Views of Academicians, School Administrators, and Teachers Regarding the Use of E-portfolios in Transition from Elementary Education to Secondary Education

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes formula omitted)Since the time when attention towards universities began to grow in Turkey in 1970, students have become interested in secondary schools that offer better education in order to be able to study at better universities. With this rising interest, various entrance exams under many names have been initiated for such schools as the Anatolian and the science middle schools that offer quality education, and for the medical and agricultural vocational secondary schools that offer vocation-oriented education. These entrance exams, which had been held separately after primary school for the Anatolian and the science middle schools, were joined into a single exam in 1998 with the implementation of an eight-year compulsory education called the Entrance Exam for Secondary Schools until the 2003-2004 school year. With the renovation of the education system and curricula in 2004 and 2005, the exam was renamed the Secondary Education Institutions Entrance Exam (OKS) and used until the 2007-2008 school year (Aydogan, 2008).A new model that could more accurately and multi-directionally measure student performance in compliance with the basic features of education and training and that could provide a basis for a properly guided transition to secondary education was needed. Considering this fact, the Ministry of National Education began to implement the Transition System to Secondary Education (OGES) in the 2007-2008 school year, initially implemented in the 6th and 7th grades (Ocak, Akgul, & Yildiz, 2010). This system was composed of three general sections: the Level Determination Exam (SBS), the year-end success score, and the behavioral score (Ministry of National Education [MEB], 2007 as cited in Ocak et al. 2007). This system was renamed again in 2013 to the Transition System from Elementary Education to Secondary Education (TEOG) for the purposes of strengthening student-teacher-school relations, extending the evaluation of success over a longer time, ensuring the synchronous implementation of curriculum across the country, minimizing student absenteeism, easing exam anxiety by extending it over time, and so on. According to this new system, central exams with open-ended questions are carried out in 8th grade at certain times to assess six basic courses: science and technology, mathematics, Turkish, Revolution History and Kemalism, foreign language, and religion and ethics. Students take the exam in their own schools with a compensation exam performed for those who can't. The final score for student placement in secondary-education institutions comes from 30% of their year-end success scores from the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, and 70% of a weighted joint-exam score taken in the 8th grade (MEB, 2014).The Turkish Educational Association (TEDMEM, 2013) stated in their study on the transition between school grade levels that creating a transition process which employed more than one source, as opposed to a single central joint exam, would be a significant contribution. As well as suggesting a specific transition system for each type of secondary school, this study also suggested that to obtain the final score which qualifies students for such schools as a science high school or social sciences high school, 70% of the score should come from students' central joint exam, 10% from their elementary school weighted yearly grade average, 10% from their elementary school digital portfolio, and 10% from their elementary school teachers' cumulative evaluations. Hill (2010) pointed to the fact that one of the criticisms of the transition systems implemented in Asia-Pacific countries is that the decision is made from a three-hour evaluation that is unable to evaluate certain high-level abilities. Resnick and Berger (2010) suggested an approach for the American education system where certain components such as exams should be periodically conducted and where a comprehensive learning profile through a technological platform be employed in terms of both results and processes. …