Turkish High School Students Research Articles

Effect on Turkish high school students of a psychoeducation program for developing forgiveness

Effect on Turkish high school students of a psychoeducation program for developing forgiveness

Metacognition and epistemic cognition in physics are related to physics identity through the mediation of physics self-efficacy

This study aimed (i) to investigate how epistemic cognition in physics and metacognition, together with three dimensions of physics identity framework—recognition, physics self-efficacy, and interest—predicted the overall physics identity of Turkish high school students and also (ii) to investigate gender differences in study constructs. A sample of 1197 high school students participated in the study. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The analysis results indicated that the model fitted the data well, further motivating intervention studies to test the causal relations proposed in the model. The results showed that recognition and interest directly predicted physics identity and mediated the relation of physics self-efficacy to it. Metacognition and epistemic cognition predicted physics identity through physics self-efficacy. The study also observed significant direct and indirect relations among metacognition, epistemic cognition, self-efficacy, recognition, and interest. Furthermore, gender differences were found in the current study. While no gender difference was observed in metacognition and epistemic cognition in physics, male students scored higher than female students in physics identity, self-efficacy, recognition, and interest. However, the mediation analysis further indicated that gender differences in physics self-efficacy might explain gender differences in physics identity, recognition, and interest. The results of this study could motivate future interventions testing the effect of metacognitive and epistemic activities on both physics self-efficacy and identity, and also, the interventions testing whether practices that reduce the gender gap in physics self-efficacy will help eliminate the gender gap in physics identity, recognition, and interest. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

We Can Help! A School-Based Intervention: The outcomes of multifaced academic self-efficacy intervention among Turkish high school students

In this research, an intervention programme was applied to increase students’ academic and university exam self-efficacy and decrease exam anxiety. Further, the relationship between self-efficacy beliefs, exam anxiety and sense of school belongingness (SSB) was investigated. For this purpose, high-school students (N = 129) completed an 11-weeks intervention programme applied and a questionnaire including demographic information (gender, socio-economic level), academic and university exam self-efficacy, exam anxiety, and SBC was distributed before and after the intervention. The results revealed that while students’ academic and university exam self-efficacy significantly increased, their exam anxiety significantly decreased after the intervention. Further, SSB and exam anxiety found to be predictors of self-efficacy beliefs. Limitations are discussed, and suggestions for future research were offered.

Exploring senior high-school students’ understanding of electrochemical concepts: patterns of thinking across Turkish and Indonesian contexts

This study focuses on examining senior high-school students’ conceptual understanding and difficulties concerning electrochemistry and comparing patterns of thinking across Turkish and Indonesian contexts. The Electrochemistry Concept Questionnaire (ECQ) was applied to 516 Indonesian and 516 Turkish high school students right after the teaching of the electrochemistry topics. The ECQ contains 18 multiple-choice questions and these questions belong to five different categories: reactions occurring during electrolysis, differences between electrolytic and voltaic cells, movement of ions in voltaic cells, poles in voltaic cells, and voltaic cell reactions. At the end of the study, it was determined that both Indonesian and Turkish senior high-school students’ understanding of electrochemistry concepts was relatively weak and they shared common difficulties concerning electrochemical concepts. While there was no significant difference between the average scores of the students from both countries on the test, it was determined that there were some significant differences on the basis of questions. It has been concluded that students from both countries have alternative conceptions similar to those determined in previous studies such as “during electrolysis, the electric current produces ions” and “electrons migrate through the solution from one electrode to the other”. At the end of the study, the reasons for the similar results and the significantly different results for the students of the two countries to comprehend electro-concepts were discussed.

Turkish Adaptation and Validation of the Adolescent Sleep-Wake Scale

Background and Objective The aim of our study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the ASWS in a Turkish adolescent sample.Methods Two hundred and two Turkish high school students participated in our study. We used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for factor structure. McDonald’s ω and Cronbach’s α values were utilized for reliability analyses. We examined convergent validity by calculating correlations between the ASWS and sleep parameters and perceived stress scale scores.Results A 3-factor structure was detected, explaining 66.20% of the total variance with an eigenvalue above 1 in EFA. The 3-factor structure was confirmed with good fit indices in CFA. The scale demonstrated solid internal consistency (α = 0.844, ω = 0.832). We found a significant negative correlation between the ASWS and perceived stress, sleep latency, wakefulness after sleep onset, and ability to sleep after wakefulness at night.Conclusions The Turkish ASWS was found to be a valid and reliable instrument.

