International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their

Transcription

International Journal
on
New Trends in Education
and
Their Implications
(IJONTE)
January, 2014
Volume: 5
Issue: 1
ISSN 1309-6249
http://ijonte.org
International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications
January 2014 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 ISSN 1309-6249
Contact Addresses
Prof. Dr. Zeki Kaya, Gazi Üniversitesi, Gazi Eğitim Fakültesi, Eğitim Bilimleri Bölümü Tenik
Okullar Ankara/Türkiye
E. Mail: [email protected]
Prof. Dr. Uğur Demiray, Anadolu Üniversitesi, İletişim Bilimleri Fakültesi, Yunusemre
Kampüsü, 26470 Eskişehir/Türkiye
E. Mail: [email protected] Phone: +905422322167
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ilknur Istifci, Anadolu Üniversitesi, Yabancı Diller Yüksek Okulu, İki Eylül
Kampusü, 26470 Eskişehir/Türkiye
E. Mail: [email protected] or [email protected] Phone: +902223350580
Indexed by
Sponsors
i
Copyright © International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications / www.ijonte.org
Editors
Prof. Dr. Zeki Kaya, Gazi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Uğur Demiray, Anadolu University, Turkey
Associate Editor
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ilknur Istifci, Anadolu University, Turkey
Assistant Editors
Assist. Prof. Dr. Beyhan Zabun, Gazi University, Turkey
Ufuk Tanyeri, Gazi University, Turkey
Nazan Dogruer, Eastern Mediterranean University,TRNC
Ramadan Eyyam, Eastern Mediterranean University , TRNC
Ipek Menevis, Eastern Mediterranean University, TRNC
Editorial Board
Prof. Dr. Abdul Hakim Juri, University of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Mahiroğlu, Gazi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Ahmet Pehlivan, Cyprus International University,TRNC
Prof. Dr. Ali H. Raddaoui, University of Sfax, Tunisia
Prof. Dr. Ali Murat Sunbul, Selcuk University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Ali Şimşek, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Antoinette J. Muntjewerff, Amsterdam University, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Augustyn Bańka, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland
Prof. Dr. Boriss Misnevs, Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Latvia
Prof. Dr. Charlotte Nirmalani (Lani) Gunawardena, University of New Mexico, USA
Prof. Dr. Christine Howe, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
Prof. Dr. Cevat Celep, Kocaeli University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Cleborne D. Maddux, University of Nevada, USA
Prof. Dr. Coşkun Bayrak, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Danièle Moore, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Prof. Dr. Emine Demiray, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Erol Yıldız, Alpen-Adria University, Austria
Prof. Dr. Esmahan Ağaoğlu, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Francis Glasgow, Guyana University, South America
Prof. Dr. Gonca Telli Yamamoto, Okan University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Gul Nurgalieva, Joint-stock company,"National Center of Information", Kazakhstan
Prof. Dr. Harold Bekkering, University of Nijmegen, Netherlands
Prof. Hayriye Koc Basara, Sakarya University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. H. Ferhan Odabaşı, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Heli Ruokamo, University of Lapland, Finland
Prof. Dr. I. Hakki Mirici, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Jim Flood, Open University, United Kingdom
Prof. Dr. Jozef Gašparík, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
Prof. Dr. Kiyoshi Nakabayashi, Kumamoto University, Japan
Prof. Dr. K. M. Gupta, Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology, India
Prof. Dr. Leyla Küçükahmet, Gazi University, Turkey
ii
Prof. Dr. Liliana Ezechil, University of Piteşti, Romania
Prof. Dr. Manuel Alberto M. Ferreira, Lisbon University Institute, Portugal
Prof. Dr. Marie J. Myers, Queen's University, Canada
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Ali Kısakürek, Ankara University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Durdu Karslı, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Kesim, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Şişman, Osman Gazi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Meral Aksu, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Min Jou, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan
Prof. Dr. Modafar Ati, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates
Prof. Dr. Mohamed Abolgasem Artemimi, Zawia Engineering College, Libya
Prof. Dr. Müfit Kömleksiz, Cyprus International University,TRNC
Prof. Dr. Nedim Gürses, Anadolu University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Paul Kawachi, Bejing Normal University, China
Prof. Dr. Piet Kommers, University of Twente, Netherlands
Prof. Dr. Ramesh C. Sharma, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
Prof. Dr. Richard C. Hunter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Prof. Dr. Rozhan M. Idrus, School of Distance Education, University Sains, Malaysia
Prof. Dr. Santosh Panda, Indira Gandhi National Open University, India
Prof. Dr. Selahattin Gelbal, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Sharif H. Guseynov, Transport and Telecommunication Institute, Latvia
Prof. Dr. Tamar Lominadze, Georgian Technical University, Georgia
Prof. Dr. Tanja Betz, Goethe University, Germany
Prof. Dr. Tayyip Duman, Gazi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Tony Townsend, University of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Prof. Dr. Valentina Dagiene, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics, Lithuania
Prof. Dr. Xibin Han, Tsinghua University, China
Prof. Dr. Yavuz Akpınar, Bogaziçi University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Yoav Yair,The Open University of Israel, Israel
Prof. Dr. Yüksel Kavak, Hacettepe University, Turkey
Prof. Dr. Zdena Lustigova, Chareles University, Czech Republic
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Ok, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Antonis Lionarakis, Hellenic Open University, Greece
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Carlos Machado, Vrije University, Belgium
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Danny Bernard Martin, University of Ilinois at Chicago, USA
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Demetrios G. Sampson, University of Piraeus, Greece
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Natalija Lepkova, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, Lithuania
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nigel Bagnall, The University of Sydney, Australia
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Roberta E. (Bobby) Harreveld, Queensland University, Australia
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rositsa Doneva, Paisii Hilendarski University of Plovdiv, Bulgaria
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Shivakumar Deene, Karnataka State Open University, India
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Steve Wheeler, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom
Assist. Prof. Dr. Irfan Yurdabakan, Dokuz Eykul University, Turkey
Assist. Prof. Dr. Katherine Sinitsa, International Research and Training Center, Ukrania
Assist. Prof. Dr. Roxana Criu, Cuza University, Romania
Dr. Carmencita l. Castolo, Polytechnic University, Philippines
Dr. Hisham Mobaideen, Mu'tah University, Jordan
Dr. Simon Stobart, University of Teesside, United Kingdom
iii
January 2014 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Contents ISSN 1309-6249
CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………………….…………………………………………………………….…….iv
From The Editors…………………………………………………………………………………..………………………………………………………vi
ARTICLES…………………………………………………………………..……………………………………………………..………………………….01
01. CONSIDERATIONS ON THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
Silvia Cristina Freitas BATISTA, Gilmara Teixeira BARCELOS- BRAZIL…………………………………………………………….01
02. THE EFFECTS OF MINIMALIST MOVEMENT ON PAINTING ARTS AND MUSIC
Şükriye İNAN, İzzet YÜCETOKER- TURKEY…………………………………………………………………………………………………….11
03. INVESTIGATING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ INFORMATION LITERACY IN TERMS
OF DEMOGRAPHICAL DATA
Dilek ÇAĞIRGAN GÜLTEN, Yasemin DERİNGÖL KARATAŞ- TURKEY……………………………………………………………….26
04. EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS STUDY FOR THE SCALE
OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHEMISTRY
Gökhan DEMİRCİOĞLU, Ayşegül ASLAN, Mustafa YADİGAROĞLU- TURKEY…………………………………………….……38
05. LEARNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: GEOGRAPHICAL SCHOOL PRACTICE IN SLOVENIA
Karmen KOLNIK- SLOVENIA……………………………………………………………………….………………………………………………..46
06. AN E-DEMOCRACY APPLICATION: DO NOT LET MY DREAMS
OF AN IDEAL UNIVERSITY STAY ONLY IN MY DREAMS
Serkan ŞENDAĞ- TURKEY …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………...53
07. A LEARNING BY DOING APPROACH IN TEACHING THE FUNDAMENTALS
OF THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TRUSSES
Gökhan YAZICI, Edip SEÇKIN-TURKEY……………………………………….………………………………………………………………….64
08. LEARNING OBJECT FOR LINEAR SYSTEMS: SCRATCH IN MATHEMATICS
Silvia Cristina Freitas BATISTA, Carlos Bruno Freitas BAPTISTA- -BRAZIL……………………………………………………….71
09. VIEWS OF TURKISH EFL STUDENTS WITH REGARD TO LEARNING GRAMMAR WITH GAMES
Onur KÖKSAL, Ahmet ÇEKİÇ, Ömer BEYHAN-TURKEY……………………………………………………………………………………82
10. INTEGRATION OF VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGY
IN LEARNING COMPUTER PROGRAMMING: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK
Siti Rosminah MD DERUS, Ahmad Zamzuri MOHAMAD ALI- MALAYSIA………………………………………………………93
11. DETERMINING PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION LEVELS
OF ELECTRICITY CONCEPTS
Özgül KAYA, Seyhan ERYILMAZ, Ali Rıza AKDENİZ- TURKEY………………………………………………………………………..104
12. AUGMENTED REALITY APPLIED TO NATURAL SCIENCES
Bárbara Maria Lemos FERREIRA, Thaís Nogueira FERNANDES, Suzana da Hora MACEDO- BRAZIL………..…….116
iv
January 2014 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Contents ISSN 1309-6249
13.
MEANINGFUL LEARNING AND CONCEPT MAPS TO TEACH ELECTRICAL MACHINES FOR ADULTS
Evanildo dos Santos LEITE- BRAZIL…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….125
14. CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK ON SUPPORT, RESOURCES,
TRAINING AND TIME ALLOCATION
Siti Salina MUSTAKIM, Othman LEBAR, Abdul Aziz MOHAMED, Hasniza BASRI,
Nerlizam MAHAD- MALAYSIA…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….133
15. TEACHING THE MAGNETIC FIELD OF A BAR-SHAPED MAGNET USING AUGMENTED REALITY
Suzana da Hora MACEDO, Evanildo dos Santos LEITE, Filipe Arantes FERNANDES- BRAZIL………………………..145
16. THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCE ON LANGUAGE LEARNER STRATEGY
USE IN TURKISH EFL CONTEXT
Mehmet Sercan UZTOSUN- TURKEY…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..157
17. THE COMPARISION OF 54-66 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN’S READINESS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL DURING
PRESCHOOL PERIOD AND THEIR ADAPTATION TO PRIMARY SCHOOL
Özgül POLAT, Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU, Şennur SOHTORIKOĞLU NIRAN, Fatma Özge ÜNSAL,
Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ- TURKEY………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….169
18. MOTIVATION, LEARNER IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
Hakan TARHAN, Sena BALBAN- TURKEY…………………………………………………………………………………………………….183
19. GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS’ PLACE AND IMPORTANCE IN SOCIAL STUDIES LESSONS
Aslı AYTAÇ – TURKEY………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….198
20. MY OWN PAST: AN EXAMPLE OF FAMILY INVOLVEMENT PROJECT APPLIED
TO IMPROVE 48 – 54 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN’S PERCEPTION OF THE PAST
Rengin ZEMBAT, Fatma Özge ÜNSAL, Fatih YAZICI, Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU ,
Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ, Hilal İlknur TUNÇELI- TURKEY…………………………………………………………………………………209
v
January 2014 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 From Editors ISSN 1309-6249
Dear IJONTE Readers,
International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications- IJONTE appears on your screen now
as Volume 5, Number 1. In this issue it publishes 20 articles. And this time, 51 authors from 5 different
countries are placed. These are Brazil, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan , Slovenia and Turkey.
Our journal has been published for over five years. It has been followed by many people and a lot of articles
have been sent to be published. 222 articles have been sent to referees for forthcoming issues. They will be
published according to the order and the results. Articles are sent to referees without names and addresses of
the authors. The articles who get positive responses will be published and the authors will be informed. The
articles who are not accepted to be published will be returned to their authors.
We wish you success and easiness in your studies.
Cordially,
st
1 January, 2014
Editors
Prof. Dr. Zeki KAYA, Gazi University, Ankara, TURKEY
Prof. Dr. Ugur DEMIRAY, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, TURKEY
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ilknur ISTIFCI, Anadolu University, Eskisehir, TURKEY
vi
January 2014 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 Article: 01 ISSN 1309-6249
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE USE OF MOBILE PHONES IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT
Prof. Dr. Silvia Cristina Freitas BATISTA
Instituto Federal Fluminense
Campos dos Goytacazes – RJ, BRAZIL
Prof. Dr. Gilmara Teixeira BARCELOS
ABSTRACT
Technological advancements have allowed mobiles phones to perform various functions with increasingly
better performance. However, the use of these devices in educational contexts divides opinions, especially
when used in the classroom. Mobile phones can support different pedagogical tasks, but may also be
responsible for problems such as distractions during classes. Therefore, such use is still facing resistance in
formal education. Considering the scenario described, this paper aims at discussing the use of mobile phones in
education with support of data obtained in a survey with undergraduate students and teachers of Mathematics
Education at a federal institution. Data showed that the participants' opinions are consistent with the
literature, signaling difficulties and benefits of using the mobile phones in education.
Key Words: Mobile Phones, Educational Contexts, Mathematics Education.
INTRODUCTION
With the growing portability and functional convergence of technologies, as well as with cost reduction of
products and services, mobile devices are increasingly present in everyday life. According to the 2013 UNESCO
Report, mobile technologies are commonly found nowadays even in areas where schools, books, and
computers are scarce. Due to the fall in prices of these technologies, mobile phones in particular, many people,
even in impoverished areas, can afford and know how to use mobile devices (UNESCO, 2013).
Therefore, the presence and relevance of such devices in everyday life have motivated research in the
educational field (Pachler et al., 2010). Mobile learning (m-learning) is the field of study that analyzes how
mobile devices can contribute to learning (Batista, 2011). M-learning involves the use of mobile technologies,
either solely or combined with other communication and information technologies to allow learning anywhere,
at any time (UNESCO, 2013).
In formal education, however, mobile devices, especially mobile phones, are criticized by teachers in view of
the problems they bring – distraction, for instance. Regarding mobile phones specifically, Machado (2012)
argues that it is necessary to establish restrictions to the use of such devices in schools in order to have a better
development of the pedagogical actions, and also to “slow down” students from the hectic pace of
contemporary life. However, the author also considers feasible to incorporate this equipment into the various
educational projects. Gibson et al. (2012) also say that, even though many teachers consider mobile phones a
distraction in the classroom, others believe they are beneficial.
In this scenario, this paper discusses the use of mobile phones in education. To support this discussion, the
study analyzes data collected in a research conducted with students (pre-service teachers) and teachers in the
Mathematics Education program at a federal institution, with focus on their perception on the use of those
tools. The Mathematics Education course was selected for the research due to the fact that this study was
1
carried out within the scope of the research project “Learning with Mobile Devices” , which currently focuses
on the use of these tools in Mathematics. Thus, the undergraduate students (pre-service teachers) and
teachers of this course have been the target audience of several actions in the mentioned project.
Aiming at the objective of this paper, Section 2 discusses the use of mobile phones in educational contexts,
including their potential, and difficulties posed by them. The methodological procedures are described in
Section 3; while Section 4 analyzes data collected with students and teachers of Mathematics Education.
Section 5 closes the paper with considerations on the theme.
MOBILE PHONES IN FORMAL EDUCATION: POTENTIAL AND DIFFICULTIES
The popularization and technological development of mobile phones have given prominence to these devices
in m-learning (Xie et al., 2011; Gibson et al., 2012; Buck et al., 2013; Burton et al., 2013). Due to their
popularity, mobile phones can contribute to increase access to digital educational content. As portable
equipment, they can promote learning both inside and beyond the physical space of educational institutions
(UNESCO, 2012). Use of such devices can also contribute to more attractive teaching and learning processes,
thus catering, with their applications, to different learning styles (Buck et al., 2013). Therefore, mobile phones
have the potential to make learning more accessible, collaborative and relevant (UNESCO, 2012).
However, despite the potential of mobile phones for educational purposes, schools in general do not make use
of them; choosing, quite often, to prohibit their use in the classroom (Seabra, 2013). This author recognizes
that mobile phones can be responsible for distractions, and that they enable, with their embedded technology,
transfer of answers in tests and exams in more efficient ways than traditional ones. Nevertheless, in spite of
these pitfalls, Seabra (2013) is optimistic about the use of such devices in schools, suggesting that, in regards to
distraction, the teacher discusses acceptable usage rules with students. The author stresses that one must
consider that pencil and paper (and the brain itself) can also contribute to distraction when the student is not
engaged in the lesson. As to the transfer of answers, the author recommends the teacher to change the
preparation of tests and exams.
Machado (2012) also discusses the problems and potential of using mobile phones in schools, but more
prudent than Seabra (2013). For Machado (2012), ringtones in the classroom, with their variety of musical
genres and styles (often amusing) may significantly disturb pedagogical activities as planned by the teacher.
Though a silent practice, texting can also draw attention away from the lesson, as well as be used to send
answers of tests or exams. In addition, games, music, videos, photos and access to the internet may
compromise student performance in class (Machado, 2012). Therefore, the author understands that, in
general, use of mobile phones should be restricted in schools, but that, on the other hand, this equipment can
contribute to pedagogical actions as a tool for research and production.
In her joint analysis of an exploratory research and a case study on the use of mobile phones in education,
Batista (2011) lists these positive aspects found in the two experiments: i) students’ ability to use the keypad;
ii) practicability; iii) the students’ receptiveness regarding the educational use of mobile phones. The author
also identifies these negative points: i) variety of models and resources in the phones; ii) size of the screen; iii)
cost of internet access.
These pitfalls are not exclusive to a specific area of the curriculum. Similarly, the potential of these devices are
quite ample, as they support pedagogical actions in different areas. This article, however, focuses on studies
aimed at Mathematics (Tangney et al., 2010; Ndafenongo, 2011; Kalloo & Mohan, 2012), to illustrate that, even
in formal sciences, researches have shown the possibilities and contributions of mobile phones.
Tangney et al. (2010) argue that, given their inherent capacity to motivate collaboration and contextualized
learning, mobile technologies have the potential to contribute to Mathematics Education. The authors provide
strategies to develop resources for smartphones aimed at the teaching and learning of Mathematics, as well as
support teachers in using them. Such resources are aimed to data analysis, geometry and measurement,
1
<http://plataforma.nie.iff.edu.br/projetomlearning/>.
2
numbers, operations, and algebra. When using these tools and apps, the teacher is free to create learning
activities, according to his/her teaching objectives. The authors also provide results of a study conducted with
24 students working in groups. In this investigation, the resource Angle Tool was used to measure the height of
three structures in the school. Though acknowledging that it is not possible to draw final conclusions, Tangney
et al. (2010) say that the initial results were quite positive. Most students: i) found the tool easy to handle; ii)
found the experience engaging; iii) enjoyed working collaboratively; iv) said they would like to do this type of
Mathematics activity more often.
Ndafenongo (2011) investigated how mobile phones can be used in the teaching of Mathematics. In their
study, the authors used five video clips on the Pythagorean Theorem. The videos were sent to the student’s
phone and were used in class to support the understanding of the subject. This case study was conducted in
two high schools in Grahamstown, South Africa, involving two teachers from each school and 47 students
altogether. The investigation showed that mobile phones can be useful resources to support teaching and
learning in the classroom, mostly in schools lacking resources. According to the author, use of video clips in
mobile phones contributed to improve student participation and concentration, to accelerate content
development, to stimulate peer collaboration and interaction, and to promote student autonomy.
Kalloo and Mohan (2012) describe a study carried out in Trinidad and Tobago using MobileMath, an app
designed to test the hypothesis that m-learning can help students improve their performance in Mathematics.
Aimed at the study of Elementary Algebra, MobileMath presents lessons, examples, tutorials, quizzes, and
curious facts. Use of this app was evaluated over a period of three months with students from different high
schools using the same phone model. Results showed improvement in student performance, mainly of those
who had studied Algebra in the previous period (the impact was not so significant for those having algebra for
the first time).
In general, the studies described here show positive results regarding the use of mobile phones. Nevertheless,
one must consider that this is a recent area of research.
Before closing this section, two issues must be addressed. One is the fact that mobile phones containing many
technological limitations restrict, or even impair their use in education (Batista, 2011). Accordingly, the
expectation is that popularization of smartphones becomes more practical this use. However, even with
smartphones, the choice of apps requires special attention, since many are specific to certain operating
systems (Batista, 2011).
The second issue refers to the fact that several projects in m-learning are financed by telecommunication
companies. Such projects are definitely significant, but as Kress and Pachler (2007) warn, the market has its
own strong rules that pervade the various social contexts. Thus, one must be alert, as market factors have
become so natural that end up being adopted as models in both social decisions and education (Kress &
Pachler, 2007).
Use of mobile phones in education is, therefore, a complex theme which presents positive aspects and
difficulties that must be taken into consideration. The authors of this paper stress the necessity to discuss this
issue with pre-service teachers early in their academic life, so that they can reflect on the several aspects
involved.
Next section describes the methodological procedures used in the research conducted with students and
teachers of a Mathematics Education program.
METHODOLOGICAL PROCEDURES USED IN THE RESEARCH
2
A descriptive research was conducted with the objective of collecting the opinion of students and teachers in a
Mathematics Education program in a federal institution on the use of mobile phones in educational contexts.
Two survey questionnaires were organized to collect data: one for students (pre-service teachers), another for
teachers. Both questionnaires presented topics such as: i) possession or not of a mobile phone (for those who
2
According to Gil (2008), descriptive researches are used to present characteristics of a population, phenomenon,
experience, or establish relations among variables.
3
answered “Yes”, the following question was whether it was a smartphone); ii) experience with the educational
use of mobile phones (followed by various questions about their affirmative and negative answers); iii)
adequate school level for the pedagogical use of mobile phones; iv) experience or lack of experience with
situations in which use of mobile phones disturbed attention in the classroom; v) suggestions for the
educational use of smartphones.
3
Both questionnaires were created in Google Drive , and their link was sent to participants by e-mail. Students
4
participating in the survey were enrolled in the 2nd, 4th, and 6th terms (periods) , in the first half of 2013. All
classes were informed, in person, about the survey and the e-mail with the link to the questionnaire.
Nevertheless, only 21 students answered the survey: nine from the 2nd period, seven from the 4th, and five
from the 6th period.
Regarding the teachers, only the 11 of those working with specific Math disciplines participated in the survey.
The study with these teachers took place in the beginning of the second term of 2013. In this group, nine
answered the questionnaire.
