, differences among the institutions were examined and discussed. The study concludes that hierarchical structure, lack of open communication and autonomy, workload, lack of financial resources and support are main barriers for educational innovations in Turkish universities. It also implies to understand the link between organizational culture and educational innovations in Turkish higher education context.

This research aims to examine student satisfaction at higher education institutions through the estimation of a student satisfaction index (SSI) by simultaneously building a strategic management map (SMM) to help higher education leaders identify the areas for improvement at their institutions during Covid-19 induced hybrid education in Turkish Higher Education. The research was carried out with university students at a well-known foundation university in Turkey during Covid-19 pandemic. American Customer Satisfaction Model (ACSI) was used as a lens of analyisis to demonstrate the causal relationship between the antecedents and consequences of student satisfaction in Turkish Higher Education. The partial least squares (PLS) estimation was employed to test the model and obtain the SSI score. Given the complex nature of student satisfaction and loyalty, the model was found to adequately predict overall student satisfaction and loyalty. SSI score of 64.95 was found to be lower than the weighted average of all sectors in the United States in 2021. The SMM that was built to examine the relative importance of each quality attributes demonstrated that the perceived utility/benefit and interactional/process-based quality attributes have the greatest positive influence on satisfaction score.

Based on the academic performance grades of university students, various high-stakes decisions are made, including determinations of pass/fail status, the awarding of diplomas, and eligibility for placement in graduate education programs. According to the criteria used, the types of assessment are divided into two assessment, criterion-referenced assessments and norm-referenced assessments. When the grading system of state universities in Turkish higher education is examined, it has been observed that some universities use criterion-referenced assessment, some use norm-referenced assessment, and some use both assessment systems. The purpose of this research is to examine whether inter-university grading systems show significant concordance in the context of university students' letter grades or not. In other words, it is to reveal whether there are skew in the grading systems of public universities. In this context, 250 individuals were simulated in a way that their class/group achievement level would show a normal distribution. Among the public universities in the 2021-2022 Academic Performance Ranking of Universities (URAP), four state universities were determined in the first quarter, second quarter, third quarter, and last quarter. The letter grades of each student's academic success grade in the relevant universities were determined and it was examined whether there was a significant concordance between the letter grades of the students. In the study, it was concluded that in the context of university students' letter grades, inter-university grading systems generally do not show significant concordance. The findings are expected to contribute to the work of the Council of Higher Education and the University Education Commissions.

Before the civil war broke out in Syria following the uprising in March 2011, Turkey and Syria had a rather good relationship permitting an easy crossing of the border and letting thousands of Syrian nationals to pursue their studies at the northern neighbor. With the deepening of the fights in Syria, the number of refugees flowing into the Turkish Republic was growing, and according to recent statistics, an estimated 3 million Syrian asylum seekers reside on Turkish soil. Some of them live in refugee camps, some of them with family members holding Turkish citizenship, and an increasing number of them made Turkey their home thanks to scholarship programs provided by the Turkish government, universities or civil society organizations. In our present paper, we would like to analyze the usage of the method of secondary data analysis the current situation of Syrian refugee students studying at Turkish universities. We would first concentrate on the statistical aspect of the issue using the tables provided by the Turkish pedagogical agent called Measurement, Selection and Placement Center (OSYM) and the Higher Education Board (YOK), the total number of students and the academic and social background of those benefitting from the above opportunities. Later on, we project to highlight the main reason why a refugee can find Turkey an ideal place for his or her academic career and research, what their rights and duties and how can they contribute to the development of Turkey and the refugee community int hat country. The story of refugee students in Turkey can prove how survivals of a disastrous tragedy can have a benefit from a quality education in order to be reintegrated into society and promote peace and understanding. How to cite: Bariscil, A. (2017). An Emergency Academic Support - Syrian Refugee Students in the Turkish Higher Education. Revista Romaneasca pentru Educatie Multidimensionala , 9(1), 39-49. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18662/rrem/2017.0901.03

The implementation of quality assurance (QA) is one of the most challenging reform areas for Turkey due to the unique organization of its higher education system. This paper explores the development of QA systems in Turkish universities. Using a qualitative case study approach, the authors examine how Turkey accomplishes the goal of implementing QA practices at institutional, national and international levels. The data included policy documents and interviews with the Turkish Bologna Experts who shared their experience of the implementation process. The findings suggest that Turkish policy-makers and universities have made considerable progress in improving QA systems and aligning national policies with those found in other Bologna nations. We conclude that the focus of current reform should be on developing internal quality practices and encouraging participation of all stakeholders. Turkish higher education needs to find its own combination of measures that will consider historical and social characteristics of quality culture and to develop strategies befitting Turkey's conditions.

This chapter provides a comprehensive examination of service learning in Turkish higher education. Exploring the historical evolution of service learning, it aims to offer valuable insights to international readers regarding specific practices in the Turkish educational context. Objectives include investigating diverse methodologies, discussing challenges, and identifying case studies. Through an in-depth analysis, the chapter aims to derive meaningful insights contributing to a comprehensive service learning framework. Additionally, it explores service learning from the perspectives of educators, administrators, and students, highlighting benefits, challenges, and impacts on the educational experience. This chapter is significant for the global academic community and Turkish higher education administrators, serving as inspiration for developing and integrating service learning components within institutions.

This article refers to:Impact of the Bologna Process on Turkish higher education: the case of Izmir University of Economics