OKULDA KENDİNİ TOPARLAMA GÜCÜ: BİR ÖLÇEK UYARLAMA ÇALIŞMASI

This study aimed to adapt the School Resilience Scale (Caleon& King, 2020) to Turkish culture. The participants of this study were high school students. The study consisted of three stages. The first stage regarded the scale translation for linguistic equivalence. In the second stage, the structural validity and reliability of the scale were tested. In the third stage, a test-retest reliability of the scale was performed. Fifty-three students (52.8% girls) participated in the first group, 615 students (52.7% girls) in the second group, and 88 students (67% girls) in the third group. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) findings to test construct validity showed that the four-factor structure of the scale had an excellent fit index. Next, a two-level confirmatory factor analysis was conducted, which confirmed the two-level model. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient for the total scale was .89, while it was between .78 and .84 for the sub-dimensions of the scale. In sum, the findings evidenced that the school resilience scale was a valid and reliable measurement tool that can be used to assess Turkish high school students' school resilience.

Does negative media representation shape adolescents' discrimination towards Syrian refugees through threat perception and prejudice?

The current study examined whether adolescents' desired social distance from Syrian refugees is shaped by negative media representation about refugees through threat perception and prejudice. Participants consisted of 587 Turkish high (Mage = 14.81, SD = 0.97) and middle school (Mage = 12.19, SD = 1.01) students. Negative media perception was measured in different contexts: TV programs, news, newspapers/magazines, and social media. Adolescents' desired social distance from Syrian refugees was measured through their preference for how socially distant from a Syrian peer in their neighborhood and school they wished to be. Perceived threat and prejudice were examined as possible mediators of the relationship between media exposure and discrimination. Results showed that more negative media representation was related to perceived threat and greater prejudice, which led to greater desired social distance from refugees. Findings provide important implications about how media can be an important tool in shaping intergroup attitudes towards Syrian refugees during adolescence.

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in Reading Texts in EFL/ESL Settings

Revised Bloom’s Taxonomy in Reading Texts in EFL/ESL Settings

The effect of a career adaptability psycho‐educational programme on coping with career indecision and career adaptability: A pilot study

AbstractThis study aimed to examine the effects of a career construction theory‐oriented Career Adaptability Psycho‐educational Programme on career adaptability and coping with career indecision in Turkish high school students. Twenty‐six participants took part in the experimental design. A split‐plot (mixed) design of 2 × 3 (experimental/control groups X pretest/posttest/follow‐up test) was used. It was found that the Career Adaptability Psycho‐educational Programme has a significant effect on coping with career indecision and career adaptability; the same effect was found for the follow‐up measures completed 4 months later.

Do Epistemological Beliefs Predict Critical Thinking Dispositions?: A Cross-sectional Study with Turkish High School Students

This study aimed to investigate whether high school students’ epistemological beliefs differ by gender and parents’ educational background variables and if their epistemological beliefs are significant predictors of critical thinking dispositions. The data for this study were collected with UF/EMI Critical Thinking Disposition Instrument and Epistemological Belief Scale and it was carried out with 178 high school students. This study revealed that while gender did not significantly affect students’ epistemological beliefs, parents’ educational background significantly affected their epistemological beliefs. Students who have parents with higher educational degrees had more sophisticated epistemological beliefs. Besides, students’ source, development, certainty, and justification scores significantly predicted their critical thinking dispositions and they together explained 24% of the total variance in students’ critical thinking dispositions. Students’ source, development, certainty, and justification scores were positively correlated to their critical thinking dispositions.

Is there still a necessity for awareness and information about HPV infection and vaccine for adolescent in developing countries?

Increasing awareness of human papilloma virus (HPV) and vaccines among the target population is an important factor for decreasing the rate of malignancies related to HPV. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to determine Turkish high school and college students’ knowledge level of HPV and vaccines via a survey. The HPV knowledge scale (HPV-KS) has been developed to measure the level of knowledge about HPV and vaccination. The response rate of ‘Yes’ to the question of whether the participants have heard of HPV and the vaccine was 60.8% and 58.8%, respectively. The lack of information was the commonest reason for not being vaccinated in 54% of the participants. According to the HPV-KS, the median value of the knowledge level of the participants was 35.7 (IQR; 14.3–57.1). The HPV-KS scores were significantly higher among those with parents who had graduated from university and had an income above the minimum wage than those who did not (p = .013 and p = .029, respectively). Current evidence suggests that Turkish adolescents have limited HPV knowledge. Gender, age, education (particularly university and health-related departments), parents’ level of education and income were all important factors in determining the outcome variables. Therefore, it is very important to apply educational programs to raise awareness by medical staff. Impact Statement What is already known on this subject? Human papilloma virus (HPV) infection is a major threat due to the reason of many malignancies, especially cervical cancer, and this problem can be overcome by informing the target population about the screening program and vaccination. What do the results of this study add? Lack of knowledge about HPV infection and cost of the vaccine were the main reasons for insufficient vaccination rate among the adolescents. What are the implications of these findings for clinical practice and/or further research? In developing countries such as Turkey, the necessity to raise awareness about HPV infection and vaccination has emerged. As a result, it is critical to implement educational campaigns to enhance awareness, particularly by medical staff.