It must be stressed that data analysis was qualitative, which hindered generalizations from it, and in the case of
the students, it was made as a whole – without specifications of the student’s term. Data analysis and
discussion are presented in the next section.
ANALYSIS OF THE RESULTS
The 21 students in the Mathematics Education program, subjects of the investigation, were 22 years old in
average, with the standard deviation of 2.45, approximately. In this group, 18 were female. All individuals said
they owned mobile phones, but only six (approximately 29%) had smartphones. In regard to teachers, all nine
individuals were female, and 42 years old in average, with the standard deviation of 7.40, approximately. All
teachers owned mobile phones, but only six (approximately 67%) had smartphones.
Asked whether they had used mobile phones for educational purposes, participants replied as shown in Tables
1 and 2. In Table 1, 100% correspond to 21 students and, in Table 2, to nine teachers.
Table 1: Use of Mobile Phones for Educational Purposes - Students
Options
Yes
No
Table 2: Use of Mobile Phones for Educational Purposes - Teachers
Options
Yes, but only for personal reasons (not in activities designed for students).
Yes, but only in activities designed for students.
Yes, both privately and in activities with students.
No
Students (%)
52
48
Teachers (%)
22
0
33
45
Results show that, even though most answered “Yes” in Tables 1 and 2, this percentage is not very significant (a
little over 50% in both cases). This indicates that the educational use of mobile phones is not a usual practice
among the participants yet.
3
Google’s on-line file storage and synchronization service which allows file sharing, and offers several production
applications, such as forms, spreadsheets, presentations, among others.
4
In this program, student enrolment is annual; therefore, one semester has only even periods, and the other only odd
periods.
4
The 10 students and four teachers who answered “No” were presented with the alternatives listed in Table 3.
They were asked to indicate the main reason for having never used mobile phones as a pedagogical tool. Thus,
in Table 3, 100% of the students correspond to 10 people, and 100% of the teachers correspond to four people.
Table 3: Main Reason for Not Using Mobile Phones in Education
Reasons
Students (%)
Teachers (%)
Resources in the device do not favor educational use.
70
0
I never had interest in using them for this purpose.
I do not find mobile phones useful for this purpose.
Other
20
0
10
75
0
25
As most of the students did not have a smartphone, the percentage of the first option in Table 3 is a natural
result in the context. Even the participant who marked option “Other” explained that his/her phone did not run
programs. This reason is also related to the lack of resources in the phone that allow programs to run.
Therefore, most students justified their not using mobile phones for educational purposes for technological
limitations. This fact indicates that, in general, no previous use of mobile phones for educational purposes was
not due to rejection to the idea.
As for teachers, most said they never had any interest in using mobile phones for those purposes. The teacher
that marked option “Other” explained she did not know how to use it in pedagogical situations. These results
were also considered coherent with the context, since studies related to the use of mobile devices in education
are relatively recent and still did not become common sense among teachers.
The 11 students and five teachers who answered “Yes” for the educational use of mobile phones were asked to
answer alternatives listed in Table 4. They were requested to mark the main uses of these devices (they could
check more than one option). In the case of teachers, this part of the survey focused on the private use of
mobile phones (that is, not in activities with students). Thus, in Table 4, 100% of students correspond to 11
people, and 100% of teachers correspond to 5 individuals.
Table 4: Educational Use of Mobile Phones
Ways
Via educational apps
Searches on the Internet
Use of social networks
Access to a virtual learning environment
Use of resources in the phone (pictures, videos, etc.)
Other
Students (%)
Teachers (%)
55
100
45
9
45
0
60
80
40
20
100
40
Table 4 shows that doing searches on the Internet is a very frequent reason for using mobile phones for
educational purposes, both by students and teachers. As argued by Machado (2012), mobile phones have the
potential to contribute to pedagogical actions as a searching tool. Educational applications received a
percentage above 50% in both cases, but do not present significant values. Thus, even though there are good
options of free Math apps, of various types and of great quality (Amaral, 2013), use of apps is still not a
common practice among the participants of the study. Use of resources in the phones is relevant in regard to
teachers. According to Seabra (2013), mobile phones function like cameras, allowing the user to take pictures,
edit and publish them. They also have resources for recording video and audio files, as well as positioning
sensors and GPS. All these options open several pedagogical possibilities. For option “Other”, a teacher
mentioned “reading e-mails”, and another did not mention the resource she uses.
5
The three teachers who confirmed having had used mobile phones in the classroom were asked to tell what
activity they proposed in class. The answers were: i) recommendation to use graphic plotters; ii) request of
pictures and films for video productions; iii) use of calculators; iv) searches on the Internet during class.
Although few teachers used mobile phones in activities with students, it can be observed that this was done
with a variety of purposes, demonstrating the pedagogical potential of those devices.
The 11 students who answered “Yes” for the educational use of mobile phones were asked to list its positive
and negative aspects. The most listed positive features were: i) convenience of carrying the device; ii)
popularization; iii) possibility of Internet connection when necessary. As for the negative aspects, distraction
caused by such devices was mentioned by most students. Size of the screen was also pointed out.
The five teachers who answered “Yes” listed the following positive aspects: i) mobility; ii) practicability; iii)
speed and easiness to download apps; iv) variety of free apps. As negative aspects, the following were listed: i)
size of the screen; ii) difficulty to type, depending on the model; iii) possibility of sending answers in tests; iv)
few apps in Portuguese.
Results for positive and negative aspects listed by teachers and students were coherent with the literature
review discussed in this article.
The statement below was presented to all 21 students and nine teachers participating in the investigation, with
the alternatives given in Table 5 (only one option could be marked). Thus, in Table 5, 100% of the students
correspond to 21 individuals, and 100% of the teachers correspond to nine people.
Some Brazilian states and municipalities have laws prohibiting use of mobile phones in the classroom, as they
may compromise student attention in class activities. There are exceptions, in several cases, for the pedagogical
use of these devices. Being an in-service teacher or a student teacher, you consider the use of mobile phones in
classroom activities appropriate:
Table 5: Appropriate School Levels for the Pedagogical Use of Mobile Phones
School Levels
Only at university level
High school and university
Starting in junior high school
From the beginning of elementary school
In none of the school levels
Students (%)
Teachers (%)
10
33
33
19
5
0
22
22
56
0
It is interesting to observe that the majority of the teachers considered the pedagogical use of mobile phones
to be viable as of elementary school, while students, younger individuals, were more careful in marking their
options. It is possible that, as more active users of the functionalities in mobile devices, students fear the
distractions caused by them.
Each participant was asked to justify the option marked in Table 5. Some of the justifications are quoted below.
It must be explained that, for data analysis, students are identified as S1, S2, S3, and so on. In the case of
teachers, they are named as T1, T2, T3, and so on.
The two students who marked option “Only at university level” justified their choice as follows:
Because in college, at least theoretically speaking, people are more mature. They
know that bad performance in college can compromise their professional career, so
they are usually more interested in studying. The same doesn’t happen with
children and teenagers, who study because they “have to”, and with a phone in
their hands, they would browse the internet or do things they were not supposed to
(S4).
I think the student must be mature when using a mobile phone for pedagogical
purposes, so that the device isn’t used only for entertainment (S16).
6
Seven students and two teachers chose option “high school and university”. Three justifications are listed next:
Because students are more mature in this stage, being able to use their phones as a
didactic resource (S5).
When used adequately, mobile phones can, indeed, be a learning tool, because they
are part of most students’ daily life. One must consider the students’ level of
maturity, so I believe this work is easier and more effective from high school on (S9).
It all depends on the class plan, but with elementary school students (and even with
those in junior high school), it is more difficult to keep them concentrated on the
activity and not being distracted with other resources offered by mobile phones (T5).
Seven students and two teachers also selected option “Starting in junior high school”. These are their
justifications:
Because students in junior high school are aware of what is right and wrong, of
what is necessary or not; thus it is easier to educate them in regard to the use of the
Internet (S3).
As of 5th grade I believe the student is a little more careful when using his/her
mobile phone and knows it can be an educational resource (S10).
Considering that children are born in the digital age and are digital natives, working
with technologies is much easier and practical for them, so it would be interesting
to make students aware of how mobile phones can be used for educational
purposes; so I think elementary school children are able to understand it (S21).
Four students and five teachers selected option “From Elementary School”. Three justifications are given next:
Children find it very easy to use mobile phones; so their use in the classroom can
make learning something more attractive and meaningful for them (S11).
If there is a pedagogical plan, it is possible to take advantages of mobile phones to
stimulate students and, thus, to contribute somehow to the teaching and learning
process (T1).
I believe that, just like with calculators, mobile phones, if used the right way, can
contribute to the teaching and learning process. Learning environments can no
longer ignore the technological development of the last decade, ‘pretend’ that they
don’t exist. If mobile phones are always at hand, why not use this resource? (T7).
Only one student marked option “In none of the school levels”, justifying as follows:
I believe many students are not mature enough to use such device (Student Q).
The position of the participants of the survey on the school levels in which use of mobile phones would be
appropriate reflects quite well the complexity of the issue. Opinions are diverse and, yet, they are coherent,
indicating that it is an issue with both positive and negative aspects, making it difficult to reach a consensus.
However, data collected in the study indicate that the positive aspects pointed by the participants are greater
than the pitfalls, since only one student found the use of mobile phones not viable in any school level. It must
be emphasized that the word ‘maturity’ was mentioned by several participants, signaling their concern with
possible distractions that the device may cause.
When asked whether they had experienced, as a university student or teacher, situations in which mobile
phones disturbed their class, participants answered accordingly to Table 6. In this case, 100% of the students
correspond to 21 individuals, and 100% of the teachers correspond to nine people.
7
Table 6: Mobile Phones Responsible For Disturbance
Options
Students (%)
Teachers (%)
Yes
No
62
38
67
33
It can be observed that, even at university level, the inappropriate use of mobile phones may cause distraction.
The following comments were made by participants who answered “Yes” in Table 6:
Loud music, silly apps with tunes, etc. (S1).
When a classmate was surfing on Facebook during class and called me to show me
something. This distracted me during an explanation (S19).
Texting, accessing Facebook, and making phone calls (T3).
When the student cannot resist the temptation to check his/her e-mail, messages
and social networks, this is can be a cause of distraction. One must know how and
where to use it; it is a matter of good manners. Even in work meetings, we can
observe colleagues doing something with their phones (T4).
The last part of the questionnaire asked for suggestions related to the pedagogical use of smartphones. Three
suggestions are quoted below:
Use (of mobile phone) should be free for all students, and teachers should be
trained to instruct pupils on how to use them (S3).
Teachers can suggest games and apps that can be used to help understand a topic
or the application of a specific content. It can be quite useful, if well guided (S4 ).
There are applications for mobile phones that draw function graphs, something that
can be perfectly used in the classroom (T7).
Although the answers collected in the survey do not allow generalizations, they provide a general view of a
group of people directly related to the educational context. They are not experts in the research theme, nor
have a wide experience in m-learning, but their answers were coherent with what is, in general, discussed in
the literature about mobile phones in education.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
In current society, digital mobile technologies are present in various professional fields, including the
educational sector. Thus, it is important that pre-service teachers discuss the use of these technologies in
educational contexts, so that they become more aware of the role of digital tools in their professional activity.
Use of mobile phones, especially, is an issue that still poses several difficulties that must be discussed.
Prohibition of the use of these devices in the classroom may not prevent problems, as students often get
around restrictions. This is a complex topic that requires common sense and dialogue, even if only to justify
reasons for prohibition.
It is also essential to consider that even in other sectors mobile phones can cause trouble. Distraction related to
the use of these devices can, for instance, affect work, personal relations, and leisure. Hence, this is a matter
that demands pondering even in contexts other than educational.
On the other hand, one cannot deny that the practicability of having, at hand, such equipment with countless
functions, as is the case of smartphones, can make a difference in many situations. If used in the proper way,
these devices can make great contributions to educational actions.
To conclude, it must be emphasized that, in future researches, students and teachers in other courses and
school levels, as well as parents of students in elementary and junior high schools may be consulted about the
pedagogical use of mobile phones, thus expanding the analysis presented in this paper.
8
IJONTE’s Note: This article was presented at World Conference on Educational and Instructional Studies –
WCEIS 07- 09 November, 2013, Antalya-Turkey and was selected for publication for Volume 5 Number 1 of
IJONTE 2014 by IJONTE Scientific Committee.
BIODATA AND CONTACT ADDRESSES OF AUTHORS
Silvia Cristina F. BATISTA is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil. In 1987,
Batista has graduated in Science- Specialization in Mathematics, from the Faculdade de
Filosofia de Campos. She received her Master’s Degree in Engineering Sciences, focus on
Production Engineering, in 2004, from the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense
Darcy Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro. She received her Ph.D. in Information Technology in
Education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Federal – UFRGS, Brazil, in
2011.Her research interest is mobile learning, and digital technologies applied to
Education.
Prof. Dr. Silvia Cristina F. BATISTA
Dr. Siqueira Street, 273,
Parque Dom Bosco, 28030-130.
Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL.
E. mail: [email protected]
http://plataforma.nie.iff.edu.br/projetomlearning/
Gilmara T. BARCELOS is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil. In 1988, Barcelos
has graduated in Science- Specialization in Mathematics, from the Faculdade de Filosofia
de Campos. She received her Master’s Degree in Engineering Sciences, focus on
Production Engineering, in 2004, from the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense
Darcy Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro. She received her Ph.D. in Information Technology in
Education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Federal – UFRGS, Brazil, in
2011.
Her research interest is pedagogical use of Internet social networks, teacher training, and digital technologies
applied to Mathematics.
Prof. Dr. Gilmara T. BARCELOS
Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL.
E. Mail:[email protected]
REFERENCES
Batista, S. C. F. (2011). M-LearnMat: Modelo Pedagógico para Atividades de M-learning em Matemática. Tese,
Doutorado em Informática na Educação, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Porto Alegre, RS,
Brazil.
Amaral, P. G. R. (2013). Softwares matemáticos e estatísticos para tablets: uma análise inicial. Dissertação,
Mestrado Profissional em Matemática em Rede Nacional – PROFMAT, Universidade Federal Fluminense, RJ,
Brazil.
9
Buck, J. L., McInnis, E., & Randolph, C. (2013). The new frontier of education: the impact of smartphone
technology in the classroom. Proceedings of the ASEE Southeast Section Conference, Atlanta, GA, United States,
120, 11p.
Burton, L., Cobb Jr., R., Kateeb, I. A., Tsay, Li-S., Seay, C., Graham, T. E., & BouSaba, C. (2013, June). Mobile
teaching: merging smart phones, cloud, and desktop to achieve content-specific instruction in a generic
environment. Proceedings of the ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Atlanta, GA, United States, 120, 12 p.
Gibson, J., Taylor, T., Seymour, Z., Smith, D. T., & Fries, T. P. (2012). Educational aspects of undergraduate
research on smartphone application development. Proceedings of the World Multi-Conference on Systemics,
Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2012), Orlando, FL, USA , 16, 211-216.
GIL, A. C. (2008). Como elaborar projetos de pesquisa. São Paulo: Atlas.
Kalloo, V., & Mohan, P. (2012, April). MobileMath: an innovative solution to the problem of poor Mathematics
performance in the Caribbean. Caribbean Teaching Scholar, 2, 1, 5-18.
Kress, G., & Pachler, N. (2007). Thinking about the ‘m’ in m-learning. In N. Pachler (Ed.), Mobile learning:
towards a research agenda (pp 7-32). London, UK: WLE Centre/Elanders Hindson Ltd.
Machado, J. L. A. (2012). Celular na escola: o que fazer?. Retrieved October 03, 2013, from
http://cmais.com.br/educacao/celular-na-escola-o-que-fazer
Ndafenongo, G. (2011). An investigation into how cell phones can be used in the teaching of Mathematics using
Vitalmaths video clips: a case study of 2 schools in Grahamstown, South Africa. Thesis, degree of Master of
Education, Rhodes University (Faculty of Education), Grahamstown, South Africa.
Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., & Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning: Structures, Agency, Practices. New York, USA:
Springer.
Seabra, C. (2013). O celular na sala de aula. Retrieved
http://cseabra.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/o-celular-na-sala-de-aula/
October
01,
2013,
from
Tangney, B., Weber, S., O’Hanlon, P., Knowles, D., Munnelly, J., Salkham, A., Watson, R., Jennings, K. (2010,
October). MobiMaths: An approach to utilising smartphones in teaching mathematics. Proceedings of the
World Conference on Mobile and Contextual Learning (mLearn2010), Valletta, Malta, 9, 9-16.
UNESCO (2012). Turning on Mobile Learning in Latin America: Illustrative Initiatives and Policy Implications.
[Working Paper Series on Mobile Learning]. Paris, France. Retrieved October 05, 2013, from
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002160/216080e.pdf
UNESCO (2013). Policy guidelines for mobile learning [Guidelines]. Paris, France. Retrieved October 04, 2013,
from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0021/002196/219641e.pdf
Xie, A.; Zhu, Q., & Xia, H. (2011, July). Investigating College Major Differences in the Need of Mobile Phone
Learning. Proceedings of the International Conference on Multimedia Technology (ICMT), Hangzhou, China,
399-402.
10
THE EFFECTS OF MINIMALIST MOVEMENT ON PAINTING ARTS AND MUSIC
Lecturer Şükriye İNAN
Niğde University Department of Fine Art Niğde
TURKEY
Research Assistant İzzet YÜCETOKER
Niğde University College of Education Department of Fine Arts
Music Education Department, Niğde
TURKEY
ABSTRACT
The word minimalism which is derived from the word minimum in French means the least or the smallest
amount needed for something. Minimalism in arts was founded at the end of 1960s in New York and it’s called
in the technical literature as Minimalist Art, ABC Art or Reductive Art. The most important particularity of this
movement in arts is extreme simplicity and an objective approach. Painters and musicians gave particular
importance to simplicity in their works. The minimalist movement which flourished during the last phase of
paintings of Kazimir Malevich in 1913 has been a source of inspiration for the painters in the following decades.
Minimalism has also been used in music where melody and harmony are simplified to minimize the emotional
impressions.
The literature review has been used in this study. From the beginning of the minimalist movement, musicians
and painters in this movement were studied in chronological order and particularities in their works were put
under the scope. From among minimalist artist Ellsworth Kelly and Michael Nyman were chosen for sample
surveys and their works were examined in terms of minimal particularities. In addition differences and
similarities between the art styles of both artists were manifested. Consequences have been drawn from these
particularities and suggestions were made in terms of interdisciplinary minimal studies.
Key Words: Minimalism, minimalism in painting, minimalism in music.
INTRODUCTION
The word minimalism which is derived from the word minimum in French means the least or the smallest
amount needed for something. It’s called minimalist art, ABC art or reductive art. The basic particularities of
this movement are excessive simplicity and objective approach (Tdk, 1928:2008). ‘’Minimalism in general can
be defined as emphasising an idea with a minimum amount of colour, value, shape, line or texture.’’ (Ishakoğlu,
2005:14).
In accordance with this definition, simplicity turns out to be the most important characteristic of artistic works
produced in this movement. The common characteristic of painters and musicians in this movement are
simplicity in form, minimal usage of notes and lines, clarity and comprehensibility in line and texture.
It can be said that like all other artistic movements minimalism can also be defined in a sense as a revolt against
all other precedent movements and it brought new innovations to the old order. In 1961 which is the year in
which this movement had its beginning Richrad Wollheim defined is as an art ‘’with a minimum content’’. Later
this definition was used for three dimensioned works of art and sculpture (Erzen, 1997). Minimalism which is
indeed a kind of sculpture weighted abstract art was very effective in 1970s in the artistic environment in the
United States. Minimalist artist has a geometrical approach ‘’reducing the essence’’ of painting and music.
Artists like Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd and Sol Le Witt were the pioneers of this movement and they
11
were supporters of extreme simplicity and excessive objectivism in arts (Tizgöl, 2008). We know that the first
traces of minimal art can be found in the works of painter Kazimir Malevich in 1900s, but his art was not called
in those days as minimal art; the modern denomination came years later. Malevich improved a new kind of
original approach in terms of colour, form and style which was different than older approaches. ‘’In modern
painting art reductive trends were seen for the first time in the paintings ‘’Black Square on White’’ and ‘’White
on White’’ of Russian painter Kazimir Malevich. The minimal art of painting which is the peak of this trend came
up in 1950s as a subsection of American abstract expressionism as a reaction to abstract animation (Ishakoğlu,
s.15:2005).
As we see from above explanations, the minimal art came out as a reaction to former forms of art. We can say
that in this form of art, the balance, colour and form in paintings were more minimal, in more simplicity than
before in a way to relay the emotional impression better.
These changes naturally affected other fields of art as well. Besides form and colour changes in painting art, the
music of Eric Satie and aesthetical perception of John Cage were deeply affected by minimal art. These
composers created their compositions in a simple and plain way reacting in sense to the complex structure of
modern music.
The appearance of minimal art can be associated with events, wars, movements and such events occurred in
advance of this movement. Thousands of pages can be written and detailed researches can be executed about
such associations. Sources report that minimalism as an idea in arts can be traced back 1900s although its
history dates back in older times. Today we can see effects of minimalism in various fields of art such as
architecture, visual arts, sculpture, photography and web design. But in this study only the effects of minimal
art in painting and music and on painters and musicians will be examined and the nascence and development
of minimal painting and music will be put under scope. The works of a painter and a musician will be analyzed
in terms of minimal characteristics and the analysis results will then be commented. Similar and different point
of the effects of minimal art will be demonstrated. As this study shows similar and distinctive features of
minimal painting and music, it’s of great importance for artists in their studies on minimal painting and music.
We also think that this study will be a guiding light for studies to be realised on minimal art movement in the
future.
The Minimalist Movement in Music and its Effects
In a similar way as in other arts, minimalism in music came up as a reaction to excessive exaggeration in music
and aimed at eliminating excessive sentimentalism and intellectual complexity. It’s stated in Wikipedia that this
term was used for the first time in 1968 by Michale Nyman to define the work The Great Digest of Cornelius
Cardew. The term minimal movement used for the first time by Nyman as stated above also affected other
artist and thus artist such as Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Adams, Tom Johnson and Terry Riley had all become
representatives of minimal art.
Minimalist Music was born in the late 1960’s and can be associated with a group of American composers
classified as “minimalists”. However, the origins of Minimalist music can be traced to the ‘total serialism’ music
of Webern whose music was based on the mathematical control of the musical elements. Minimalist music
consists of cells which are ‘looped’ at shifting time intervals. This creates a hypnotic quality to the music as the
cells shift in and out of ‘phase’ with each other. One way of thinking about Minimalist Music is as the musical
comparison of ‘Splitting the Atom’ or analyzing a DNA chain. Minimalist music could almost be described a
‘molecular music’. (Khorkher, 2003).
Philip Glass is a minimal composer. As he was occupied with his country’s music, he became interested in
Indian music and he tried to create new approaches mixing and synthesising the western technique which was
his field of expertise and the technique of the east. He began practising minimal music in 1990 and
implemented minimal music in various compositions for percussion units, string quartets, orchestra and opera
works and was able to demonstrate its effects.
12
Steve Reich is also another musician and composer who is occupied with minimal music. Using the cadences of
western classical music, Reich created new approaches in his compositions comprising of structures, harmony
and rhythms which are unusual in western music. Reich composed especially jazz music pieces. We can say he
contributed to minimal music only with harmony techniques without distorting the traditional structure of
western music.
Tom Johnson, who is also a minimal composer, brought forward in 1989 that the term minimalism is much
broader than people think and it would comprise compositions composed with the least notes, the least lyrics
and a limited number of instruments (Köksal, 2007).
The above mentioned composers and many others are the composers who used the minimal technique and
characteristics of this movement effectively in their compositions in terms of form and harmony. If we
examine the compositions of these composers, some common characteristics of minimal music emerge. The
most distinguishing of these are as follows:
•
•
•
•
•
Musical ideas are short. It’s based on short and essential phrases which are like a summary of long
phrases.
The activity in the harmonic structure is limited. Structural harmonic integrity and the chords used are
all simple.
The chords and the tones used in the harmonic structure are matching.
The rhythmical structure is harmonious and fascinating. Stableness and easy perception in rhythmical
structure.
Usage of lots of repetitions and sequences. Because of this the pieces are remembered easily.
As stated above, the main characteristics of minimal music are simplicity, plain, simplicity in harmony and
exposition of rhythms in an order. We will examine the compositions of Michale Nyman in this concept:
Michael Nyman
Michael Nyman born in New York in 1936. Purcell and Handel, and collecting folk music in Romania. Later he
wrote as a critic for several journals, including The Spectator, where, in a 1968 review of Cornelius Cardew's
The Great Digest, he became the first to apply the word 'minimalism' to music. That same year, a BBC
broadcast of Steve Reich's Come Out opened his ears to further possibilities, and a route back to composition
began to emerge. In 1968 he wrote the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's 'dramatic pastoral' Down by the
Greenwood Side. Later, Birtwistle, now Musical Director of the National Theatre, London, commissioned him to
provide arrangements of 18th century Venetian songs for a 1976 production of Carlo Goldoni's Il Campiello, for
which Nyman assembled what he would describe as 'the loudest unamplified street band' he could imagine:
rebels, sackbuts, shows alongside banjo, bass drum and saxophone. Nyman kept the Campiello Band together
after the play's run had finished, adding his own energetic piano-playing to the ensemble. However, a band
needs repertoire, and Nyman set about providing it. The Band's line-up expanded, amplification was added and
the name changed to the Michael Nyman Band. This was the medium in which Nyman formulated his
compositional style around strong melodies, flexible yet assertive rhythms, and precisely articulated ensemble
playing. Nyman’s work ranges from compositions for the Michael Nyman Band, Symphony Orchestra, Vocal
Works and soundtracks. His work as a minimalist composer also draws on Baroque influences; at times one can
hear Vivaldi or Handel in his music. (Khorkher, 2003).
A structure based on phrases with repetitions and sequences is the main characteristic of Nyman’s music.
Nyman’s compositions are comprised of note subtractions and additions in terms of harmony simplicity and
rhythmic structure repetitions. He generally uses arpeggio technique and he repeats these arpeggio techniques
in different harmonies by means of sequences. Below we see four scales of his piano work ‘’The Heart Asks
Pleasure First.’’ This work was composed in the rhythm of 12/8. This rhythm is the double of 6/8. The part of
the composition for the left hand begins with an arpeggio in A minor and the same structure comes down
sequencing in 2 scales and in one tessitura. This is a reflection of minimal music characteristics. And it’s
noteworthy that he uses minimal harmony in this sequencing. Other 2 scales of the same hand demonstrate
13
stableness in rhythms. Usage of one – five – eight notes instead of treble notes in arpeggio facilitates an
analysis in terms of harmony and the memorising the piece. On the right hand position the composer creates
the arpeggio eith the same rhythmic movements. The melody shows itself with simplicity and colourfulness.
The notes are stable in rhythm and they are used in a rich but simple way. This is also an evidence of minimal
characteristic of this composition.
‘’The Promise’’, another composition of Nyman, was composed in 6/8 rhythm. In some scales the composer
uses the rhythm of 9/8 as if he wanted to use in those scales longer phrases. We see that fewer notes have
been used in the part for the right hand making out the most important peculiarity of this composition. A
simple expression, richer melodies with fewer notes and simplicity in harmony are main characteristics of
Nyman’s music. We can also see it in this composition. It’s outstanding that he can mix simple melodies in
harmonies without losing the beauty and the artistic value of the composition. We see that in this composition
14
Nyman could bring together his musical textures in simple harmony and sequences excellently. If we look at
the parts for right hand in the first 5 scales, we can see that the structure of the work comprises of smooth
rhythms and simple notes. The notes in the left hand part continue in dual spaces. The connections of tones are
not exaggerated and simple to play on the piano. The rhythmical structure on the left hand continues with
repetitions and the simplicity of playing comes to the forefront. In summary we can say that this composition
also contains minimal music characteristics.
The special structural features of these compositions are as follows:
•Simplicity of harmony structure.
•Simplicity in terms of playing them.
•Simplicity and stability of rhythmical structure.
•Lots of sequences.
•The chords are easy to perceive.
•Simple melody structure.
•Simple pedal usage.
•Changing beat numbers with simple modifications.
•Phrasing is easy to understand.
General Characteristics of Minimalism in Painting Art
After having confirmed its place in painting, architecture and sculpture, minimalism was also implemented in
other arts. This movement continues to be a source of inspiration for various artistic movements. Before we
examine the works of minimalist painter Ellesworth Kelly, we give some information on the nascence and the
general features of this artistic movement.
The term minimalism was used for the first time by David Burlyuk in 1929 in the catalogue of the exhibition
which was held in Dudensighn Gallery in New York (Want, 2006). This term was also used in 1965 in an article
written by Richard Wolheim, named ‘’The Minimal Art’’ which was published in Art Magazine. ‘’The notion of
minimal art emerges as an idea in the Russian constructivists such as Tatlin, Rodchenko and Malevich
(geometrical abstraction), in the works of painters belonging to the De Stileje group such as Mondrian, in pop
art, in the works of Hard Edge and Frank Stella.’’ (Garmaner, 1996:41). All these ideas have accumulated and
have been a source of inspiration for artists until 1960. This movement emerged in the first place among
American painters and sculptors and then it spread in Europe.
‘’Kazimir Malevich who put a black square on white ground in 1915 is the pioneer of an art conception finding
its meaning in itself by demolishing the old conception of painting originating from the old perception that a
painting shows and represents objects (Antmen, 2008:181). ‘’When the black square of Malevich was put on
exhibition, something appreciated by people and critics disappeared and was transformed into nothing. An
extremely simple and striking square was an incomprehensible and dangerous form for them. It’s not
contextlessness, it’s subjectlessness. The black square is intuition and the white ground is the emptiness
beyond it. Malevich demolished all the understandings and perceptions of colours and forms imposed on us by
nature and created an original language presenting new formats. He developed an expression based on lines.
Most of minimal artists didn’t entitle their works in order not to give them an identity (Ishakoğlu, 2005:14).
15
Picture 1: Black Square (1915).
When Minimalism came up in 1960s as an art movement, it was called ‘’ABC Art’’, ‘’Rejecting Art’’, ‘’Cold Art’’
or ‘’Basic Structure’’. According to minimalists, a work of art represents nothing. It’s only what you see. The
other thing doesn’t exist. They have an objective quietness. They have developed a kind of symmetry and order
as the sign of a rational attitude. (Antmen, 2008:181).
The most important representatives of this art in painting are Donald Judd, Frank Stella, Kneed Nolland and
Ellsworth Kelly, and in sculpture art Carl Andrea, Robert Morris and Richard Serra.
Reducing colour and form to a minimal state without transforming the material and creating a painting without
compositional expressions are the main attitudes of minimalist painters.
The main characteristics of minimalist painting art are:
• It’s based on systemic repetitions. The painters create their works by repeating lines and colours.
There are several repetitive works of their paintings.
• Simplicity plays an important role. No figures are used and these painters are never inspired by nature.
Excessive simplicity is the main feature.
• Sharp geometrical forms are used. Squares, rectangles and circles are also often used.
• Meronymy exists on these works. Big and small units are used together to create an integrity
relationship.
• Connotation and symbolisations are avoided.
• Materials are used fewer and less than normal.
• The painting ground is sometimes colourful, it comprises sometimes more than one colours.
16
•
•
Simplicity, repetitions and symmetric geometrical forms are the main features. The artists prefer the
simplest forms and use the repetitions abundantly. As repetitions facilitate perception in brain, simple
perception was perhaps the main objective of these minimalist artists.
Purified and reduced colours are used. Main colours are preferred.
Ellesworth Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly was born on May 31, 1923 in Newburgh, New York. Throughout his career, he crossed the
traditional boundaries between painting, sculpture, and architecture. With clarity of vision and a sense of
optimism, Kelly utilized abstraction to create a broad and diverse body of work that combines and expands the
issues of form, ground, color and space.
Kelly began his studies at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn from 1941 to 1943. After serving military duty from
1942 to 1945, Ellsworth Kelly studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1946 to 1947.
Kelly then left the U.S. to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, where he discovered Romanesque art and
architecture, Byzantine art, Surrealism, and Neo-Plasticism. The automatic drawing of the surrealists led Kelly
to experiment with the element of chance; Kelly was introduced to Jean Arp, and during this period he created
shaped wood reliefs as well as collages incorporating this influence.
From 1950 to 1951, Ellsworth Kelly taught at the American School in Paris. “In addition to them in the natural
environment. While his painting stressed shape and planar masses (often assuming non-rectilinear formats),
his sculpture was insistently two-dimensional. For a period in the mid-1960s, Kelly came close to Op art in his
use of geometric configurations and colour contrasts that stressed perceptual ambiguities.” (Sims, 2009).
http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3048 His work of this period also provided a useful
bridge from the vanguard American geometric abstraction of the 1930s and early 1940s to the Minimalism and
reductive art of the mid-1960s and 1970s. His work consisted of an abstraction of forms observed in the real
world, and he soon developed a style of geometric abstraction using bright, primary colors. This style
expanded and Kelly began to create works made up of multiple separate panels that recombined to produce
many alternate compositions. During this time the artist met Constantin Brancusi, Francis Picabia, Alexander
Calder and Georges Vantonqerloo. His first solo show took place at the Galerie Arnaud in Paris in 1951.
Returning to the U.S. in 1954, Ellsworth Kelly took residence at Coenties slip in lower Manhattan where he met
James Rosenquist, Robert Indiana, Lenore Tawney and Jack Youngerman. During a span of ten years, his
rounded, organic forms became sharp rectangles and his originally gestural style gained clarity with a more
architectural approach. The artist then created wall-mounted installations consisting of multiple monochrome
panels that could be seen both as sculptures and as paintings. In 1956, Kelly had his first New York solo show
at the Betty Parsons Gallery. In 1958 he moved on to create freestanding sculptures, and was included in the
Sixteen Americans exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
During the seventies, Ellsworth Kelly created a series of totemic sculptures executed in steel and aluminum,
and eventually freed himself from his characteristically severe, closed planes, exchanging them for openended, infinite forms. He executed several public commissions, including a mural for UNESCO in Paris, 1969, a
sculpture for the city of Barcelona in 1978, Houston Triptych, a bronze sculpture for the Museum of Fine Arts in
Houston, 1986, and a memorial for the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., 1993. He had his
first Retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1973, and has been included in various
retrospectives since, including a career retrospective in 1996 organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum in New York.
Today, Ellsworth Kelly lives in Spencertown, New York.
(http://www.lesliesacks.com/artists/ellsworth-kelly-1/bio).
Kelly who was a painter, sculptor and graphic designer, is one of the most important implementer of the
abstract art. Kelly was perceived in the beginning as a plant painter. Before she accepted minimalism as her
artistic expression, he painted plants in simple geometrical lines. Later she also used line repetitions and
geometrical forms as minimalist artists did. This well known painter was influenced by other movements such
as sharp edges and pictorial abstraction, but she could create an original form developing all these movements
17
into an integral approach of her own. She found herself later in the minimalist movement and was called as a
minimalist painter because of the new approach she found. Comments on the works of this artist are given
below.
Picture 2: Apples – Paris 1949
The painting we see above is an example why she is called a plant painter. Kelly reflected in such paintings
things in nature using simple geometrical lines. If we look at the painting named ‘’Apples’’ we see eight apples
are painted in extraordinary good abstract forms.
Picture 3: Horizontal Line – Circle Form – Mandorla Form, - Triangle Form – 1951
These are geometrical works of Kelly painted in 1951 and they are exhibited today in the Moma Gallery. As we
look at these works, the Black Square of Malevich comes into mind. Although the works of Malevich are not
18
considered in the movement of minimal art, we understand from these works that they influenced the minimal
artists to a great extent. ‘’Horizontal Line’’, the first painter seen above, is a horizontal black line over a white
ground. The painting ‘’Circle Form’’ is a black circle on white ground. The painting ‘’Mandorla Form’’ is an
almond form on white ground. In the painting ‘’Triangle Form’’, black triangles are represented on white
ground. The minimal characteristic of this painting are intuitivism and connotations and it tries to adopt the
principle ‘’What’s seen, it’s it’’.
Picture 4: Colors Serie 1951
Kelly’s application of colours shows that the painter uses simple colours in repetitions in different colours and
works especially with main colours. Kelly uses the colours white, red, yellow, blue and green separately and we
see that he created a series of colours without using the secondary colours. The objective of Kelly is to have the
paintings commented without perception and expression as we see them. In his works created later he united
the main colours with their values but he created a new series of colours separating these colours from each
other in a sharp way. He brought these colours with combinations of two and three colours. We see a sample
of it on the table below.
Picture5: Red and Yellow, Blue and Red, Red Yellow Blue – Red Blue Yellow 1951.
As explained above, we see on the paintings of Kelly that he used different colours together separating them
with sharp lines. He created his paintings on paper with ink technique and gouache technique.
Pictures 6: Color for a Large Wall – Spectrum Colors Arrenged by Change IV
Spectrum Colors Arranged by Change II – Nine Colors 1951.
When we look at the Kelly’s paintings above, we see minimal accents once more. In the painting ‘’Colors for A
Large Wall’’ we can observe the form repetition as used by other minimalist artists. In addition there is also
19
colour repetition in this painting. In the painting ‘’Spectrum Colors Arrenged by Change IV’’ we also see the
same features as above. The difference on this painting is small square figures. Geometrical figures of different
colours were used on this painting. Additionally we see sharp edges in his works. In the painting ‘’Nine Colors’’
nine different colours are used with same geometric figures. White edge and black square ground are minimal
art characteristics. We can say that these paintings have all the preparative features of this movement as
though they can’t be defined as minimal art.
Pictures 7: Blue Green Red Series 1962 – 1965.
Kelly aimed at creating a dynamism on flat surfaces and put special emphasis on separations between figures
and ground. In his work Red Blue Green which is a painting in one of the most important series in which this
motive has been explored, Kelly painted figures in deep red and blue with echoes and contrast as well in a
sharp structure on sharp green ground. The relationship between the double balanced form and colour around
it was a sign of the powerful deepness which we also see in the latter paintings of Kelly. Because of this, all
these works are an important bridge between the plain and multi panel paintings and lamellar and sculptural
works.
CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
It’s known that the minimal movement emerged as a reaction to the previous movements. These reactions all
together came up as an art movement named Minimalism and it affected so many artists. But Minimalism isn’t
a movement which came up in a blow like in all other art movements. Naturally there are some events, reasons
and processes which gave a start to Minimalism. For example Malevich is one of the most important painters
who germinated the ideal structure of this movement. But his works are not considered to be minimal art. I
conclusion we can say that the minimal movement was a preparation of the previous events and ideas.
When we examine the paintings and compositions included in this study we see that both arts are not so
distinct from each other. The main reason for this is the events and processes in the same period. In addition
artists in every period were influenced from each other in their works. The artists in the minimal movement
also experienced such a process.
The minimal characteristics in painting and music which emerge as a result of analysis made by researchers and
studies of related literature are as follows:
• Minimal painters created series bringing different forms in their paintings and repeating them. The
minimal musicians also have this characteristic. Kelly usd different geometrical forms on the same ground.
Nymann created compositions with repetitions of the same expression in different forms in the same
structure of harmony and form.
• The painters and musicians in the minimalist movements took care to use the notes, colours, form, style
and harmony in their works in the simplest form possible. We also see this simplicity in the expression and
presentation of the works to the audience/spectators.
• Purified elements are found stylistically in large amount in their works. The painters prefer simplicity in
colours and forms. And the musicians also prefer simplicity in their melodies and try to express the
maximum using minimum notes.
20
•
•
Minimalist painters try to obtain an integrity creating contrasts by means of geometrical forms of every
size. The musicians on the other side created various variations using the same forms and harmonies and
tried to have an integrity by bringing these small differences together.
Repetitions are the most important feature of the minimalist art movement. The painters repeat certain
geometrical shapes in same and different colours and thus try to express themselves in this way. We also
observe this characteristic at the musicians. Powerful sequences in the same tonality result in continuous
repetitions.
Information from art history and music history resources was brought together for the purpose of this study.
During the examination of resources for the study, we observed that there were only few researches
addressing various arts. This has been a deficiency for us. But as we know, art movements are all effected from
each other and they usually come up as reactions to previous movements. For this reason academicians and
artists having different areas of expertise on the same field must address all the movements in a single study
and take the initiative that they take their place in the related literature.
Lectures on art history and music history are given under different names in different departments in faculties.
But though the differences reflect the needs of the related department, we can say that there exists an
interdisciplinary relationship. For this reason it’s suggested that these lectures should be combined under the
title of fine arts and different fields of art should be given together. In addition extra lecture hours are needed
after expanding the contents in faculty syllabus.
th
IJONTE’s Note: This article was presented at 4 International Conference on New Trends in Education and
Their Implications - ICONTE, 25-27 April, 2013, Antalya-Turkey and was selected for publication for Volume 5
Number 1 of IJONTE 2014 by IJONTE Scientific Committee.
Sükriye İNAN is lecturer at Niğde University I was born in Nigde. In 2004, I graduated from
Nigde University, Faculty of Art. I held the position as a lecturer at the department of fine
arts at Nigde University in 2005 and have been still working there. Her research interest is
history of art.
Sükriye İNAN
Niğde University Department of Fine Art Niğde- TURKEY
İzzet YÜCETOKER is Research assistant at Niğde University College of Education Department
of Fine Arts Music Education Department, TURKEY. In 2007, Yücetoker has graduated Music
Education from Selçuk University College of Education Department of Fine Arts Music
Education Department in Konya. He received his Master Degree in Piano Education from
Selçuk University. Earned his Ph.D. degree in 2009 at the University of Abant Izzet Baysal. He
is still a PhD candidate at the moment.His research interest is piano education, musicology,
music and literature..
Research Assistant İzzet YÜCETOKER
Niğde University College of Education Department of Fine Arts
Music Education Department, NiğdeTURKEY
E. Mail : [email protected]
21
REFERENCES
Türk Dil Kurumu, (1988). Türkçe Sözlük, (8. Baskı), 2. Cilt, Ankara.
Islakoğlu, P. M. (2005). Mimarlıkta Minimalizm, Ege Mimarlık Dergisi, 3 – 55, İzmir.
Erzen, J. N. (1997). Eczacıbaşı Sanat Ansiklopedisi 3, Yem Yayınları, İstanbul.
Tizgöl, K. (2008). Sanatta Minimalizm ve Günümüz Seramik Sanatına Yansımaları, Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi Güzel
Sanatlar Enstitüsü, Yayınlanmamış Sanatta Yeterlilik Tezi, İzmir.
Minimalizm ve Özellikleri, http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimalizm
Khokher, O. (2003). Gose Composition Guide Minimalist Music, MTRS & Omar Khokler www.mtrs.co.uk
Köksal, A. )2007. Minimalist Sanatta Bir Ressam ve Bir Besteci, Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih – Coğrafya
Fakültesi Dergisi, 47,1.
Want, C. (2006). Minimalism, Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press.
Garmaner, S. (1997). 1960 Sonrasında Sanat, Kabalcı Yayınevi, İstanbul.
Antmen, A. (2008). 20. Yüzyıl Batı Sanatında Akımlar, Sel Yayıncılık, İstanbul.
Sims, P. (2009). Ellsworth Kelly About This Artist, Grove Art Online, Oxfort University Press.
Ellsworth Kelly, (http://www.lesliesacks.com/artists/ellsworth-kelly-1/bio).
PICTURAL REFERENCES
Moma Sanat, http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=3048
IMSLP Petrucci Music Library, http://imslp.org/
22
INVESTIGATING PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ INFORMATION LITERACY IN TERMS OF
DEMOGRAPHICAL DATA
Assist. Prof. Dr. Dilek ÇAĞIRGAN GÜLTEN
İstanbul University
Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education
Department of Primary Education
Istanbul, TURKEY
Dr. Yasemin DERİNGÖL KARATAŞ
Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education
Istanbul, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
In today’s world, where information is produced, diversified, disseminated and shared, pre-service teachers are
known to be in a never-ending learning process. In this context, it is important to study pre-service teachers’
skills of identifying information needs, obtaining, structuring and using information and taking into
consideration ethical and legal values in this process. Teachers play an important role in accessing information
and bringing up well-qualified generations. Therefore, this research aims to investigate pre-service teachers’
information literacy. The research was carried out with survey model, and the research sampling consisted of
pre-service elementary and mathematics teachers enrolled in the education faculty of a state university in
İstanbul. A survey form that consists of demographical features and “Information Literacy Scale” developed by
Adıgüzel (2011) were used as data collection tools. SPSS 19.0 Statistical Package was used for the statistical
analysis of the data. The findings of the research are expected to contribute not only to the literature but also
to training of mathematics and elementary teachers. In addition to this, they are anticipated to pave the way
for further research.