Turkish High School Students' Perceptions of Culture Learning in Foreign Language Classrooms

Language and culture are thought to be interrelated by many researchers. Some find it valuable to integrate cultural elements into language teaching whereas others oppose the idea claiming that English is a lingua franca. There has been much research regarding the opinions of teachers or university students on this debate. However, learners excluding university students have not been fully explored up to date. The aim of this research was to investigate Turkish high school students’ perceptions of the place and role of culture learning in foreign language classrooms. Data were collected from 126 high school students through a questionnaire. In addition, interviews were conducted with 10 voluntary participants. For data analysis, descriptive statistics were conducted via SPSS, and the interview was analysed thematically. According to the results, the participants have positive perceptions of culture learning in language classrooms. Most of them are aware of the inseparable relationship between culture and language. They think cultural elements should be incorporated in language teaching. The findings were triangulated with the data obtained from the interviews. Interviewees agreed on the idea that culture should be taught along with the language. Rather than focusing on only the ideas of decision-makers, learners’ opinions should be investigated more in designing curriculum, as they are the subjects of learning.

Investigation of Turkish Middle and High School Students’ Water Literacy as a Factor Predicting Targets for Sustainable Development Goals

This research was carried out to reveal the factors affecting the water literacy of middle and high school students in Turkey. In the study, in which a total of 155 children living in Rize of Turkey participated, the data were collected using the "Water Literacy Scale" developed by Sozcu and Turker (2020a). This measurement tool was implemented as online questionnaire. The scale consisted of three sub-dimensions, namely water saving, water consciousness, and water sensitivity, and a total of thirty items. Data analysis was performed in the SPSS program, using unrelated t and One-Way Anova tests. It was concluded that the water literacy of the children differed according to finding the news about the water crisis realistic, and having a concrete experience in reusing water in some dimensions. There was no difference between the water literacy of middle and high school students. Critical suggestions based on informal learning, including parents, were made to provide water literacy to children.

Determining Turkish high school students’ misconceptions about electric charge imbalance by using a four-tier misconception test

This study aims to determine Turkish high school students’ misconceptions about the electric charge imbalance by using a four-tier misconception test, where the main questions are accompanied by a question about the reason for the answer, as well as student declarations about their degrees of certainty. A four-tier electric charge imbalance misconception test (4-tier ECIMT) was developed by Onder-Celikkanli (2019) in the context of her dissertation. It consists of 24 questions, each consisting of four tiers. It is limited to (a) electric interactions between charged bodies, (b) electric interactions between a charged body and a neutral body, and (c) electric interactions between two neutral bodies. It was administered to 402 tenth-grade Turkish high school students in Turkey. At the end of the study, some new misconceptions were introduced to the literature. One of the most important ones is ‘the magnitude of the electric force between the two objects is independent of the relative permittivity of the medium between them’.

Metaphorical Perceptions of High School Students in Rural Area Related to Career, Profession, and Job Concepts

This study aims to reveal the metaphorical perceptions of Turkish high school students in rural area about the concepts of career, profession, and job. The participants consisted of 160 (82 females and 78 males) high school students in the rural area. Participants are 10th (n=65), 11th (n=40), and 12th-grade (n=55) students. In order to reveal the metaphorical perceptions of the students about the concepts of career, profession, and job, each student was asked to complete the sentences of ''career is like ............ '' and '' because it is ... ''; ''profession is like ............ '' and '' because it is ... '' and 'job is like ............ '' and '' because it is ... ''. In this study, the phenomenology design was used and the data were analyzed by content analysis. Participants created total of 121 metaphors related to the career concept, 73 metaphors related to the profession concept, and 108 metaphors related to the job concept. The results are discussed basing on the career psychological counseling literature and presented suggestions for future studies.

Data Privacy Perception Among Adolescents in a Silicon Valley High School

Social media usage has increased tremendously over the last few decades, thereby becoming a mainstay in the global sphere. This technology is nearly ubiquitous in Silicon Valley, a technological center within the San Francisco Bay Area. In recent years, concerns have been raised over privacy and the extent of data companies collect from their user base. Minimal research has been conducted on adolescents’ privacy perceptions as well as conceptions in the Silicon Valley. Prior studies contend that adolescents may reveal too much personal information online but can also have varying privacy values depending on socioeconomic status. This study investigates the data privacy perceptions of students in a Silicon Valley high school (SVHS) and compares results to two studies, conducted in a different location (Turkish high schools) and with a different age group (US adults). The descriptive research method was used with Google Forms questionnaires distributed to students through email. Questionnaires were based on similar questions from the comparison surveys. Results showed that Internet and social media usage is indeed almost omnipresent among SVHS students. The students are more knowledgeable about privacy protection techniques and at least as concerned about privacy as American adults. SVHS students are also much more private about their personal information in comparison to the Turkish high school students. More research and comparisons in different socioeconomic areas and age levels is needed to determine the reasons behind these trends.