Key Words: Pre-service mathematics teachers, pre-service elementary teachers, information literacy and
information.
INTRODUCTION
Learning by oneself (independent learning) and information literacy have become an integral part of lifelong
learning in the 21st century. Information literates are those who know how to access, interpret and use
information appropriately (Henderson and Scheffer, 2003). Besides, they are ready for any change and
challenge that their professional careers and private lives bring forth (Korkut and Akkoyunlu, 2008). In
traditional sense, literacy is a static ability of decoding letters of an alphabetic system, whereas it means a
developable ability that aims to interpret everything with a message today. In this context, information literacy,
which has a contributory role in alleviating the heavy load of information individuals are exposed to in the 21st
century, is of great importance due to its functions of not only having the information available in sources but
also having the skills of conscious orientation towards information sources, selectivity, critical point of view,
reaccess and evaluation (Kurudayıoğlu and Tüzel, 2010).
Information literacy, which requires the efficient use of information sources and centers, means to provide
students with skills of finding, evaluating, using and conveying information (Korkut and Akkoyunlu, 2002).
These skills are known to be taught most effectively in the process of education (Korkut and Akkoyunlu, 2008).
The quality of teachers is a key determining factor of education quality. Therefore, immense production,
dissemination and sharing of information has transformed the image of a teacher from someone who knows
26
substantially to someone who knows how to access information. Well-qualified teachers are those who are
aware of the need for information, know how to access, interpret and learn it and produce new information
from what they have learnt and able to use this information to solve the problems (Adıgüzel, 2011). ALA (1989)
emphasizes the need for redetermining teacher efficacies so that they embrace information literacy efficacies.
Thus, as suggested by Korkut and Akkoyunlu (2008), in order to equip students with skills of information
literacy, first of all teachers should have these skills and feel themselves competent.
Prospective teachers are candidates enrolled in teacher training programs of education faculties. Therefore,
teachers and teacher candidates need to be information literates in order to improve themselves and guide
their students (Akkoyunlu and Kurbanoğlu, 2003; Başaran, 2005; Adıgüzel, 2005). Because, teachers who will
enable their students to access, use, produce and convey information help students develop their skills of
structuring and using information in order to provide interactive and participatory environments (Korkut and
Akkoyunlu, 2008). This research was planned moving from the fact that it is crucial to study prospective
teachers’ skills of identifying information needs, obtaining, structuring and using information and taking into
consideration ethical and legal values. It is a fact that elementary and mathematics teachers play important
roles in the learning process of students. Therefore, studying prospective mathematics and elementary
teachers’ information literacies is expected to contribute not only to the literature but also to training of
elementary and mathematics teachers.
Aim
This research was carried out for the purpose of investigating pre-service teachers’ levels of information
literacy. In line with this aim, pre-service teachers’ levels of information literacy were studied in terms of
gender, department (Mathematics Teaching and Elementary Teaching), computer ownership, Internet and email use. Evaluation of the differences among these variables and the relationships between scale subdimensions and total scale scores compose the sub-problems of the research.
METHOD
The research was designed in survey (descriptive-survey) model. Survey model aims to describe the existing
situation as it stands in the past or currently (Karasar, 2005).
Research Scope and Sampling
The scope of the research is limited to pre-service mathematics and elementary teachers studying in İstanbul.
The sampling of the research, on the other hand, consists of randomly chosen 90 senior pre-service teachers
enrolled at the departments of Mathematics Education and Elementary Education of an education faculty in
İstanbul.
Data Collection Tools
Personal information form (gender – department - computer ownership - Internet and e-mail use) and
“Information Literacy Scale” were used as data collection tools. “Information Literacy Scale” developed by
Adıgüzel (2011) is a five-point Likert type scale and is composed of 29 questions. The scale consists of the subdimensions of “Information Needs Identification”, “Information Access”, “Information Use” and “Ethical and
Legal Regulations in Information Use”. The reliability coefficient of the scale was calculated as .92, whereas it
was calculated as .84 in this research. The highest possible score was 145 while the lowest possible score was
29. However, the highest possible score was calculated as 145, the lowest possible score was calculated as 87
and the mean score was calculated as 120.10 in the research.
Data Analysis
Statistical analyses of the data collected in relation to the research problems were carried out using the
SPSS19.0 package program. Independent Group t-Test, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney-U tests were used for
the analyses of the data depending on the variables. The relationship between the dependent variables was
analysed using the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient method.
27
FINDINGS
This section presents the research findings.
Table 1: Results of the Independent Group t Test Performed to Determine Whether Pre-service Teachers’
“Information Literacy Scale- ILS” Scores Differ or Not in Terms of Gender
Scores
Gender
N
S
sd
t
p
x
ILS
Dimension 1
ILS
Dimension 2
ILS
Dimension 3
ILS
Dimension 4
ILS
Total
Female
58
32,82
3,59
54,415
-,750
,455
Male
Female
32
58
33,46
45,51
4,36
4,77
51,265
-,118
,906
Male
Female
32
58
45,65
20,89
6,25
2,53
51,909
,790
,432
Male
Female
32
58
20,40
20,70
3,27
3,10
64,309
-,200
,842
Male
Female
32
58
20,84
119,94
3,09
12,93
53,390
-,137
,891
Male
32
120,37
16,07
As presented in Table 1, Independent Group t Test was performed to determine the significant difference
between the mean ranks of pre-service teachers’ “Information Literacy Scale-ILS” sub-dimensions and total
scores in terms of gender. As a result of the analysis, no significant difference was detected between preservice teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores (t= -,137, p>.05) and the sub-dimensions of
Information Needs Identification-Dimension 1 (t= -,750, p>.05), Information Access-Dimension 2 (t= -,118,
p>.05), Information Use-Dimension 3 (t= ,790, p>.05) and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information UseDimension 4 (t= -,200, p>.05).
Table 2: Results of the Independent Group t Test Performed to Determine Whether Pre-service Teachers’
“Information Literacy Scale-ILS” Scores Differ or Not in Terms of Department
Scores
Department
N
S
sd
t
p
x
ILS
Dimension 1
ILS
Dimension 2
ILS
Dimension 3
ILS
Dimension 4
ILS
Total
Mathematics
45
33,57
3,18
79,933
1,284
,203
Elementary
Mathematics
45
45
32,53
46,22
4,42
4,65
83,601
1,173
,244
Elementary
Mathematics
45
45
44,91
21,20
5,88
2,30
79,935
1,626
,107
Elementary
Mathematics
45
45
20,24
21,44
3,19
2,45
78,860
2,162
,033
Elementary
Mathematics
45
45
20,06
122,44
3,49
11,69
80,987
1,597
,114
Elementary
45
117,75
15,84
28
As presented in Table 2, Independent Group t Test was performed to determine the significant difference
scores in terms of department. According to the results of the analysis, there was no significant difference
between pre-service teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores (t= 1,597, p>.05) and the subdimensions of Information Needs Identification-Dimension 1 (t= 1,284, p>.05), Information Access-Dimension 2
(t= 1,173, p>.05) and Information Use-Dimension 3 (t= 1,626, p>.05). The difference between pre-service
teachers’ arithmetic means and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use-Dimension 4 (t= 2,162, p<.05)
was found to be statistically significant. Accordingly, it can be concluded that pre-service mathematics
teachers’ scores ( x =122,44) are higher than pre-service elementary teachers’ scores ( x =117,75).
Table 3: Results of the Mann Whitney-U Analysis Perfomed to Determine Whether Pre-service Teachers’
“Information Literacy Scale- ILS” Scores Differ or Not in Terms of Computer Ownership
Scores
Presence of Computer
N
S.O.
S.T.
U
Z
P
255,500 -1,042
,297
ILS
Available
82
44,62 354,00
Dimension 1
Non-available
8
54,56 774,00
ILS
Available
82
44,48 346,00
244,500 -1,193
,233
Dimension 2
Non-available
8
55,94 782,00
ILS
Available
82
45,53 334,50
325,500 -,037
,971
Dimension 3
Non-available
8
45,19 793,50
ILS
Available
82
44,95 334,00
283,000 -,650
,515
Dimension 4
Non-available
8
51,13 794,00
ILS
Available
82
44,83 345,50
273,000 -,784
,433
Total
Non-available
8
52,38 782,50
As presented in Table 3, Mann Whitney-U analysis was carried out to determine the significant difference
scores in terms of computer ownership. According to the results of the analysis, there was no significant
difference between pre-service teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores (z= -,784, p>.05) and the
sub-dimensions of Information Needs Identification-Dimension 1 (z= -1,042, p>.05), Information AccessDimension 2 (z= -1,193, p>.05), Information Use-Dimension 3 (z= -,037, p>.05) and Ethical and Legal
Regulations in Information Use-Dimension 4 (z= -,650, p>.05).
Table 4: Results of the Kruskal Wallis Test Performed to Determine Whether Pre-service Teachers’ “Information
Literacy Scale- ILS Scores” Differ or Not in Terms of Internet Use Frequency
Scores
Internet
N
Mean Rank
Chi-Square
Sd
P
Dimension of
Information Needs
Identification
Less than once
a week
Once a week
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
Less than once
a week
Once a week
11
39,27
08
35
47,75
50,16
2,376
36
90
11
42,82
08
41,06
3
,498
42,38
29
Dimension of
Information Access
Dimension of
Information Use
Ethical and Legal
Regulations in
Information Use
Total
Scores
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
Less than once
a week
Once a week
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
Less than once a
week
Once a week
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
Less than once a
week
Once a week
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
35
51,37
36
90
11
43,14
08
35
36,81
48,39
3
,397
1,492
3
,684
3,340
3
,342
3,314
3
,346
41,60
36
90
11
38,68
08
35
39,38
51,36
45,35
36
90
11
38,41
08
35
42,88
51,54
36
90
2,966
43,25
42,38
As presented in Table 4, Kruskal Wallis Test was performed to determine whether “Information Literacy ScaleILS” scores differ significantly or not in terms of internet use frequency. According to the results of the analysis,
there was no significant difference between pre-service teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores
(x²= 3,314, p>.05) and the sub-dimensions of Information Needs Identification (x²= 2,376, p>.05), Information
Access (x²= 2,966, p>.05), Information Use (x²= 1,492, p>.05) and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information
Use (x²= 3,340, p>.05).
Table 5: Results of the Kruskal Wallis Test Performed to Determine Whether Pre-service Teachers’ “Information
Literacy Scale-ILS” Scores Differ or Not in Terms of E-mail Use Frequency
Scores
E-mail
N
Mean Rank
Chi-Square
Sd
P
Dimension of
Information Needs
Identification
Never
3
9,17
Less than once a
week
Once a week
Several times a
week
Every day
Total
14
38,61
17
38
43,35
51,87
18
90
45,50
Never
3
14,00
9,404
4
,052
30
Dimension of
Information Access
Dimension of
Information Use
Ethical and Legal
Regulations in
Information Use
Total Scores
Less than once a
week
Once a week
14
41,07
17
39,76
Several times a
week
Every day
38
54,80
18
39,97
Total
90
Never
3
28,83
Less than once a
week
Once a week
14
38,21
17
45,47
Several times a
week
Every day
38
52,96
18
42,28
Total
90
Never
3
4,50
Less than once a
week
Once a week
14
38,21
17
45,47
Several times a
week
Every day
38
52,96
18
42,28
Total
90
Never
3
7,00
Less than once a
week
Once a week
14
38,64
17
41,44
Several times a
week
Every day
38
54,70
18
41,67
Total
90
,023
11,390
4
7,231
4
,124
12,312
4
,015
13,127
4
,011
As shown in Table 5, Kruskal Wallis Test was performed to determine whether “Information Literacy Scale-ILS”
scores differ significantly or not in terms of e-mail use frequency. According to the results of the analysis, there
was no statistically significant difference between pre-service teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS subdimensions of Information Needs Identification (x²= 9,404, p>.05) and Information Use (x²= 7,231, p>.05). On
the other hand, there was a statistically significant difference between the sub-dimension scores of
Information Access (x²= 11,390, p<.05) and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use (x²= 12,312, p<.05)
and total scores (x²= 13,127, p<.05).
31
Later, complementary statistical methods were performed to find the source of significant difference between
the groups. Since there is not a specific test technique for this purpose, binary comparisons were performed
with the non-parametric Mann Whitney-U Analysis.
Table 6: Results of the Mann Whitney-U Analysis Performed to Determine the Source of Significant Difference
Between the Mean Ranks of Pre-service Teachers’ “Information Literacy Scale- ILS” Scores in Terms of E-mail
Use Frequency
Total
Scale
Dimension of Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information
Use
Dimension of Information Access
Scores
E-mail Use Frequency
Never
Less than once a week
Never
Once a week
Never
Several times a week
Never
Every day
Once a week
Every day
Once a week
Once a week
Every day
Every day
Never
Never
Once a week
Never
Never
Every day
Once a week
Every day
Once a week
Once a week
Every day
Every day
Never
Never
N
3
14
3
17
3
38
3
18
14
17
14
38
14
18
17
38
17
18
38
18
3
14
3
17
3
38
3
18
14
17
14
38
14
18
17
38
17
18
38
18
3
14
3
S.O.
3,50
10,18
5,83
11,32
5,50
22,22
5,17
11,97
16,25
15,79
20,11
28,86
17,04
16,08
21,76
30,79
17,88
18,11
31,43
22,31
2,67
10,36
2,33
11,94
2,50
22,46
3,00
12,33
14,32
17,38
20,29
28,79
15,75
17,08
24,44
29,59
18,71
17,33
30,62
24,03
3,00
10,29
4,00
S.T.
10,50
142,50
17,50
192,50
16,50
844,50
15,50
215,50
227,50
268,50
281,50
1096,50
238,50
289,50
370,00
1170,00
304,00
326,00
1194,50
401,50
8,00
145,00
7,00
203,00
7,50
853,50
9,00
222,00
200,50
295,50
284,00
1094,00
220,50
307,50
415,50
1124,50
318,00
312,00
1163,50
432,50
9,00
144,00
12,00
U
4,500
Z
-2,130
P
,032
11,500
-1,488
,146
10,500
-2,339
,013
9,500
-1,775
,080
115,500
-,141
,891
176,500
-1,865
,062
118,500
-,292
,779
217,000
-1,940
,052
151,000
-,067
,961
230,500
-1,969
,049
2,000
-2,531
,012
1,000
-2,641
,004
1,500
-2,818
,000
3,000
-2,424
,011
95,500
-,980
,356
179,000
-1,844
,065
115,500
-,411
,694
262,500
-1,122
,262
141,000
-,402
,708
261,500
-1,433
,152
3,000
-2,290
,021
6,000
-2,070
,040
32
Once a week
Never
Never
Every day
Once a week
Every day
Once a week
Once a week
Every day
Every day
17
3
38
3
18
14
17
14
38
14
18
17
38
17
18
38
18
11,65
3,00
22,42
3,00
12,33
15,18
16,68
19,82
28,96
15,86
17,00
22,21
30,59
17,91
18,08
31,22
22,75
198,00
9,00
852,00
9,00
222,00
212,50
283,50
277,50
1100,50
222,00
306,00
377,50
1162,50
304,50
325,50
1186,50
409,50
3,000
-2,721
,001
3,000
-2,424
,011
107,500
-,458
,653
172,500
-1,947
,052
117,000
-,345
,750
224,500
-1,802
,071
151,500
-,050
,961
238,500
-1,829
,067
As presented in Table 6, Mann Whitney-U analysis was performed to find out the source of significant
difference between the mean ranks of the “Information Literacy Scale-ILS” total scores and the subdimensions
of Information Access and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use in terms of e-mail use frequency.
According to the results of the analysis, a significant difference was detected in the sub-dimension of
Information Access between pre-service teachers who never use e-mails and those who use e-mails less than
once a week: in favor of pre-service teachers who use e-mail less than once a week (z= -2,130; p<.05); between
those who never use e-mail and those who use e-mail several times a week: in favor of those who use e-mail
several times a week (z= -2,339; p<.05); between pre-service teachers who use e-mail several times a week and
those who use e-mail every day: in favor of those who use e-mail several times a week (z= -1,969; p<.05).
A significant difference took place in the sub-dimension of Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use
between pre-service teachers who never use e-mail and those who use e-mail less than once a week: in favor
of those who use e-mail less than once a week (z=-2,531; p<.05); between those who never use e-mail and
those who use e-mail once a week: in favor of those who use e-mail once a week (z=-2,641; p<.05); between
those who never use e-mail and those who use e-mail several times a week: in favor of those who use e-mail
several times a week (z=-2,818; p<.01) and between those who never use e-mail and those who use e-mail
every day: in favor of those who use e-mail every day (z=-2,424; p<.05).
With respect to total scale scores, a significant difference was detected between pre-service teachers who
never use e-mail and who use e-mail less than once a week: in favor of those who use e-mail less than once a
week (z=-2,290; p<.05); between those who never use e-mail and who use e-mail once a week: in favor of
those who use e-mail once a week (z=-2,070; p<.05); between those who never use e-mail and who use e-mail
several times a week: in favor of those who use e-mail several times a week (z=-2,721; p<.01) and between
those who never use e-mail and who use e-mail every day: in favor of those who use e-mail every day (z=2,424; p<.05).
33
Table 7: Results of the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Analysis Performed to Determine the Relationship
Between Pre-service Teachers’ “Information Literacy Scale-ILS” Total Scores and Dimension Scores
Variables
N
r
P
Total Scale Scores
Dimension of Information Needs Identification
90
,928
,000
Total Scale Scores
Dimension of Information Access
90
,977
,000
Total Scale Scores
Dimension of Information Use
90
,907
,000
Total Scale Scores
90
Dimension of Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information
Use
,877
,000
As shown in Table 7, a positively significant relationship was detected between pre-service teachers’
Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores and the sub-dimension scores of Information Needs Identification
(r=,928; p<.01), Internet Access (r=,977; p<.01), Information Use (r=,907; p<.01) and Ethical and Legal
Regulations in Information Use (r=,877; p<.01).
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
As a result of the research findings, there was not a statistically significant difference between pre-service
teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores and sub-dimension scores of Information Needs
Identification, Information Access, Information Use, and Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use in
terms of gender, computer ownership and internet use frequency. Pre-service mathematics teachers’ scores
were higher than the scores of pre-service elementary teachers in terms of department in the sub-dimension of
Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use. Another finding is that pre-service teachers’ Information
Literacy Scale-ILS total scores and sub-dimension scores of Information Access, Ethical and Legal Regulations in
Information Use differed significantly in terms of e-mail use frequency. The difference was in favor of those
who used e-mail more frequently. The last finding is that there was a positively significant relationship between
pre-service teachers’ Information Literacy Scale-ILS total scores and the total scores they got from the subdimensions of Information Needs Identification, Information Access, Information Use and Ethical and Legal
Regulations in Information Use.
According to the research results, it can be concluded that pre-service teachers’ levels of information literacy
are not relevant to gender and female and male pre-service teachers have similar levels of literacy. The
researches by Korkut and Akkoyunlu (2008), Ata and Baran (2011), Usluel (2006), Kahyaoğlu (2011) also
support this finding. The research by Kahyaoğlu (2011) also supports the finding that pre-service teachers’
levels of information literacy do not differ in terms of computer ownership and internet use frequency. On the
other hand, Ata and Baran (2011) found out that self-efficacy perceptions of information literacy differed
significantly in terms of computer ownership and internet use frequency. Generally speaking, it can be
concluded that pre-service teachers in the sampling have high levels of information literacy and hence, their
information literacy levels are not influenced by these variables.
Another finding is that pre-service teachers’ e-mail use frequency differentiated with respect to the dimensions
of Information Access, Ethical and Legal Regulations in Information Use, and total scale scores. Accordingly, it
can be said that pre-service teachers in the sampling use e-mail in order to access information and pay
attention to ethical regulations. According to Akkoyunlu and Yılmaz (2005), as pre-service teachers’ skills of
information literacy increase, the frequency of Internet use increases as well. Therefore, the differences in
34
information literacy levels in terms of e-mail use frequency would have been expected to occur in terms of
internet use frequency, too. As suggested by Atav et al. (2006), pre-service teachers use the Internet to do
research and assignments in their daily life. In this context, students’ e-mail use can be said to be relevant to
their internet use. Actually, it can be concluded that students use the internet to e-mail and thus, to access
information. However, the fact that there was not any difference in the sub-dimensions of Information Needs
Identification and Information Use has been evaluated as a controversial finding.
The finding regarding pre-service teachers’ information literacy levels in terms of department has been
interpreted as that it was due to the courses taken in mathematics education program. However, this finding
has been viewed as controversial due to lack of similar research. On the other hand, a positively significant
relationship was identified between pre-service teachers’ total and sub-dimension scores of the Information
Literacy Scale-ILS. That means pre-service teachers’ information literacies grow as their activities regarding
Information Needs Identification, Information Access, Information Use and Ethical and Legal Regulations in
Information Use increase.
As is known, it will be possible to train well-qualified teachers when the characteristics necessary for teachers
are integrated into teacher training programs. Therefore, standards of quality pertaining to the realms of new
literacy have to be determined in order to equip teachers with efficacies such as information literacy. Teachers’
endurance to ever-increasing information is ensured by learning how to access information rather than
learning a great load of information. Thus, teachers should be trained as literates in many fields, particularly in
information literacy (Adıgüzel, 2005). In line with this aim, the following suggestions can be put forward for
further research and researchers:
• Pre-service teachers’ information literacies can be studied qualitatively in the dimensions of
information needs identification and information use.
• Pre-service teachers’ information literacies can be studied in terms of grade levels and departments in
education faculties.
• The relationship between information literacies and Internet&e-mail use frequency can be
investigated in terms of different variables.
• Since this research is limited to senior pre-service math and elementary teachers studying in İstanbul,
it can further be conducted with a broader scope and sampling.
• Quantitative and qualitative researches could be carried out to investigate pre-service teachers’
information literacies taking into consideration other variables.
IJONTE’s Note: This article is the revised form of the paper presented at the International Conference on New
Trends in Education - ICONTE-2013 on 25-27 April 2013, Antalya, Turkey.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Dilek ÇAĞIRGAN GÜLTEN currently employed as an Assistant Professor at
Istanbul University, Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education, Department of Mathematics
Education. She is specifically interested in contemporary approaches in instruction,
approaches and techniques of teaching, creative drama, curriculum evaluation, lifelong
learning, perceptual learning styles, individual differences in learning, the teaching of
mathematics and learning of mathematics.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Dilek ÇAĞIRGAN GÜLTEN
Istanbul University, Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education
Department of Primary Education, Istanbul, TURKEY
Tel: 0212 440 00 00/26064
35
Research Assistant Dr. Yasemin DERİNGÖL KARATAŞ employed as a Research Assistant at
Istanbul University, Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education, Department of Mathematics
Education and Primary School Teacher Training Program. She is specifically interested in
gifted education, creativity in mathematics, approaches and techniques of teaching,
curriculum evaluation, individual differences in learning, the teaching of mathematics, and
learning of mathematics.
Dr. Yasemin DERİNGÖL KARATAŞ
Istanbul University, Hasan Ali Yücel Faculty of Education
Department of Primary Education, Istanbul, TURKEY
Tel: 0212 440 00 00/26064
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Perceived Computer Self-Efficacy], Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 24(1), 1- 10.
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Henderson, Martha V. ve Scheffler, Anthony J. (2003). New Literacies, Standards And Teacher Education,
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Kahyaoğlu, M. (2011). Fen Bilgisi Öğretmen Adaylarının Bilgi Okur-Yazarlığı Becerileri İle İnternet Kullanımına
Yönelik Tutumları Arasındaki İlişkinin Değerlendirilmesi [Evaluation The Relation Between Science Teacher
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Candidates' Attitudes Toward Use of Internet and Information Literacy Skills], Eğitim Teknolojileri Araştırmaları
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Karasar, N. (2004). Bilimsel Araştırma Yöntemi [Scientific Research Method], 13. Baskı, Ankara: Nobel Yayın
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Korkut, E. ve Akkoyunlu, B. (2008). Yabancı Dil Öğretmen Adaylarının Bilgi Ve Bilgisayar Okuryazarlık ÖzYeterlikleri [Foreign Language Teacher Candidates’ Information and Computer Literacy Perceived Self Efficacy],
Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 34, 178-188.
Kurbanoğlu, S. ve Akkoyunlu, B. (2002). Bilgi Okuryazarlığı: Bir İlköğretim Okulunda Yürütülen Uygulama
Çalışması [Information Literacy: A Study Applied in a Primary School], Türk Kütüphaneciliği, 16(1), 20 – 41.
Kurudayıoğlu, M. ve Tüzel, S. (2010). 21. Yüzyıl Okuryazarlık Türleri, Değişen Metin Algısı ve Türkçe Eğitimi [The
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Usluel Y.K. (2006). Öğretmen Adayları ve Öğretmenlerin Bilgi Okuryazarlığı Öz-yeterliliklerinin Karşılaştırılması
[Comparison of Prospective Teachers’ and Teachers’ Information Literacy Self – Efficacy], T 22, 233-243.
37
EXPLORATORY FACTOR ANALYSIS STUDY FOR THE SCALE
OF HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ ATTITUDES TOWARDS CHEMISTRY
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gökhan DEMİRCİOĞLU
Karadeniz Technical University
Trabzon, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Ayşegül ASLAN
Trabzon, TURKEY
Mustafa YADİGAROĞLU
Trabzon, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
It is important to develop students' positive attitudes chemistry lessons in school because research has
suggested that attitudes are linked with academic achievement. Therefore, how to evaluate the attitudes is an
important topic in education. The purpose of this study was to develop a Likert-type scale that could measure
high school students’ attitudes toward chemistry. In order to develop this scale, it was benefited from some
studies in the literature and expert ideas. After adjustments based on expert recommendations, a scale which
is consisted of 25 items was developed and applied to 200 high school students. In order to determine the
construct validity, exploratory factor analysis was performed. In this way, a final scale consists of 20 items. The
factor analysis results indicated that the scale has two factors explaining 45.9% of the total variance. In
addition, the scale’ reliability coefficient (Cronbach’ alpha) was found as 0.89. Obtained results showed that the
scale which is reliable and valid measurement tool can be used to determine the attitudes of secondary school
students to chemistry.
Key Words: Chemistry education, attitude scale, validity, reliability.
INTRODUCTION
The definitions concerning attitude are distributed to a wide range of literature. Therefore, the attitude’s
definition is very difficult to summarize in one sentence. However, the all definitions for the attitude are within
a consensus in which they are positive or negative thoughts, feelings or behaviors towards the objects around
us (Petty, 1995). The attitude is a psychological construct which has cognitive, affective and behavioral
components (Eagly and Chaiken, 1993). The cognitive component contains a set of beliefs about the attributes
of the attitudes’ object. The affective component includes feelings about object. The behavioral component
consists the way people act toward the object (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Salta & Tzougraki, 2004). This construct
is an important predictor of the feelings, emotions or behaviors one person has toward an event or an object
(Anderson, 1988). The attitude is viewed as “a learned, positive, or negative feeling about science that serves
as a summary of a wide variety of beliefs about science” (Koballa and Crawley, 1985). Therefore, the accurate
acquisition of attitudes will be useful for improving the quality of teaching chemistry. The statements like that
“I like chemistry” or “I hate chemistry” indicate negative or positive feelings towards leaning chemistry. That
two students which have these different feelings are subjected to the same training will lead to different
conclusions. Affective dimension acts as a bridge between the behavioral and the cognitive dimensions in
learning. If the teacher is unable to build this bridge on her/his students, (S)he would not perform an effective
teaching. As well as cognitive factors, concerns, attitudes, affective factors and self-efficacy beliefs are
extremely important in learning (Krylova, 1997; Turner & Lindsay, 2003).
38
Research has suggested that attitudes are linked with academic achievement (Freedman, 1997; Salta
&Tzougraki, 2004; Weinburgh, 1995).Also, there is an agreement among educators on the importance of
students’ attitudes toward science courses in school (Osborne, Simon, & Collins,2003). However, there is not an
agreement about how to evaluate the attitudes. The attitude scales were generally used to evaluate the
attitudes.The Test of Science Related Attitudes (TOSRA) developed by Fraser (1981) has an important place in
this process. Cheung (2009) developed the Attitudes towards Chemistry Lessons Scale (ATCLS) by making use of
“Enjoyment of Science Lessons”, which is a sub-scale of TOSRA. In our country, the studies on the development
of attitude scale are quite common (Berberoğlu, 1990;Şimşek, 2002; Kan & Akbaş, 2007; Tüysüz &Tatar,2008).
Although the attitude was widely investigated in the literature, it still continues to be an issue needed to be
studied because it is an important predictor for learning. Because the students have difficulty to understand
chemistry consisting of abstract concepts, it becomes important to investigate students’ attitudes toward
chemistry. In this respect, the attitude scales that evaluate the attitude’ dimensions have great significance in
education.
The Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the present study is to develop a reliable and valid measurement tool in a Likert-type which
evaluates high school students’ attitudes towards chemistry.
METHOD
The reliability of the scale was evaluated by Cronbach’s α, which is the most important reliability index and is
based on the number of the scale’ items, as well as on the correlations between the items (Nunnally, 1978).
The alpha (α) is the most important index of internal consistency. Then Principal Components Analysis with
Varimax Rotation was used to determine the scale construct validity. Two statistical tests were used to
evaluate if the sub-scales were suitable for factor analysis. The first is the Bartlet Test of Sphericity, in which it
is examined if the subscales of the scale are inter-independent, and the latter is KMO (Kaiser-Meyer Olkin
Measure of Sampling Adequacy) which examines sample sufficiency.
Sample
The sample of study is consisted of 200 students (95 girls and 105 boys) in high school in Trabzon. The number
and grades of the students in the sample are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: The number and grades of the students in the sample
Gender
Number of Students
Grade Level
f
50
48
53
49
200
th
9 grade
th
10 grade
th
11 grade
th
12 grade
Total
th
Boy
%
25
24
26.5
24.5
100
f
26
25
28
26
105
th
Girl
%
13
12.5
14
13
52.5
f
24
23
25
23
95
%
12
11.5
12.5
11.5
47.5
th
th
According to Table 1, 9 grade students are 50, 10 grade students are 48, 11 grade students are 53 and 12
grade students are 49. There are different ideas about the required sample size for factor analysis. According to
Comrey and Lee (1992), the sample is very weak when it is 50, weak when it is 100, medium when it is 200,
good when it is 300, very good when it is 500 and perfect when it is 1000. On the other hand, according to Kline
(1998), the appropriate sample size for factor analysis must be up to 10 times of variable (item) number. Taking
into account all of these views, our sample (N=200) is medium level for factor analysis.
39
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
The Development of the Scale
First, an item pool which is consisted of 37 items was constituted by making use of Test of Science-Related
Attitudes (TOSRA) which is designed to measure seven distinct science-related attitudes among secondary
school students (Fraser, 1981). These sub-scales are called “Social Implications of Science”, “Normality of
Scientists”, “Attitude to Scientific Inquiry”, “Adoption of Scientific Attitudes”, “Enjoyment of Science
Lessons”,“Leisure Interest in Science”, and “Career Interest in Science”. TOSRA was found to be highly reliable
and used in a variety of studies in science education (White &Richardson, 1993; Joyce &Farenga, 1999; Lang,
Wong&Fraser, 2005).The items in the present scale were adapted from TOSRA. Then a panel of three judges
evaluated the items for content validity and readability and the list was reduced to 25 items (13 positive and 12
negative statements) based on the evaluation. The instrument contained 25 items on a 5 point Likert-type
scaleranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The scale has a possible minimum score of 25 and
a maximum score of 125. Tavşancıl (2002) suggested that it is easier to develop a Likert-type scale than the
others. In this study, the width of the class interval is found by dividing the data range by the the chosen
number of classes (Kan, 2009). From this, range= highest value-lowest value=5-1=4, and the class interval is
4/5=0.80. Accordingly, in order to evaluate the findings obtained from data analysis, the following intervals
were used: 4.21–5.00 strongly agree, 3.41 to 4.20 agree, 2.61 to 3.40 neutral, 1.81 to 2.60 disagree and 1.00 to
1.80 strongly disagree. Negative sentences were reverse scored. The scale was tested with 200 high school
students. The item-total correlation values were determined for items and also mean of each item was
calculated. The scalegenerated a mean of 3.14 (SD=1.17).The item-total correlation values ranged from 0.74 to
-0.42.Item-total correlations should not be negative and smaller than 0.25 (Özdamar, 1997; Punch, 2005).
However, it was found that correlation values of items 3, 17 and 18 were negative, and those of items 13 and
21 were smaller than 0.25. Because these items adversely affect the internal consistency of the scale, they
were removed from the scale prior to the factor analysis.
Exploratory Factor Analysis and the Construct Validity
Before the explanatory factor analysis, we determined if the sample data are suitable for the analysis. The
table 2 gives information about two assumptions of factor analysis. To determine if the subscales were suitable
for factor analysis, the Bartlett Test of Sphericity and KMO (Kaiser-Meyer Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy)
tests were used. The first test examined if the subscales of the scale are inter-independent, and the latter
examined sample sufficiency. As can be seen from Table 3, ΚΜΟ=0.89>0.70 indicated that the sample data are
suitable for factor analysis(Büyüköztürk, 2004; Hair et al., 2006). The Bartlett’s Test (p<0.001) showed that the
correlations coefficients are not all zero (Table 2). As a result, both assumptions required for factor analysis are
satisfied.
Table 2:The results of KMO and Barlett’s tests
Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin Measure of sampling adequacy
Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity
Approx. Chi-Square
df
Sig.
0.89
1609.1
190
.000
Figure 1 shows a scree plot of eigenvalues plotted against the factor numbers. The criterion of Eigenvalue ≥1
was used for determining the number of the factors. In Figure 1, a high curved decrease was observed after the
second factor. From this, it could be said that the scale has two factors (Field, 2002).
40
Figure 1:The Scree plot graph of the scale of attitude towards chemistry.
A Principal component analysis with Varimax Rotation was used to confirm the scale construct validity. The
results of factor analysis, factor loadings and the variance explained were given in Table 3. As can be seen in
Table 3, two factors explaining 49.5% of total variance were obtained. First factor explained 27.6% of total
variance and has factor loadings ranging from 0.301 to 0.801.Second factor explained 18.3 % of total variance
and has factor loadings ranging from 0.421 to 0.737. The reason behind use of Oblimin rotation is the relation
between its factors of the scale (Tabachnick & Fidell, 1996). By this way, a two-factored construct consisting of
20 items explaining 45.9% of total variance is obtained.
Table 3:The results of factor analysis
Rotated Component Matrix
Factors
Scale items
1
Chemistry lessons are funny.
18 I don’t like chemistry.
20 Chemistry does not interest me.
7
Chemistry lessons bore me.
10 Chemistry is easy for me to learn.
3
I hate chemistry.
19 I have positive attitude towards chemistry.
5
I’m not good at chemistry.
14 Although I endeavored, I didn’t understand chemistry lessons.
13 I’m looking forward to chemistry lessons.
2
Chemistry is necessary to solve daily life problems.
9
Chemistry is one of the most interesting lessons.
16 Chemistry knowledge is important to find a good job.
8
It may be interesting to work in a laboratory to earn money.
15 I want to become a scientist after high school.
M
3.22
2.78
3.81
2.64
3.24
2.86
3.59
3.37
2.96
2.62
3.11
3.44
2.57
3.67
2.94
SD
1,04
1,12
1.10
1.23
1.15
1.27
1.16
1.31
1.24
1.08
1.15
1.32
1.05
1.19
1.29
6
2.84
1.12
.712
2.92
1.07
.687
3.47
3.30
3.49
1.16
1.12
1.25
.650
.619
.421
18.3
0.81
45.9
4
12
11
17
I don’t want to work in a laboratory after graduating from high school.
After graduating, I would like to work with people who make discoveries
for chemistry.
To be a scientist is boring.
To make career about chemistry is boring and routinized.
I like chemistry projects.
Variance Explained (%)
Cronbach's α (%)
Total Variance Explained (%)
I
,801
,811
.796
.783
.773
.758
.758
.705
.626
.582
.417
.322
.301
II
.737
.721
27.6
0.90
41
Each factor was named in accordance with the construct explained by the items. First factor was labeled as
“Liking for chemistry lessons”. The items under this factor are related to the reactions of the students to the
chemistry lesson activities. The factor consists of 13 items with loadings between 0.30 and 0.80 and explains
27.6 % of total variance. Two examples of the statements in the factor 1 are; “Chemistry does not interest me”
and “chemistry is joyful.” The items of second factor are related to chemistry in students’ future plans.
Considering that, the factor was named as “Career plans for chemistry”. The factor 2 consists of 7 items. The
factor loadings of the items listed under this factor were ranged from 0.73 to 0.42. Two examples of the
statements under the factor 2 are:- “I do not want to work in the Chemistry Laboratory” and “It may be
interesting to work in a laboratory to earn money .”
Reliability Analysis of the Scale
Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients are calculated for each scale and sub-dimension of the scale reliability.
Cronbach alpha internal reliability coefficients are found as 0.90 for the factor 1 and 0.81 for the factor 2.
Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient for the whole scale is found as 0.89. Nunnally (1967) suggested that scale
is highly reliable if Cronbach Alpha is 0.80 ≤ α <1.00. Similarly, Spooren et al. (2007) asserted that Cronbach
alpha value above 0.70 is sufficient. Therefore, it can be said that the items in the scale are consistent with
each other and measure same property. In other words, the scale is a reliable and valid measurement tool.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Therefore, a model of two factors has reached after the examination of the validity and reliability of the initial
students attitudes toward chemistry. The scale constitutes of 20 items and a tool useful for measuring
students’ attitudes towards chemistry. Principal component analysis made evident two subscales, named as:
Liking for chemistry lessons and Career plans for chemistry. The reliability of the scale is α= 0.89, which is
satisfactory. The reliability coefficients of the sub-scales are found as 0.90 and 0.81, respectively. These are
satisfactory, too.
The scale developed in the present study could be used by researchers in experimental and descriptive studies.
Further studies that will use the present scale might cope with testing its factor structure as well as its use in
different samples. Also, the teachers can use it to determine their students’ attitudes toward chemistry the
beginning and end of the academic year.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gökhan DEMİRCİOĞLU currently employed as an Associate Professor at
Karadeniz Technical University, Fatih Faculty of Education, Department of Secondary
Science Education. He is specifically interested in concept teaching, conceptual
development and change, computer and instructional technology, secondary education,
and context-based learning.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gökhan DEMİRCİOĞLU
Fatih Faculty of Education
Department of Secondary Science Education
Akçaabat, Trabzon, TURKEY
42
Res. Asst. Ayşegül ASLAN currently employed as a research assistant at Karadeniz Technical
University, Fatih Faculty of Education, Department of Secondary Science Education. She is
specifically interested in concept teaching, conceptual change, secondary education,
context-based learning, out-of school education, informal learning and professional
development.
Res. Asst. Ayşegül ASLAN
Karadeniz Technical University,
Fatih Faculty of Education,
Department of Secondary Science Education,
Akçaabat-Trabzon, TURKEY
Mustafa YADİGAROĞLU is currently a PhD student at Karadeniz Technical University,
Institute of Educational Sciences, and Department of Secondary Science Education. He is
specifically interested in concept teaching, conceptual change, computer and instructional
technology, secondary education, information and communication technology, contextbased learning and teacher education.
Mustafa YADİGAROĞLU
Akçaabat-Trabzon, TURKEY.
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Büyüköztürk, Ş. (2004).Veri Analizi El Kitabı.Ankara: Pegem A Yayıncılık.
Cheung, D. (2009). Developing a scale to measure students‟ attitudes toward chemistry lessons. International
Journal of Science Education, 31(16), 2185-2203.
Comrey, A. L. & Lee, H. B. (1992). A first course in factor analiysis, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Eagly, A. H. &Chaiken, S. (1993). The psychology of attitudes. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Freedman, M. P. (1997). Relationship among laboratory instruction, attitude toward science, and achievement
in science knowledge. Journal of Research in ScienceTeaching, 34(4), 343–357.
Field, A. (2002). Discovering statistics using SPSS. Sage publications ltd., UK: London.
43
Fraser, B.J. (1981). Test of Science Related Attitudes (TOSRA). Australia: The Australian Council for Educational
Research Limited.
Hair, J., Anderson, R.E.,Tatham, R.L.& Black, W.C. (2006).Multivariate data analysis. (6th ed.), Prenctice Hall,
Upper Saddle River: New Jersey.
Joyce, B. A.,& Farenga, S. J. (1999). Informal science experience, attitudes, future interest in science, and
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Lang, Q. C., Wong, A. F. L., &Fraser, B. J. (2005). Student perceptions of chemistry laboratory learning
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Orleans, LA.
45
LEARNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE: GEOGRAPHICAL SCHOOL PRACTICE IN SLOVENIA
Prof. Dr. Karmen KOLNIK
Department for Geography
Faculty of Arts
University of Maribor
Maribor, SLOVENIA
ABSTRACT
We analyse some aspects of the integration of sustainable education in school practice in Slovenia with special
reference on geography. The results of analyses (since 2007) have shown that the objectives, which should
contribute to the achievement of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) are not all realized. So far the
legal bases that support ESD, as well as the revised national curricula for primary and secondary schools have
been provided, although they should be upgraded as we notice on school geography example. Less activity was
observed in the area of accelerating teaching research and strengthening cooperation between the various
stakeholders in the field of ESD at all levels. At this point, it is our opinion that the greatest attention should be,
at this moment, put on training of professionals, especially teachers and educators, because they still have not
internalized the principles of ESD to such an extent that it exercised decisive influence on their theaching
philosophy. We strongly believe that education for a sustainable future must be based on the level of personal
beliefs and to become a part of life of educators too.
Key Words: Sustainability, education, curriculum, teacher, geography.
INTRODUCTION
The United Nations has declared the period from 2005 to2014 as the Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development (DESD). UNESCO was chosen as the agency in charge of promoting the Decade and was asked to
initiate a draft international scheme. The underlying vision of the DESD is a world where each individual can
benefit from quality education and learn the values, behaviour and lifestyles needed for a sustainable future
and for positive societal transformation. (Interboard Education for Sustainable Development Group, 2005)
They have put in the forefront the values and respect – to others, to diversity, to nature and to natural
resources. With the inclusion of mentioned values in all points of education and learning we would encourage
changes in people’s behaviour. With this a stronger future would be allowed concerning the purity of nature,
development of economy and fair society for present and future generations (UNESCO – Education for
Sustainable Development).
In 2007 Ministry for Education, science and sport of Republic of Slovenia has issued educational guidelines for
sustainable development from preschool education to university education. As they wrote in this document the
main goal of this guideline is: »…to emphasise the importance of education for sustainable development and to
show possibilities for implementation of sustainable development in formal, unofficial and occasional learning«.
(Ministry for Education, science and sport of Republic of Slovenia, 2007, 2). It is determined that in education
sustainable
development
must
include
environmental,
economic
and
social
questionsjavascript:IzberiBesedo2(5,174) and that they that are connected mutually. Like this ESD is not only
addition to previous general education, but must:
Be extensive, complete, harmonious teaching process, that comprises relationship between a person and
nature and relationships between people;
46
Leeds to understanding all-round correlations between environmental, economic, social and political
systems and co-dependency of people, living in different parts of the world;
Tries actively to save present and future environmental and social questions of mankind.
Some conditions, those need to be met for successful implementation in Slovenia on all levels of education:
Ensure normative bases, that are supporting ESD;
Quality professional workers with ESD;
Provide suitable didactic and other materials for implementation of ESD;
To expedite research and development of ESD;
To strengthen cooperation of all factors on the field of ESD on all levels (local, regional, national). (Ministry
for education, science and sport , 2007)
In Slovenia, the principles for ESD have been the starting point for renovation of curricula for secondary schools
in 2008 and in 2011 for renovation of national curricula for primary schools. The ESD principles were
determines in cross-curricula competences, which the pupils should develop. With the ESD principles the new
vision of education is connected, inside which the interdisciplinary approach is being emphasised to obtain
knowledge and skills that are needed for sustainable future as well as the change of values in behaviour and life
habits.
GEOGRAPHY AND EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
Important feature and in the same time a large educational advantage of geography is in achieving goals in
education for sustainable future, that enables complexity of information on public, professional and private life
of people in different physical and socio-economic background, which enables pupils to realise, to understand
and to accept civil responsibility for active involvement in local, regional, national and global space. These are
basics for understanding the meaning of relationships and values at decision-making, readiness for responsible
use of knowledge about space and the awareness of co-responsibility for it.
Sustainable development features in all educational key stages and the fact that geography has come to be
seen
as
education
for
sustainable
development’s
natural
home.