The Relationship Between Parental Attitudes, Basic Psychological Needs, and Bullying Status in High School Students

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between parental attitudes and basic psychological needs, and bullying and victimization among high school students. Furthermore, it focuses on whether the distribution of the status of bullying differs according to gender and experiences of domestic violence. The study group comprises 697 Turkish high school students and the data collection tools used are the Peer Bullying Scale Adolescent Form, Parents’ Attitude Scale, Basic Psychological Needs Scale, and Personal Information Form. Multinomial logistic regression analysis was conducted to investigate the associations of parental attitudes and basic psychological needs with bullying status. Results indicate that all sub-factors of parental attitude and the sub-factor of relatedness regarding basic psychological needs are associated with bullying at a statistically significant level, whereas the sub-factors of autonomy and competence regarding basic psychological needs are not associated with bullying at a statistically significant level. The sub-factor of involvement regarding parental attitude decreases the possibility of being a bully or a bully/victim, the sub-factor of psychological autonomy decreases the possibility of being a victim or a bully/victim, and the sub-factor of control decreases the possibility of being a bully/victim, whereas the sub-factor of satisfaction of the need for relationships decreases the possibility of being a victim or a bully/victim. The study results show that 70.7% of students were involved in peer victimization. The distribution of the status of bullying also differs according to gender and experiences of domestic violence at a statistically significant level. The study findings are discussed in light of the literature and some suggestions are offered.

A Corpus-based Analysis of High School English Textbooks and English University Entrance Exams in Turkey

This study aims to explore the missing link between English textbooks used in high schools (9th-12th grades) and English university entrance exams (2010-2019) in Turkey on lexical and syntactic complexity levels by using corpus linguistics tools: AntWordProfiler, TAALED, and the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (L2SCA). Official textbooks and complementary materials obtained from the Ministry of National Education have been compared against the official university entrance exams from the past decade. The results show that: (i) differences in lexical sophistication level can be observed between the two corpora, the lexical sophistication level of the exam corpus was higher than that of the textbook corpus, (ii) there is a statistically significant difference between the two corpora in terms of lexical diversity, the exam corpus has a significantly higher level of lexical diversity than the textbook corpus, (iii) statistically significant differences also existed between the two corpora regarding the syntactic complexity indices. The syntactic complexity level of the exam corpus was higher than that of the textbook corpus. The findings suggest that Turkish high school students who have to learn English with the official textbooks throughout their high school years will have to tackle low-frequency and more sophisticated words at a higher level of syntactic complexity at the time of taking the nationwide exam. This, in return, creates a negative backwash effect, distorts their approach to L2, and raises other concerns about the misalignment between the official language education materials and nationwide exams.

Relationships between constructivist learning environment perceptions, conceptions of learning biology and achievement goal orientations

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between Turkish high school students’ perceptions of learning environment, conceptions of learning biology and achievement goal orientations. In order to determine the relation among these three sets of variables, canonical correlation analyses were conducted. A total of 398 high school students participated in this survey. In line with the purpose of the study, three measurement tools (Constructivist Learning Environment Survey, Conceptions of Learning Biology Scale and Achievement Goal Orientations Scale) were employed. The results of the analysis have shown that the relationship between these three sets of variables is meaningful. Based on these findings, the possibility that both Turkish high school students’ perceptions of learning environment and achievement goal orientations are statistically influential in their conceptions of learning was discussed in the light of the related literature.

Cyberbullying among Turkish high school students.

Cyberbullying, a new form of the traditional bullying that has been transferred to the electronic environments (social media, online gaming environments, blogs, etc.), from the physical context to the virtual context, refers mainly to aggression that is deliberately carried out by adolescents. This study aims to measure the level of cyberbullying in Turkish high school students living in Eastern Turkey and identify the demographic and socio-economic factors which lead to being bully and being cyberbullied. The study population consists of 470 students aged from 15-19years. exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were implemented to identify the factor structure of the scale and it was observed that the Turkish version of the cyberbullying scale (CBS) is best represented by a one-factor structure. The comparisons across demographic and socio-economic variables were implemented using independent samples t test, one-way ANOVA, and Tukey HSD. To summarize the key findings, the variables that significantly affect the students' CBS scores are; gender, school type, number of siblings, ownership of a mobile phone, length of ownership of a mobile phone, private access to the Internet, family supervision, purpose of Internet usage, length of time spent on the Internet and type of application used to message with others.