(Huckle,
2006)
Geography education can offer quality in connecting natural and social knowledge and common values in order
to understand both local and global problems and to encourage students to respond to these responsibly. This
is the main educational potential of geography in civic education and education for sustainable development
and living (Kolnik, 2009).
For achieving this goals all elements and actors of educational process must be cohesive (picture 1), which
demands thorough deliberation on their today‘s role as well as curtain changes in general national educational
policy.
Picture 1: Interdependence of elements and actors of education for sustainable future as the case of
geography teaching and learning.
47
Source: Kolnik, 2011
A large role in changing of curriculum have the changes of educational philosophy, were the curriculum is the
result of compromise among existent educational philosophies () and changes, that we want to include in them
from the point of view of new educational guidelines as reflection of social needs.
Konečnik Kotnikova (2009) found when lists, that the deciding on curriculum can go on mostly on the level of
teaching (in this case a profound influences of teachers is detected), on level of institution or schools and on
the state level (e.g. influence of government services such as Ministry of education, science and sport, the
National education institute of the Republic of Slovenia, etc.)
The examination of developmental orientations of geographical education in Slovene and European space
indicates that last decade of former century has brought the consciousness that is important to establish more
quality attitudes within the use of space: change the attitude towards the surroundings, fellow men and future
nations (education for coexistence, multicultural education and environmental education).
st
The beginning of 21 century closely connects school geography with interdisciplinary didactic goals of
protection of the environment for the survival of humankind and sustainable development on local, regional
and planetary level (). Such defined educational objectives are integral part of curricula, according to some
researchers of Slovene school geography () are important if not already decisive at influence on the class of
geography alone. It is also important to know geography teachers, their competences, knowledge of their
acceptance and understanding of starting points and characteristics of renovated curricula as key holders of
didactic process.
Geography teachers and ESD
Learning for sustainable future rests on the assumption that a person’s views on sustainability integrate his/her
past experience (emotional, cognitive and conative). In their activity in the life world, students should have
varied opportunities to obtain different kinds of experience and information. Each student can combine this
48
input with pre-existing experience and directly or indirectly obtained information, in a combination that can
become a catalyst for reflexive-constructive thinking (ESD, 2005).
Active teaching and learning offers more opportunities for interaction among pupils and teachers, among
pupils themselves and last but not least among pupils and the contents. Pupil is not only a passive listener, but
an active participant in the learning process. Active teaching and learning requires also a changed role of the
teacher, primarily as a mentor and consultant. A cooperative environment, flexibility, learning from mistakes,
learning based on problem solving and process thinking is encouraged. (O`Donoghue & Cusack, 2008).
New educational approach demands also new didactics that is by pupils developing skills and competences for
partnership, participation and engagement and for these suitable qualified teachers.
This move influenced on the conceptualization and acceding to matters that are: school management, didactic
approaches, curriculums, additional didactic activities, resource management, school basics and partnership in
a community.
In the period between 2006 and 2008 a research named Analysis and stimulation of involving primary school
education in sustainable development has been conducted in Slovenia. The research was looking into which
elements of sustainable development teachers know in practice, and which contents they think are important
and are recognised as a priority. The sample contained 172 teachers from different primary schools in Slovenia.
Among others the research indicated, that the interviewed teachers at determining of key contents of
sustainable development had showed little readiness for consideration of contents active citizenship (30%) and
developing of enterprise (24%). The authors of the research have expressed concern over low percent of
teachers that previously mentioned themes seem important. They are warning, that disequilibrium of key
contents of sustainable development show wrong understanding of mentioned concept at teachers,
consequentially also by pupils. A presenting problem are also approaches, which demand more contemporary
manners of work and in space oriented curricula (case: only 25 % of teachers made possible for pupils to alone
threw empirical way look into problems of sustainable development) (Jamšek & Javrh, 2009).
Important personal experiences gained during the education on different points of view regarding sustainable
development are not only present at teachers but also among students, future geography teachers. In the year
2011 at the Department of geography at the Faculty of Arts in Maribor a pedagogical experiment was
conducted involving students – future geography teachers. The goals was to find out if students during their
studies gain good examples of mentorship and are developing necessary skills and competences for their future
profession based on contents and principles of education for sustainable development: 42 students
cooperated, that were finishing two-subject study of geography were involved. In the first part of the teaching
experiment the students with five keywords described their understanding of the sustainable development.
Findings indicated that the cooperating students listed keywords from three fields of sustainable development
(environmental, social and economic). In the second part students in groups analysed curriculum for geography
at general high schools and based on that independently made a project didactic work for pupils of general
high school, which was bases on principles of education for sustainable development at class of geography. Out
of eleven groups, eight chosen goals from fields of ecology, two groups from field of economy, and one from
field of population. On question why the vast majority decided for themes from field of ecology, the answer
was because they have the most experience on this topic during the course of their so far education (Kolnik,
2011).
From the listed literature it can be summarised that themes and contents from fields of social sustainability are
not sufficiently and equally engaged in education of sustainable development, which influences wrongly on
understanding and knowing the concept of sustainability. Goals and principles of education for sustainable
development will not be able to be achieved completely, if teachers are not only professionally suitable but
also that they recognise the meaning of principles of sustainable education and in a larger degree also
recognise on a personal level as important in all their dimension. Co-creators of didactic process (teachers and
pupils) have to be able to be aware of the meaning of holistic approach within the education of sustainable
49
development. The whole integrated treatment and integrated education on concept of sustainability leads not
only to a more complex knowledge and understanding of such problems, but also towards integrated solutions
that are the sole way to sustainable society.
CONCLUSION
One of the basic characteristics of school Geography is its constant adjusting to natural environment and the
social (educational, economic, cultural, etc.) needs and also to the development of Geography as a science. In
order to achieve the goals of upbringing and education for sustainable future, all the elements and agents of
the educational process need to be sound with each other, which calls for a thorough consideration of their
current role as well as for certain changes in the entire national educational policy. The latter include also the
guidelines of upbringing and education for sustainable future on all the educational levels.
We can be satisfied in Slovenia with the Geography Curriculum as a basic pedagogical documentation for
Geography classes from the point of view of their accordance with the principles of education for sustainable
development. However, important changes in them, for primary and secondary schools, which were recently
revised, are still ahead of us. This refers in particular to the revision of Geography classes from the point of
view of educational philosophy, according to which students and teachers should not only carry out the aims
and topics of curriculum or consume knowledge produced by others (as case the teachers educators, didactic
materials, etc.), but also produce and co-create this knowledge. Instead of “reaction” to the educational
changes and novelties, they need to develop a proactive attitude as a starting point for innovative learning.
Innovative learning, which encourages the upbringing and education for sustainable future, is composed of
anticipatory learning (encouragement of creativity in the sense of long term planning of the future and
assuming responsibility for one’s own decisions) and participatory learning (an individual’s active involvement
and participation in group formation of problem directed questions and anticipation of alternative solutions for
these questions), and directly supports the implementation of the educational principles for sustainability.
Goals and principles of education for sustainable development won’t be able to be achieved completely, if
teachers are not only professionally suitable but also that they recognise the meaning of principles of
sustainable education and in a larger degree also recognise on a personal level as important in their entire
dimension. Co-creators of didactic process (teachers and pupils) have to be able to be aware of the meaning of
holistic approach within the education of sustainable development. The whole integrated treatment and
integrated education on concept of sustainability leads not only to a more complex knowledge and
understanding of such problems, but also towards integrated solutions that are the sole way to sustainable
society.
Coming to the main task: we must achieve cohesiveness between educational documents, didactic guidelines
of education for sustainable development, modified curricula for geography in a way that teachers internalise
them as their own. Only this way, teachers will implement them and direct these guide pupils on their own way
to the future of sustainable society.
50
Karmen KOLNIK is professor and researcher at University of Maribor, Slovenia. She
lectures at undergraduate and postgraduate study at Faculty of Arts and Faculty of
Education. Her research interest is: geography teachers training, development of curricula,
outdoor learning, sustainable and multicultural education. Dr. Kolnik has authored and coauthored more than 15 geography textbooks, workbooks and manuals for primary and
secondary schools. She presented over one hundred book chapters, articles and
conference presentations. Between 2006 and 2011 dr. Kolnik served as Vice-Dean for
Academic Affairs at Faculty of Arts, University of Maribor.
Prof.Dr. Karmen KOLNIK
University of Maribor
Faculty of Arts
Departement of Geography
Koroška cesta 160
SI. 2000 Maribor, SLOVENIA
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52
AN E-DEMOCRACY APPLICATION: DO NOT LET MY DREAMS
OF AN IDEAL UNIVERSITY STAY ONLY IN MY DREAMS
Assist. Prof. Dr. Serkan ŞENDAĞ
Akdeniz University
Faculty of Education
Antalya, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
The aim of this study is to describe and discuss data gathered from a project titled “Do not let my dreams of an
ideal university stay only in my dreams”, which is an e-democracy application developed and implemented in
light of the current e-democracy literature using Facebook and Twitter. The aim of the application is to develop
ideas that would contribute to establishment of future higher education institutions bringing together relevant
stakeholders. The project has four phases: (a) Launching, (b) Online interaction, (c) Evaluation (d)
Sharing/Implementing the results. Current paper describes the structure and implementation of the application
developed, and evaluates experiences on facilitating participation and interaction throughout the process with
data gathered from the researcher’s dairy, meeting notes, online social networking sharing, and interviews.
Data showed that there are some barriers to implement e-democracy applications at higher education level in
Turkey. Results highlight that developing and implementing e-democracy applications is critical to improve
participatory democracy for higher education institutions in Turkey.
Key Words: E-democracy, digital culture, higher education.
INTRODUCTION
The digital culture inescapably continues to transform the society in many ways. One of these is a hope for
revitalizing direct-democracy, e-democracy. It is a concept that facilitates the realization of participatory
democracy. The only thing that differentiates the concept of e-democracy from the traditional notion of
democracy is not the letter E, preceding the word ‘democracy’, but it is the contribution made by the letter
itself (i.e. E) towards self-realization of the concept of democracy. This contribution seems to assign a key
meaning to the concept in respect of realization of social transformations in the near future. At this stage,
another significant concept, or more precisely institution is higher education. In the historical process,
institutions of Higher Education have continued to be important institutions that have impacted the quality and
form of social life. Consequently, e-democracy should not be seen far from being a source of social
transformations of higher education institutions. This is why, these two concepts, e-democracy and higher
education, which are likely to affect and transform each other in the immediate future are discussed together
within this research. Presently, institutions of higher education remain inadequate in meeting expectations. In
order for institutions of higher education to be able to respond to the expectations of the society and the
requirements of our age, it is urgently needed that a radical transformation must take place in these
institutions. That e-democracy can be utilized as an important tool to this end forms the main idea of this
current study.
Higher Education Institutions’ Need for Transformation
The main purpose of this study is not only to evaluate the existing structure and operations of higher education
institutions, but also some of the concepts that require transformation in higher education will be discussed in
the context of the current structure. Some of these concepts include concepts that have been discussed over
the years, in particular for the last ten years. Mostly, it is dealt with, within the framework of current problems,
why higher education institutions have failed to meet expectations. For instance, the problems can be sorted as
the increase in the number of students, the withdrawal tendency of government sources from higher
education, disparities in access to higher education and so on. These factors can easily be linked with the need
for transformation in higher education. In addition to these factors, some factors which appear to be more
53
unstraightforward, but are likely to form the basis of transformation in higher education will be mentioned
here in brief.
Internationalization
Internationalization has been one of the crucial concepts that affects the structure of higher education
institutions, especially after the 1980s. In recent years, it has been observed that initiatives have increased
towards attracting international students at a large scale rather than attracting students from a limited number
of organizations that enable the circulation of students between higher education institutions (Brandenburg &
De Wit, 2011). Internationalization comes to mean, from now on, more than student mobility (Marmolejo,
2011). Restriction of share of higher education institutions’ directly benefitting from government sources
around the world gives rise to higher education institutions’ adoption of a commercial perspective on the
internationalization of higher education institutions, and causes tendency to attract international students.
Globalization and internationalization are factors that play key roles in higher education institutions’ taking on
a commercial dimension. So much so that this competition has stimulated higher education institutions’
initiatives for collaboration on such issues as exchange of students and staff, offering joint programs and
conducting research with international partners. The concept of globalization can be considered as a concept
that aims at eliminating the negative perceptions generally associated with globalization in the world; however,
whatever it is, universities’ processes of creating international joined initiatives for competition requires the
formation of a system that necessitates the use of participatory democracy, accordingly the effective use of edemocracy.
Massification
Higher education institutions, in one sense, are institutions that accredit individuals’ obtaining qualification in
any vocational area. In this sense, the effect of population growth in the world shows that more attention will
be paid to higher education, with the increased interest of individuals in so-called white collar jobs and jobs
that are associated with a more qualified higher education diploma. Altbach, Reisberg and Rumbley (2009)
pointed out that massification is one of the leading factors that trigger higher education reform and
transformation. Calderon (2012) speculates that if the demands continue to increase at this rate, it appears
that there would be more 520 million people demanding of higher education by 2035 around the world. It
seems inevitable that attempting to meet this intense demand with a limited number of higher education
institutions, and limited infrastructure and resources has a number of alarming implications. In order to reduce
negativities to the least possible degree, and increase the quality of learning environments, reasons such as the
establishment of relations between different contexts are the factors that highlight the need for effective use
of e-democracy in higher education management and instruction.
Globalization, Competition and Technology
Considered form the perspective of higher education institutions, it is not possible to think about globalization
independently from internationalization. Globalization represents the international system that shapes many
of today's societies. It refers to the integration and interaction of business world, cultures, politics and
intellectual components at an international level (Wood, 2012). As the global economy sees the world as a
single and large market, it has led to an increase in competition in education, particularly in the context of
universities, as has been the case in many domains. While this competition has led to an increase of quality of
the competition, development of technology and its use in different areas on the one hand, it has been
criticized on the grounds that it has ignored human values with the influence of competition. In this sense,
globalization has gained a more political meaning. Therefore, educational institutions opt to use the concept
‘internationalization’ instead of ‘globalization’ with an eye to highlighting the positive aspects of globalization
(Brandenburg & De Wit, 2011). The basic formula to survive in the global economy is to produce technology
and effectively use the produced technology again during the process of competition (Narula, 2003). Described
as an evolution in the history of the Internet, Web 2.0 is one of the important developments caused by this
competition, following the arrival of WWW. There has been a transformation to web technology that requires
simple, purpose-built user interaction rather than personal, static web pages (Şendağ, 2008). In addition, Web
2.0 has not only acquired a version number itself, but also enabled many other fields to acquire version
numbers, such as e-learning 2.0, and research 2.0. This fast transformation experienced in technology has led
54
to emergence of the concepts named as deprofessionalization, and a reduction of the controllability of the
amount of academic knowledge produced towards a particular subject area. However, e-democracy, a
potential candidate to be a leading factor among the invisible agents in the path of surviving in the global
competition, seems to be a concept that will become increasingly important in near future. Higher education
institutions have to efficiently use e-democracy that enables the operation of the shared wisdom and
negotiation process in order to think in multi-dimensional ways and make the right decisions in a world where
knowledge changes and is transformed rather quickly.
E-democracy in Higher Education
Before discussing the concept of e-democracy, it would be useful to mention the concepts of e-voting and
online discussions help explain what e-democracy is indeed not. E-voting, in its most general sense, is the
process of voting in an electronic environment. Although e-voting is a process of decision making, generally the
options voted for are not designed, and negotiated and discussed by the participants themselves prior to
voting. As for online discussion, it is individuals’ involvement in a discussion occurring in an online environment
within the framework of a specific topic. Here, the participants are not required to reach any decision on the
given subject, and even if certain decisions have been made, the prerequisite of implementation of these
decisions might not be a matter of question. E-democracy can be thought of as a problem solving tool that
makes use of e-voting along with online discussion. While e-voting brings the political aspect of democracy to
the fore, the online discussion is more like a discussion of specific phenomena in a limited setting by a limited
number of participants. Another issue concerned with what e-democracy is not relates to e-politics. E-politics is
the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in political processes. The use of e-democracy in
this meaning is just a tendency towards associating democracy with the regime of the state. According to
Şendağ (2010) “democracy should refer to any kind of negotiation, agreement, and human interaction such as
representative–citizen, citizen–citizen, and representative–representative. In this sense, ICTs are the most
contemporary facilitator of these negotiations, agreements, and human interaction processes. Briefly, edemocracy is involvement in every part of the community in the decision-making process through ICTs
(p.1684). This definition emphasizes the administrative aspect of e-democracy. However, e-democracy as a way
of life can be used as a method of decision making regarding how to live together in the workplace, the
neighborhood, and the city. This case is associated with the concept of governance. While mentioning the
national and global scales of the governance, Uçkan (2003) emphasized the necessity of making applicable
decisions by grounding the governance on all parties’ consensus. This circumstance indicates that e-democracy
has a relatively comprehensive meaning. Within this sense, e-democracy requires contextual factors and
participation of stakeholders of decision making in the process, their interaction during the process, and
discussion of raised ideas. This interaction must generally result in reaching a decision.
Şişman (2006) specifically expresses the importance of participatory democracy in the school management, by
highlighting the need for the participation of parents, students and all other stakeholders in decision making
processes. When considered from the perspective of higher education institutions, the significance of
participation of principal stakeholders, viz. students and academics, in decision-making processes has been in
the main ignored up to the present. This occasion stands as an important barrier to realization of the expected
transformation in higher education. It seems that e-democracy that facilitates the realization of participatory
democracy for materialization of the anticipated transformations in higher education is likely to gain more
significance in the short run. For this reason, it is fairly vital that various aspects of e-democracy applications
should be studied by performing e-democracy applications in the higher education.
Theoretical Framework
In general, it can be reckoned that there is no need for a theoretical framework for the implementation of edemocracy, and the stakeholders already discuss their problems, especially in online social networking sites.
For example, Caldow (2004) considers such activities as sending e-mails, writing e-petitions to administrators,
and participations in forums and surveys within the framework of e-democracy. However, authorities’ power to
impose sanctions on the subject of paying attention to these views (due to lack of reconciled opinions) cannot
be said to be high. These tools which only make citizen-administrator interactions possible can be effective
with respect to very specific topics; however, there is a necessity for structured e-democracy applications in
55
which all stakeholders come together for the formation of negotiated ideas with the power to impose
sanctions in matters concerning the public. There are two basic reasons why efforts are made to formulate edemocracy applications. First of all, it is to enable a participation that includes all the stakeholders at the
highest level, and secondly it is the necessity of all ideas to be discussed through keeping the interaction among
the participants at the highest level, which is the most distinctive characteristic of e-democracy applications
that distinguishes it from citizens’ individual interaction with administrators. These two processes should be
combined by means of an effective moderation and a decision needs to be reached by voting the consequential
opinions. Models that support this framework can be found within the relevant literature. Nair’s (2007)
proposed ‘digital democracy’ model was used in the e–democracy application performed within the scope of
this study. Nair (2007) elaborates on four stages required for the realization of digital democracy: (1)
Information sharing: sharing of wide variety of information that is related to topics generally concerned with
the process of decision making, (2) Listening/Consultation: citizens’ getting feedback from the public
institutions, (3) Online discussion: stakeholders’ negotiation of the subject to be decided on in various ways, (4)
decision making: making such a decision that represents all views proposed. In this context, an e-democracy
application, entitled “Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams” was undertaken in
this present study. In this application, it is aimed to arrive at decisions by discussing ideas that will shape the
future of universities in Turkey. To this end, the application has been carried out in four stages. (1)
Introduction: the stage where stakeholders were invited for participation by setting up digital platforms and
determining the objectives and framework of the application, (2) Online interaction: the stage where
stakeholders negotiate their views, (3) Evaluation; the stage where decisions were made based on the
evaluation of the results, (4) Sharing the results /Application: the stage where the application is carried out by
sharing the obtained report of results with the individuals. In order for participatory democracy to be properly
realized, there is a need to keep the interaction in online environment at the highest level among participants
by encouraging all stakeholders to participate in the process as much as possible. Therefore, the experiences
endured with respect to the matter of enabling participation and interaction in the application, ‘Do not let my
dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’, and are shared in this research.
Problem Statement
New digital technologies offer new opportunities for the revitalization of participatory democracy. The concept
‘e-democracy’ emerged in this sense is put to work in order to facilitate participatory democracy. There are a
variety of transformations occurring in higher education institutions in the world, with the effect of technology.
In this context, e-democracy that may render the thinking and decision making process active seems to take on
a rather significant role in the near future. For this reason, in Turkey, there is a need particularly for the
reconfiguration of higher education institutions and particularly the effective use of e-democracy during this
configuration process. Moreover, there is a need for the assessment of applications for the use of e-democracy
by investigating its various aspects, and the developments that will contribute to promoting participatory
democracy culture in higher education institutions. Within the justifications specified in this study, an edemocracy application, entitled ‘Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’ was
carried out. The application developed was evaluated from the perspective of its ensuring participation and
interaction. Answers to the following questions have been focused on for achieving the objective of the
research.
1. What are the experiences regarding the provision of participation in the e-democracy application, “Do not
let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams”?
2. What are the experiences regarding the ensuring of interaction in the e-democracy application, “Do not let
my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams”?
METHOD
The research adopts a case study design in which qualitative data gleaned through various content and
document analyses and interviews are analyzed. In case studies, an event or situation is analyzed to be able to
identify its different aspects by collecting various data (Willis, 2008). In this context, the e-democracy
application ‘Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’ has been investigated with its
various aspects in line with data obtained from content analyses and interviews.
56
Participants and Settings
After coming up with the idea of ‘Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’ project, a
project web page, Facebook page and group, and a twitter account were created. An introductory text was
written and sent to several public and private institutions by e-mails. The purpose of the project was to
encourage participation of all public institutions and organizations, private sector and citizens, especially the
Council of Higher Education in the project. However, it was observed that about 90 % of the participation in the
project were from the universities, and of that participation, more than 90% were constituted by university
students. The project was officially launched on November 20, 2012. Facebook group was used more actively in
the project. More than 3,000 people became a member of the group. Members generally preferred sharing
their dreams of the future universities by means of Facebook group. Similarly, discussions were largely held
within this group. Twitter and Facebook pages were not much preferred by the members. In the study, the
comments sent to the group were analyzed in picking themes related to higher education. The project team is
comprised of ten people, with eight senior undergraduate students, one graduate student and a faculty
member. In the evaluation of the process of conducted e-democracy project, seven meeting protocols
attended by a team of 10 people, and researcher logs kept during the project, and the data obtained from 15
members who joined the project through social networking sites were used. Eight out of 15 participants were
undergraduate students, one was administrative staff and six were members of university academic staff.
Instruments
The research instruments, used as the source of data in this research, were composed of researcher diaries,
seven meeting protocols attended by the research team, and interviews carried out with 12 participants.
Researcher diaries, meeting minutes, and the interviews done with participants were used in the evaluation of
e-democracy application in terms of participation and interaction. In the researcher diaries, the number of the
participants, number of comments, the characteristic of the participants and the progress in relation to the
comments made on the social networking sites were noted down. In the meeting protocols, it is mentioned
that which steps should be taken to comply with the adopted model, what steps have become successful and
what steps have failed before at each step of the application of e-democracy. Information on brain storming
relating to what can be done to make each step more effective is also kept in meeting protocols. A semistructured interview protocol was used in the interviews with the participants at the end of the application.
Participants’ general views on the project, their reasons for making or not making comments regarding their
dream university, their overall views on democracy and the main obstacles to democracy in the country, and
their opinions on whether the project has reached its aims were probed and their responses were recorded
with a voice recorder. The data obtained were transcribed for analysis by means of electronic media.
FİNDİNGS
Participation
The following steps were taken in order to ensure the participation of stakeholders in the project:
1. Project introductory text and an invitation card were created.
2. Project web page, Facebook page, Facebook group, Twitter account were created.
3. It was decided to make an announcement of raffling a tablet computer off.
4. The introductory text and invitations cards were emailed to academic and administrative staff in Turkey.
5. The 10-person project team invited their Facebook friends to participate in the project.
6. Posts have been shared on Facebook and Twitter which ask participants to invite their friend on their
Facebook and Twitter profiles.
7. A brief description of the project was aired on TRT Antalya radio.
8. A promotional video was shot.
9. Several public and private institutions have been invited to participate in the project via the Internet.
10. The famous journalist, author, broadcaster and actors were contacted by emails to announce the project
publicly.
11. Various media and television companies were contacted regarding the introduction of the project.
57
The first step in effective implementation of e-democracy is to ensure the participation of all stakeholders in
decision-making. Since it is not always possible to ensure this participation, the above steps were taken in
order to be as much inclusive as possible in the study. The issue searched with the highest priority in regards to
participation was concerned with which of the above steps were more effective. On this issue, meeting
protocols and social network analysis have provided important data. While the number of group members was
around 100 when the participation was tried to be ensured with an introductory text and e-mails on the first 15
days of the project, the number of members of Facebook group has reached a figure of around 3000 in a
month after our friends in our profiles and their own friend groups were encouraged to invite their friends to
participate in the project. Those who left the group are not included in this figure. During the study, it was seen
that the efforts except for this Facebook group were not that much effective. Particularly, efforts to access the
celebrities have been fruitless. Similarly, we could not get a result in our efforts to reach various media and
television organizations. Apart from this, the participation of a small number of members in the group was
achieved owing to e-mails and introduction of the website. As participation in the project was provided mainly
through the profiles of Facebook friends, Facebook group was intensively used in the project. Throughout the
entire project, while there were 50 tweets shared on Twitter, there were roughly 150 posts on Facebook group
and comments made on these posts. On the Facebook page, however, there were almost no posts shared or
virtually no comments made except for the project team’s introductory shares. In this context, it was clear to
see that Facebook group came into prominence in the sense of ensuring participation in the project. In the
same way, one of the most important issues mentioned in the meeting protocols was that the tablet computer
which was planned to be given as a gift within the scope of the project was not encouraging enough to
convince students to take part in the project. In general, students stated that a specific amount of monetary
award or a gift/money card would have been more effective than a tablet computer to encourage
participation.
Interaction
The most important feature that distinguishes an e-democracy application from e-voting and that can be
described as the heart of e-democracy is particularly stakeholders’ discussion of the issue with its various
aspects through interacting with each other. In short, all possible opinions should be discussed in detail and
with its various facets prior to proceeding for voting. Therefore, the creation of an effective platform in edemocracy applications is relatively crucial. When researcher diaries, meeting protocols, and posts shared on
the group were analyzed, it was found that one of the most challenging issues faced by the team was ensuring
interaction.
On the first days of the project, the ‘Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’ group
appeared to be a platform where members shared their views rather than a platform where members were
involved in discussion. For the purpose of igniting discussions, discussions were conducted within the
framework of several topics, such as management and leadership, education and instruction, infrastructure
and social activities in my dream university. However, these practices that lasted about two weeks were
concluded to be not very much effective in terms of increasing the interaction and discussion, and thus they
were terminated. Similarly, some faculty members were asked to write reflections that talk of their dream
universities in order to increase the interaction. Only two faculty members provided texts, and their responses
were shared on social media by publishing the texts on the project blog; however, this could not contribute to
occurrence of the expected discussion platform. Another initiative done in order to increase the interaction
was ‘my dream university videos’, in which various videos were shot with people who spoke of their dream
universities and shared again on social media, but the expected dynamism was not obtained. Another
application, ‘comment of the week’, carried out with an eye to increasing the interaction, remained again
ineffective. In spite of the fact that the application called as ‘provocative questions’ by the project team
seemed to be more effective than other applications with respect to ensuring interaction, one or two members
called ‘discussion facilitators’ by the project team naturally facilitated the activation of discussions and turned
out to be more effective than all the other initiatives seized by the project team. Nevertheless, the discussions
triggered by these members took place among only a few members, and with the passivation of the discussion
facilitators, the discussions came to an end. The discussion facilitators’ being successful drove us to the idea
58
that the discussions might be triggered by some of the project members by taking on a discussion facilitator
role. However, such initiatives did not arouse the same effect as the discussion facilitator naturally did.
One of the most striking points from the perspective of interaction was the scarce number of posts shared, and
discussion according to the number of members in the group. Only around 100 members out of a total 3,000
were engaged in sharing posts and discussions. In the interviews done with the participants, the reason of this
issue was tried to be sought and ascertained. All 15 participants mentioned that the project entitled ‘Do not let
my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams’ was significant, and in general they used such
descriptors as ‘useful’, ‘functional’, interesting’, important for the next generation’ and ‘helpful’ by touching on
the need for a transformation in the universities in Turkey. However, two undergraduate students out of eight
noted that they took part in sharing posts, and while three of the remaining six academic and one
administrative staff reported their engagement in sharing posts, four of them remarked that they did not
involve in such activities. Those undergraduate students who did not involve in the study put forwards some
reasons in their own words, by writing their non-participation was thanks to the reasons that “in general what I
have already thought has been already written”, “I thought my views would not be taken into account”, “a
matter of personality, as I am shy”, and “I do not use social networks frequently”. Academic staff, likewise,
explained their non-participation by making the following remarks: “a personality matter… I cannot express
myself easily”, “an individual case, I am not someone who can express him/herself well on social networks”,
and “the others already shared what I had to say”. Participants’ reasons for non-participation could be
categorized under three headings in general:
• The belief that their views would not be taken seriously
• Personal/reasons related to personality traits
• Their thoughts’ being already voiced by the others
As the fact that the participants’ perception that their views would not be taken into consideration is an
important issue, moving from whether a general perception regarding the possibility of our views to be not
taken into account by the authorities might be true, the participants were posed a question, worded as “do you
think the views/ideas generated within the spectrum of the project would be taken into account by primarily
the council of Higher Education and other official and authorized organizations”. Various utterances were made
by undergraduate students: “I do not think they would respect…” articulated only one of the undergraduate
students, and seven of them told “I do not think they would pay attention” or “I hope they would do so” or “A
little more pressure needs to be put on them to consider such views/ideas”. Only one of seven academic and
administrative staff said “I think they would take them into account only if the results reach up to them”, six
participants had a negative attitude towards this matter. Consequently, it was noticed that only two of the 15
participants had positive views on this matter, and that there is a general perception among administrative and
academic staff with respect to the fact that “their views are not taken into account by the authorities”.
The issue that how participants describe their personalities, who cited their personality trains as reasons for
non-participation, were put under investigation, as well. It was found that they were inclined to describe
themselves in the following ways: “I am not that much sociable”, “I do not like taking the lead in any kind of
task”, “I am not a man of action”, and “[I am] quiet, calm and introverted”. Some of the participants uttered
that their views had been already voiced by other people, and thus they shied away from expressing their
views separately. It was found that the number of this group of people who we referred to as “silent followers”
as the project team was dramatically high. It was anticipated that this group would participate in the
questionnaire in which the ideas raised as a result of the project were voted. However, the ratio of
participation in the questionnaires invalidated this prediction. This result drove us to investigate whether “a
negative perception might be effective in respect to participatory democracy and the formation of democracy
in the country”. In fact, the main objective in participatory democracy is to discuss opinions and ideas with all
details as well as expressing them, and talk over the views that we agree or disagree with by justifying the
underlying reasons. In the introductory text of the Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my
dreams’ project and shared posts by the project team on the group, this case was continuously underlined.
However, it is emphasized that participants’ negative perceptions towards participatory democracy and the
general understanding of democracy in Turkey would lead to the belief that it is not possible to operate a true
59
democratic process. With this in mind, the participants were asked what they understood by the term
participatory democracy, and what the barriers are in regards to the level of democracy, and actualization of
the democracy in Turkey. In this context, undergraduate students defined participatory democracy in the
following statements as: “The public’s views being conveyed to the authorities”, “People’s having a say on the
functioning of the state”, “An organization that everyone could say their opinion freely”, “A functional
democracy where public opinions come at the forefront, a debatable environment is created, and that does not
deviate from the principles of democracy” and “People’s active involvement in the government affairs”. It
might be said that undergraduate students perceived participatory democracy more as a form of
communication of government authorities to communicate with public, and public’s reporting their views to
the state/the authorities. This situation, for the result of this application to be paid attention, led to a belief
that “the authorized individuals are required to be involved in the process”.
In this context, if the participations of intuitions particularly such as the Council of Higher Education, university
rectors and administrators had been ensured, and the participants had been informed about this circumstance,
it would have been possible to increase the participation. However, the project team’s efforts have been
fruitless to involve the authorities. Students, in general sense, brought up some obstacles standing ahead of
actualization of the Turkish democracy. It was also put into words that there were also some problems in
representing the opinions. For example, a student expressed his/her view saying that “I think participatory
democracy would not be effective in a country where people are convicted due to their writings/comments”.
Students keyed out the obstacles to the development of our democracy as “economic reasons”, “lack of
education”, “being full of oneself and selfishness”, “inability to empathize with others” and “ignorance”. These
negative perceptions towards the development of democracy might have led to the idea that the project would
not be fruitful, and this accordingly might have resulted in an adequate level of participation in the
questionnaires.
Academic and administrative staff, however, defined participatory democracy as “individual’s having a say in
the governance of the society and living area in which she/he resides, and in the regulations likely to be done in
that living area”, “a concept that I heard for the first time” and “it means freedom”. One academic described
participatory democracy in the following ways: “Participatory democracy indeed requires that people could
always have a say and be shareholders in the management and governance of any location. Participatory
democracy is an understanding that advocates this in fact. I manage the factory but by taking the views of
many people into account, ranging from my wife to workers and to my drivers; now that the factory belongs to
us, we can manage it together. It is because when people believe their views are taken seriously and changes
are made based on their views, they will widely adopt such an institution. Now, you, as my boss, make me feel
as if I were a shareholder of the factory, I would then switch off the lights when I saw them on in the factory. I
consume the water more carefully. I pay more attention to my shift. I back up my boss more outside the
factory. I highlight my brand value more. The issue of adopting is quite significant. Namely, these descriptions
come to my mind directly as far as participatory democracy is concerned”. “If we are talking about democracy,
this should be participatory; the minorities should have a say, everyone should be able to express their views
freely”. In academic and administrative staff’s expressions on participatory democracy, the perception of
“communication with the administrator” appears to be strong. In addition, these statements essentially reflect
participants’ perceptions towards the conception of sine qua non or ideal participatory democracy. However, it
was found that the participants considered the level of democracy established in practice insufficient. In this
regard, participants generally touched on some problems encountered as obstacles for actualization of the
democracy, and they pointed out that we move towards becoming a democratic country, and time is needed
for the establishment of the democracy culture in the country. Also, the primary factors that hinder the
actualization of democracy in Turkey were stated to be owing to “nepotism”, “superficial knowledge”, “the lack
of democracy culture”, “failure to adopt the existence of different voices”, “fear culture”, and “non-adoption
of democracy as a lifestyle in the education system and family”. In this context, these negative perceptions
were considered to be the important factors that account for participants’ low level of interaction.
60
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Weeks (2000) argues that politicians fail utterly, as they cannot manage to resolve the public’s problems by
consensus. Today, the most effective way of ensuring that consensus is resort to e-democracy applications. The
“Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams” project is an e-democracy application
carried out in this sense. Within the scope of this study, experiences and efforts that were done to ensure
participation in the e-democracy application and to increase the interaction among the participants were
presented. To this end, it was observed that participants showed an interest in the Facebook group the most,
and that it was quite efficient to invite friends on Facebook profiles to the group, and encourage such friends
for inviting their own friends to the group in terms of increasing the number of participants. This case gave rise
to the Facebook group’s being more intensively used compared to the Twitter, YouTube and Facebook pages.
Based on these results, in the e-democracy application to be carried out in the future, Facebook groups can be
actively used. Ensuring participation to the Facebook group was much easier than other social networks. This
might be due mainly to the fact that Facebook enjoys more users than Twitter and YouTube. It was seen that
the tablet computer which was proposed to be raffled to one participant among those who shared their views
within the scope of the project for the purpose of increasing participation was not very effective. It is therefore
suggested that promotions should be decided in such e-democracy applications where higher education
students largely take part in by investigating the target participants’ tendencies towards such promotions.
Participatory democracy is a form of governance. It is a process in which participants reach a decision by
negotiating any subject that concerns themselves. This process may pertain to family, class, school, workplace,
neighborhood or the city. What bears importance here is to create a healthy interaction for the sake of
formation of an effective negotiation process. For that reason, various activities were undertaken in the “Do
not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams” project to ensure interaction. These can be
enumerated as determining thematic issues, asking proactive questions, my dream university videos and the
comment of the week. Data indicated that none of these activities became as affective as the participants who
were called ‘discussion facilitators’, and activated all-natural interactions by stimulating several discussions.
According to these results, the presence of discussion facilitators in such platforms was considered to be
important in respect of encouraging and promoting other participants. Therefore, it is highly recommended
that participants who have high debate tendency and skills should be convinced to participate in e-democracy
applications that will be carried in the years to come. According to the findings, the reasons for participants’
avoidance of their views can be classified under three categories: (a) the belief that their views will not be
taken seriously, (b) reasons related to personality traits, (c) their views’ being already shared by others. The
belief that their views would not be taken seriously might stem from the perception that their views are not
taken into account by the authorities. This perception may be interpreted as a barrier for important
stakeholders of higher education, namely students, academic and administrative staff to be involved in
interaction in such e-democracy applications. Furthermore, the findings revealed that participants conceived of
participatory democracy as ‘the administrators’ way of communication with the public’. In this context, it is
expected that ensuring participation of the council of higher education and/or university administrators in the
process in such projects would increase the level of interaction. Dealing with this issue in future studies to be
done in higher education in great details will contribute to the field and development of participatory
democracy. Those participants who put forward their personal traits as reasons for non-participation in sharing
were found to describe themselves by using such descriptors as calm, quiet, introvert, one who does not like
shining out. Again, these issues can be further dealt with in more detail in future research. Participants’ excuse
that they did not engage in sharing their views in the process of e-democracy, as their views were already
posted by the others was in general associated with a negative perception towards functioning of the
established democracy. According to the findings, both students and academic and administrative staff
underlined that while there were positive developments with respect to the establishment of democracy in the
country, these developments were not sufficient enough in point of actualizing democracy ,and time is needed
for democracy culture to come about in the country. In this sense, they pointed at economic problems, lack of
education, ignorance, nepotism, intolerance of new ideas, and fear culture as the main factors that render the
development of democracy difficult. No matter how participants expressed their belief in the significance of
61
the project “Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams”, negative statements voiced
towards democracy above might have negatively affected the belief that the project could be effective. And
this might be thought of as one of the major factors of insufficient levels of interaction.
In conclusion, such important concepts as globalization, internationalization, massification, competition and
technology in the world make the occurrence of transformations in higher education essential. It is projected
that the institutions which establish participatory democracy by managing e-democracy in an effective manner
will successfully perform this process of transformation. Thus, performing e-democracy applications is regarded
as considerably crucial on the subject of transformation of higher education in Turkey. The findings obtained in
the project “Do not let my dreams of an ideal university stay only in my dreams” undertaken for this purpose
demonstrate that there are promising developments as regards the provision of participation in e-democracy
applications in higher education in Turkey as well as that some barriers stand against that provision. It is
recommended that e-democracy applications should be effectively made use of as a problem-solving and
decision-making mechanism in higher education in order for individuals to be able to acquire the culture of
participatory democracy and transform that culture into their professional and family life in Turkey. However,
the issue of whether e-democracy will be effective in respect of performing the expected transformation in
higher education in Turkey seems to be determined by only implementing the decisions taken at the end of
such projects.
BIODATA AND CONTACT ADDRESS OF AUTHOR
Serkan ŞENDAĞ is an assistant professor of instructional technology at department of
Computer Education & Instructional Technology, Faculty of Education, Akdeniz University.
His research interests focus on e-learning, critical thinking, problem solving, and edemocracy.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Serkan SENDAG
Department of Computer Education & Instructional Technology
Faculty of Education
Akdeniz University,
Dumlupinar Boulevard , Campus
O7058 Antalya/TURKEY
Tel: 90 242 2274400/4618
E Mail: [email protected]
REFRENCES
Altbach,P. G., Reisberg, L., & Rumbley, L. E. (2009).Trends in global higher education: Tracking an academic
revolution. A Report Prepared for the UNESCO 2009 World Conference on Higher Education, 29.10.2103
tarihinde http://unesdoc. unesco.org/images/0018/001831/183168e.pdf adresinden alınmıştır.
62
Brandenburg, U., & De Wit, H. (2011, Winter 2011). The end of Internalization. International Higher Education,
Winter 2011, 62, 15-17, 01.11.2013 tarihinde https://htmldbprod.bc.edu/prd/f?p=2290:4:0::NO:RP,4:P0_
CONTENT_ID:113987 adresinden alınmıştır.
Calderon, A. (2012, 2 Eylül). Massification continues to transform higher education. University World News,
237, 02.11.2013 tarihinde http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20120831155341147
adresinden alınmıştır.
Caldow, J. (2004). e-Democracy: putting down global roots. Institute for Electronic Government, IBM, 1-11.
23.10.2013
tarihinde
http://www-01.ibm.com/industries/government/ieg/pdf/e-democracy%20putting
%20down %20roots.pdf adresinden alınmıştır.
Marmolejo, F. (2011, 30 Ağustos). The Future of Higher-Education Internationalization. The Chronicle of Higher
Education, 02.11.2103 tarihinde http://chronicle.com/blogs/ Worldwise/defining-interna tion alization / 28615
adresinden alınmıştır.
Nair, P. (2007). E-Governance: A Step Towards Digital Democracy. In 5th International Conference on EGovernance: Foundations of E-Government (pp. 28-30), 12.10.2013 tarihinde http://webcache.googleuser
content. com / search?q=cache:http://www.iceg.net/2007/books/1/15_293.pdf adresinden alınmıştır.
Narula, R. (2003). Globalization & technology: interdependence, innovation systems and industrial policy.
Cambridge:Polity Press.
Şendağ, S. (2008). Web’de yeni eğilimler: Öğrenme ortamlarına entegrasyonu [New trend in Web: Integration
into learning environments]. 8.Uluslararası Eğitim Teknolojileri Konferansı Bildirileri Kitabı, 1(ss.995-1001).
Şendağ, S. (2010). Pre-service teachers’ perceptions about e-democracy: A case in Turkey. Computers &
Education, 55(4), 1684-1693.
Şişman M. (2006). Eğitimde demokrasi ve sosyal adalet: Türkiye eğitim sisteminin değişmeyen miti [Democracy
and social justice in education: Indispensable myth of Turkish Education system]. Türk Eğitim Sisteminde Yeni
Paradigma Arayışları Bildiriler Kitabı, (291-305).
Uçkan Ö.(2003). E-Devlet, e-demokrasi ve e-yönetişim modeli: Bir ilkesel öncelik olarak bilgiye erişim özgürlüğü
[E-government, e-democracy, and e-management model: freedom of information access as a principle
priority]. 5, Stradigma. 24.10.2013 tarihinde
http://www.wceis.org/FileUpload/ds217229/File/bidiri_yazim_kurallari.pdf adresinden alınmıştır.
Weeks, E. C. (2000). The practice of deliberative democracy: results from four large-scale trials. Public
Administration Review, 60(4), 360–372.
Willis, J. (Ed.). (2008). Qualitative Research Methods in Education and Instructional Technology. Charlotte,
NC:Information Age Publishing.
Wood, V. R. (2012). Globalization and higher education: Eight common perceptions from university leaders.
African Network for Internationalization of Education (ANIE), 25.10.2013 tarihinde http://www.anienetwork.
org/ content /globalization-and-higher-education-eight-common-perceptions-university-leaders adresinden
alınmıştır.
63
A LEARNING BY DOING APPROACH IN TEACHING THE FUNDAMENTALS
OF THE STRUCTURAL DESIGN OF TRUSSES
Assist. Prof. Dr.Gökhan YAZICI
Istanbul Kültür University
İstanbul, TURKEY
Dr. Edip SEÇKIN
Istanbul Kültür University
İstanbul, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
This paper reports the findings of a study, conducted with second year students of civil engineering enrolled in
the course of Engineering Mechanics at the Civil Engineering Department of Istanbul Kultur University, to
improve the understanding of fundamental concepts related to the structural design of trusses. Students were
asked to build truss systems from Balsa wood loaded with small weights, analize the truss member forces and
indicate whether the members are under tension or compression. At the final stage of the workshop, a group
discussion was held on the factors effecting the design of trusses with references to the structural models
prepared by the students. In addition to supplementing the theoretical concepts related to the analysis and
design of truss systems, preparation of the physical models and experimentation with the educational analysis
software have also increased the motivation of the students towards the course of Engineering Mechanics.
Key Words: Civil Engineering Education, Trusses, Learning by Doing.
INTRODUCTION
Trusses are essentially triangular assemblies of slender pin-connected straight structural elements, typically
made of metal or timber and are widely used for crossing large spans. Structural members of a truss are
subjected to either compression or tension when external concentrated loads are applied at their nodes.
Trusses are preferred over full sectioned structural systems when it is particularly desirable to reduce the self
weight of the structure. A sound understanding of the working principles of trusses is not only essential for the
analysis and design of truss members but is also helpful for the comprehension of relatively complex structural
engineering concepts, such as the strut and tie mechanisms of deep reinforced concrete beams and masonry
walls.
Structural analysis of trusses with pin connections is initially covered within the scope of the course of
Engineering Mechanics, which is a second year course in the curriculum of the Civil Engineering undergraduate
program at the Istanbul Kultur University. The course of engineering mechanics is conducted in two sessions
per week, a 4 hour theoretical session and a 2 hour problem solving session. The subject of trusses is expected
to be covered in two weeks.
Conventional classroom delivery of the subject of trusses typically covers the definition of a truss, classification
and of truss systems, basic assumptions used in the analysis of trusses with pin connections, determinancy of
trusses as well as the analytical and graphical methods used in the structural analysis of trusses. Although,
students may also experiment with standardized truss kits when such laboratory sets are available, the mode
of delivery of the subject primarily relies on classroom lectures and problem solving sessions. Therefore,
64
students tend to focus on the problem solving aspects of the lectures in order to prepare for the exams which
may reduce their motivation and their desire to gain a deeper understanding of the subject.
This paper reports a set of complementary exercises that aim to support the theoretical discourse on the
analysis and design of trusses, though a “learning by doing” approach which is widely used in engineering and
architectural design education (Yazici and Erkan Yazici, 2013).
CLASSROOM DEMONSTRATIONS WITH EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE
Conventional classroom delivery of the theoretical and practical aspects of the structural design of trusses, was
enriched with the use of educational computer programs of ForcePad and Pointsketch2D. ForcePad is a simple
and program which provides insight on how loads are transferred in structural components (Division of
Structural Mechanics, Lund university, 1999). Students can easily draw arbitrary 2D shapes, apply structural
restraints, forces or displacement and observe the distribution of stresses and the deformed shape. ForcePad is
also capable of demonstrating the basics of truss optimization.
In the classroom demonstration, ForcePad was used to show the distribution of loads in a simply supported
rectangular plane section subjected to a concentrated load at the midspan. It was observed that there are
compression zones between the concentrated load and the structural supports. It was also observed that there
is a tension zone between the pin support on the left and the roller support on the right (Figure1a). Afterwards,
optimization features of the ForcePad was used to abstract the shape of a simple truss that students are quite
familiar with. Students were also briefly informed on the strut and tie mechanisms in plane elements and how
their structural response can be estimated with simple analytical models using truss analogy.
Figure 1: (a) Stress distribution due to the concentrated load at midspan (b) Strut and tie abstraction created by
the truss optimization feature of ForcePad
Pointsketch2D was selected as the educational structural analysis software for supporting problem solving
aspects of the lectures on trusses (Olsson, 2006). Pointsketch 2D was also particulary useful in demonstrating
how truss systems deform under forces. After a very brief demonstration on the use of Pointsketch2D,
students were asked to verify the results of the hand calculations of their homework assignments on trusses
with this software. Structural analysis results and the deformed shape of a simple truss obtained from
Pointsketch 2D is shown in the Figure 2.
65
Figure 2: A screenshot of the structural analysis results generated by Pointsketch2D
COMPLEMENTARY WORKSHOP EXERCISE
Experimentation, even with small scale models, can provide insight on understanding design issues which may
arise in real life construction applications, in addition to increasing the physical understanding of engineering
design problems. A workshop exercise which involved building and testing small scale truss models with
voluntary participation of a limited number of students. Truss models, made of balsa wood, were built at the
architectural model workshop of the Faculty of Architecture and later loaded with small weights (Figure 3).
Figure 3: Testing of small scale truss models
66
Preparation of the construction drawings with CAD software and the use of model building equipment were
side benefits of this exercise. Model building process lead students to focus on issues such as the design and
construction of connections, material imperfections and dimensional tolerances (Figure 4).
Figure 4: (a) Construction of a connection using model building equipment (b) Model assembly
In addition to conventional truss models made of balsa wood with glued joints, modular truss models made of
PVC members (Figure 5) or a combination of balsa wood and PVC members (Figure 6) have also been
constructed in order to obtain truss systems with pin connections.
Figure 5: Truss model with pin connected PVC members
67
Figure 6: Truss model with pin connected diagonal members
PVC components have been cut out of 0,30 cm thick PVC plates using the laser cutter at the architectural
model workshop of the Faculty of Architecture (Figure 7). Although, these models have not been tested with
loads, they have been extremely useful in demonstrating the response of pin connected truss systems and
some of problems which may arise during the detailing of pin connections.
Figure 7: Preparation of the PVC components with the laser cutter
At the final stage of the workshop, a group discussion was held on the factors effecting the design of trusses
with references to the structural models prepared by the students.
68
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The course of engineering mechanics embodies the study of forces and their effects on rigid bodies and is
considered as a fundamental course in the undergraduate curriculums of civil engineering. This is due to the
fact that the concepts covered within the scope of this course are essential for laying out the foundations for
the vast majority of civil engineering analysis and design courses. Complementary exercises with educational
software and physical models outlined in this paper can help facilitate the understanding of the theoretical
concepts presented in the lectures. Working with physical models also had the added benefit of increasing the
familiarity of students with computer aided drafting and manufacturing technologies, which is actually quite
important since civil engineers have to take into consideration the available construction materials and
manufacturing capabilities when designing structural systems (Seckin et al., 2013). Engineers also have to use
hand calculations in the development of the initial structural design plans and during the verification of the
results obtained from refined computer aided analysis. Therefore, combined use of hand calculations,
computer aided analysis tools and manufacturing technologies outlined in this study makes contact with
essential elements of the structural design cycle.
Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Senior Lecturer Dr.Anders Peterson of Malmö University
for his valuable suggestions on the use of educational software on structural mechanics courses.
Gökhan YAZICI is an assistant professor of Civil Engineering at the Istanbul Kultur
University. He completed his BSc Degree in Civil Engineering from the Yildiz Technical
University (1998), and received his MSc (2000) and PhD (2008) Degrees in Structural
Engineering from the Istanbul Technical University. He has experience in teaching
structural engineering courses in the Departments of Civil Engineering and Architecture.
His research interests in the field of undergraduate education include the enhancement of
the collaboration between architects and engineers in the design process and the use of
finite element modeling tools in the architectural design education.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Gökhan YAZICI
Faculty of Engineering
Istanbul Kultur University
Bakirkoy, Istanbul TURKEY
Edip SEÇKİN is a research assistant of Civil Engineering at the Istanbul Kultur University. He
completed his BSc Degree in Civil Engineering from the Istanbul Kultur University (2002),
and also received his MSc (2004) and PhD (2013) Degrees from Istanbul Kultur University.
His research interests include Steel plated structures, steel-concrete composite structural
systems, earthquake-resistant design of structures, behavior and design of steel welded
and bolted connections.
Res. Assist. Dr. Edip SEÇKİN
Faculty of Engineering
Istanbul Kultur University
Bakirkoy, Istanbul TURKEY
69
REFERENCES
Division of Structural Mechanics, Lund university, (1999). ForcePad Home Page, Retrieved September 10, 2013
from http://forcepad.sourceforge.net/index.htm
Olsson, K.G., (2006). Pointsketch 2D Home Page (Chalmers Tekniska Högskola) , Retrieved September 10, 2013
from http://www.chalmers.se/sv/institutioner/arch/forskning/pointSketch2D/Sidor/default.aspx
Seçkin, E. Yazici, G., and Coskun, E., (2013) Steel Bridge Competitions: A Case of Hands-On Structural Steel
Education, International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Consequences (IJONTE), 4(2), 185-191.
Yazici, G., and Erkan Yazici, Y., (2013) A ”Learning By Doing” Approach In The Delivery of Structural Engineering
Courses of Architecture, International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Consequences (IJONTE),
4(2), 137-142.
70
LEARNING OBJECT FOR LINEAR SYSTEMS: SCRATCH IN MATHEMATICS
Prof. Dr. Silvia Cristina Freitas BATISTA
Carlos Bruno Freitas BAPTISTA
ABSTRACT
The Scratch programming language was developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and
allows the creation of games, animated stories and other interactive programs, through a simple and handy
user interface. The use of this language for the Mathematics learning has been analyzed by educators in
various contexts. In this scenario, this paper aims to present the learning object (LO) 2x2 Linear.S, for the study
of linear systems, developed using Scratch. Initially, the Scratch language is characterized and its use in
Mathematics is discussed. Next, the LO 2x2 Linear.S is presented. Finally, quality evaluation data of the LO,
conducted with students of Information Systems, Bachelor’s Degree, are analyzed.
Key Words: Scratch, learning object, linear systems, Mathematics.
INTRODUCTION
The proposal to use programming language to develop students’ skills isn’t quite recent. The development of
the Logo language, in 1967, illustrates this well. Logo was developed for educational purposes, based on
Piaget's theory (Valente, 1999). However, although experienced in many parts of the world over the years, the
results obtained using Logo, generally, were below expectations (Resnick et al., 2009).
Analyzing what happened to the initial enthusiasm related to the initiatives for introducing programming for
children, Resnick et al. (2009) emphasize that: i) early programming languages were difficult to use and many
children didn’t master the syntax of programming; ii) programming was often introduced through activities
unattractive for young; iii) educational purposes with low interference of the teacher were generally adopted,
therefore orientations were not provided in case of errors, as well as incentives for deeper analyzes did not
occur in successful cases.
The developers of Scratch programming language, aware of this panorama, but confident in the educational
proposal behind the educational use of programming language, established three core design principles for the
same: make it more tinkerable, more meaningful, and more social than others programming environments
(Resnick et al., 2009).
Thus, the Scratch language is very accessible. Its graphical user interface allows programs to be structured as
stack of blocks. That is, all programming can be done from the predetermined command, to be grouped
together. Although simple, the Scratch language allows the user to unleash their imagination, developing
interactive programs (Teixeira, 2011).
Although the main focus of the educational use of Scratch is the development of programs by students, it can
also be used for the development of learning objects (LO), by the academic community. These objects are
resources that aim to support the construction of knowledge. The LO can be created in any media or format,
and can be as simple as an animation or a slide show, or complex, such as a simulation (Macêdo et al., 2007). In
71
this context, this paper aims to report the development of a LO in Scratch, for the study of linear systems, the
2x2 Linear.S.
Aiming at the objective of this paper, Section 2 characterizes the Scratch language and Section 3 focuses on the
1
use of the same in Mathematics. Section 4 presents the LO 2x2 Linear.S and analyzes results of the LO’s quality
evaluation conducted with students of Information Systems, Bachelor’s Degree. Section 5 closes the paper with
considerations on the theme.
SCRATCH
Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
2
Media Lab. This programming language is designed specifically for educational purposes, for ages eight to 16.
However, it is used by people of all ages (Resnick et al., 2009). Scratch is provided free of charge
(Massachusetts Institute of Technology [MIT], n. d.).
The Scratch language is object-oriented and uses a syntax common to many programming languages. Its
development was aimed at encouraging the creative capacity of young people, the power of reflection and
collaborative work (Resnick et al., 2009).
3
The Scratch programming environment, version 1.4, is still available for download from their website . The LO
2x2 Linear.S was developed in this version. Figure 1 shows the main screen of the Scratch environment version
1.4 in English.
Figure 1: Scratch’s Main Screen - version 1.4 – in English
1
Learning object developed within the research project Information and Communications Technologies in the Process of
Teaching and Learning of Mathematics, Instituto Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
(http://www.es.iff.edu.br/softmat/projetotic/index.html).
2
The first version of Scratch was released in 2007 (Resnick et al., 2009).
3
<http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch_1.4/>.
72
4
5
However, there is version 2.0, which has an on-line editor and also has a beta version for download (Figure 2),
available in several languages. With the on-line version the user can create, edit and view projects directly from
Web browser. Version 2.0 brings several improvements over version 1.4, such as: i) the users can set up their
own programming blocks; ii) possibility of cloning (duplicate) a sprite (a sprite clone will be equal to the original
sprite, but in a separate instance); iii) inclusion of vector graphics: images are resized without becoming
irregular; iv) the Backpack option allows the user to copy and move sprites, costumes, backdrops, and scripts
from any project to another. The Backpack can be opened inside any project; v) possibility to use the
computer's webcam to interact with projects (MIT, 2013a).
Figure 2: Scratch’s Main Screen - Offline Editor - version 2.0 Beta – in English
After preparing a project in the offline version, the users can share their production, publishing it on the
6
Scratch website . For that, in version 2.0 beta, just click File /“Share to website” from the top menu of the
program. But, it is important to note that before sharing the project the user must make a registration on the
website.
The project includes the ScratchEd, Scratch online community educational in which educators from around the
world share experiences and resources. There is also the Scratch Day, the day on which institutions promote
events where people gather to share projects and experiences and learn more about this programming
language (MIT, 2013b).
To conclude, the Scratch is a feature-rich environment and the educational possibilities are varied. Next section
discusses the use of this environment in the Mathematics teaching and learning.
USE OF SCRATCH IN MATHEMATICS
Scratch, through its many features, can allow approaches that bring contributions to Mathematics learning. A
very significant use of this environment is the proposal of situations in which the students prepare programs,
with a view to solving problems. The use of this environment for this purpose can stimulate interest in
4
<http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=getStarted>.
<http://scratch.mit.edu/scratch2download/>.
6
<http://scratch.mit.edu/>.
5
73
Mathematics and help in understanding the issues involved (Pinto, 2010). This author states that the Scratch by
allowing to represent and simulate problem situations, can contribute to the exchange between the formal and
rigorous character of mathematical language and his character more intuitive and contextual.
As advocated by Resnick (2013), when using Scratch, people are not just learning to program, are actually
programming to learn. In addition to understanding mathematical and computational ideas, people can
develop problem-solving strategies, organize projects and communicate their ideas. From the analysis of a case
study, Calder (2010) states that the Scratch is an engaging and relatively easy-to-use space for problem solving,
and at the same time, an interesting and motivating programming environment to explore mathematical
concepts.
In a survey, Quinn (2011) investigated how the use of Scratch could contribute to the development of
mathematical thinking skills and to teach Key Stage Three Mathematics (KS3 - Northern Ireland Curriculum).
The study indicated that there is a great deal of Mathematics involved in creating Scratch projects, even in
basic projects. Scratch provides a fun way for the development of mathematical skills, to enable the creation of
games, projects and animations. The author emphasizes that may occur some competitiveness among students
in creating projects and it has to be well utilized in order to develop better projects and consequently the
students' mathematical thinking. Thus, in the author's view, Scratch has the potential to contribute to thinking
skills and personal capabilities (such as being creative, self-management, working with others, managing
information). Furthermore, according to Quinn (2011), Scratch can be used in various ways in Mathematics
classes (creation of new projects or alteration of existing projects, as alternative method of presentations and
animations, lesson resource, storytelling with animations, among others).
There are many resources made on Scratch developed by the mathematical academic community and available
to anyone. These LO can support the study of various mathematical topics. Many are targeted to early
7
childhood education ; however, as shown in Figures 3 and 4 also are several LO for Mathematics, focusing on
other segments of formal education.
Figure 3: Gallery of resources – Elementary and Middle School
Source: http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/54584/
7
For example, those available on <http://kids.sapo.pt/scratch/galleries/view/82> and on
<http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/10733/>.
74
Figure 4: Gallery of resources - Fractal Geometry
Source: http://scratch.mit.edu/studios/33129/
Likewise, the LO 2x2 Linear.S was developed for later stages of formal education (High School and early periods
of Higher Education). Next section presents the LO 2x2 Linear.S.
LEARNING OBJECT 2x2 LINEAR.S
8
The LO 2x2 Linear.S aims to support the study of 2x2 linear systems (two linear equations, two variables ),
allowing to analyze the relationship between the coefficients of the equations (and also between constant
terms) and the graphical representation of the system. The LO was developed using Scratch 1.4 and is available
9
10
in Portuguese and in English , on Scratch’s website.
When starting LO, the user must input the system’s coefficients of the two equations. Figure 5 shows the
screen corresponding to the typing of the coefficient of the variable x, of the first equation.
8
The coefficients of each linear equation are real numbers not both zero and the constant terms are real numbers.
However, non-integer values must be entered as a decimal (exact or approximate).
9
<http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11688101/#player/>.
10
<http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/13090813/>.
75
Figure 5: Input screen of variable x - first equation
Source: LO 2x2 Linear.S
As 2x2 Linear.S works with the relative position of two lines in the plane, it displays an error message if the user
enters the coefficients of x and y simultaneously zero in any of the two equations (Figure 6). In this case, the
user must restart the process of typing the coefficients.
Figure 6: Error message - coefficients of x and y simultaneously zero
76
When the user completes the two equations, the LO exhibits: i) the relative position of the two lines
representing the equations; ii) the classification system in terms of the number of solutions; iii) the system‘s
solution set. In addition, LO displays a merely illustrative image of two lines in the position mentioned. Thus,
the image shown does not correspond, in fact, the graphical representation of the system considered, only
illustrates such situation. Figures 7, 8 and 9 show three possible situations.
Figure 7: Sample Independent System
Figure 8: Sample Dependent System
Source: LO 2x2 Linear.S.
77
Figure 9: Sample Inconsistent System
Due to technical limitations, non-integer coefficients should be entered in their decimal representations (exact
or approximate). A note on LO’s website alerts users to this fact. Also the results when there are non-integer
numbers are given in decimal representations.
The LO was submitted to a first quality evaluation with six students of Information Systems, Bachelor’s Degree,
in a federal institution. These students had already studied graphic analysis of linear systems in the Linear
Algebra and Analytical Geometry subject. Such subject is taught in the second term of that course. Of the six
students, four were in the end of the second period and two in the third period. All had active participation and
adequate performance when studying the topic addressed.
For the evaluation, a questionnaire containing statements about operational aspects, usability and content was
used. In each statement, students should check one of the options: Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor
disagree, Disagree, Strongly Disagree. The results obtained are shown respectively in Tables 1, 2 and 3.
Table 1: Operational aspects
Statements
The program worked correctly.
The functions available are sufficient to
accomplish the tasks.
The processing time is adequate.
Disagree
33
Students (%)
Neither agree
nor disagree
0
0
Strongly
Disagree
0
33
50
17
0
0
50
50
0
0
0
Strongly
agree
67
Agree
78
Table 2: Usability
Statements
The program is easy to use.
Strongly
agree
83
Disagree
17
Students (%)
Neither agree
nor disagree
0
0
Strongly
Disagree
0
Agree
The instructions are clear.
83
17
0
0
0
The program is motivating.
33
67
0
0
0
The program is interactive.
67
33
0
0
0
Graphic design presented good quality.
0
83
0
17
0
Agree
Disagree
50
Students (%)
Neither agree
nor disagree
17
0
Strongly
Disagree
0
50
33
0
0
17
33
67
0
0
0
33
67
0
0
0
Table 3: Content
Statements
The program is clear and succinct.
The program addresses relevant
content.
The concepts presented are correct.
The conventions and definitions related
to Mathematics are used correctly.
Strongly
agree
33
In general, the LO 2x2 Linear.S was positively evaluated in three criteria. Comments solicited in an open
question in the questionnaire confirmed the good acceptance of students to the program.
However, some aspects of the content need to be improved, such as: i) coefficients and independent terms
that are non-integer numbers must be typed in decimal representations, which implies to perform
approximations, in various situations; ii) the results of the independent systems that are non-integer numbers
or exact decimal are presented with many decimal places; iii) the solution set of dependent systems is given
correctly, but the display form is, in some situations, a little confused, such as : {( (1-(-3k))/(-1), k ), k real}; iv)
the graphical representations shown are illustrative only and do not represent, in fact, the linear system typed
by the user.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Scratch, using a graphical interface that allows the user to mount the programs' code as stack of blocks, makes
the development process much simpler than in traditional programming environments. In developing 2x2
Linear.S, version 1.4 was used, but version 2.0 will be analyzed in terms of possible improvements to the LO.
With the proposal of the work described, the authors of this paper aimed to not only develop LO, but also to
better understand the potential of Scratch, considering academic future actions.
The LO was assessed as adequate by test participants in the three criteria. However, 2x2 Linear.S needs to be
improved in some aspects, and subsequently experienced during real use, in the context of the classroom.
In general, the evaluation of digital resources is important. Such analyzes can provide feedback to the
developers, with a view to enhancing the features. Additionally, the evaluators noted the evaluation criteria, as
well as develop a critical sense. Students of Information Systems, Bachelor’s Degree, as potential developers,
should also learn to take into account the user and take care with certain quality criteria.
To conclude, it must be emphasized that a proposal for future research is the development of 3x3 Linear.S
(three linear equations, three variables), focusing on the eight positions of the three planes.
79
Silvia Cristina F. BATISTA is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil. In 1987, Batista has graduated in Science - Specialization in Mathematics, from the
Faculdade de Filosofia de Campos. She received her Master’s Degree in Engineering
Sciences, focus on Production Engineering, in 2004, from the Universidade Estadual do
Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, Rio de Janeiro. She received her Ph.D. in Information
Technology in Education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul Federal –
UFRGS, Brazil, in 2011. Her research interest is mobile learning, and digital technologies
applied to Education.
Prof. Dr. Silvia Cristina F. BATISTA
Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL
Carlos Bruno F. BAPTISTA is technical computing course student at Instituto Federal
Fluminense, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In addition, he is undergraduate student of
Mathematics Education at Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil.
His research interest is digital technologies applied to Mathematics and subjects related to
polytopes.
Carlos Bruno F. BAPTISTA
Padre Carmelo Street, 248,
Parque Califórnia, 28013-045.
REFERENCES
Calder, N. (2010, Fourth Quarter). Using Scratch: an integrated problem-solving approach to mathematical
thinking. Australian Primary Mathematics Classroom (APMC), v. 15, n. 4, 9-14.
Quinn, S. (2011). An Investigation into the Use of Scratch to Teach KS3 Mathematics. Dissertation (Maths and
Science Bachelors Education Degree). St Marys Teaching College Belfast, N. Ireland.
Macêdo, L. N. de, Castro Filho, J. A. de, Macêdo, A. A. M., Siqueira, D. M. B., Oliveira, E. M. de, Sales, G. L. &
Freire, R. S. (2007). Desenvolvendo o pensamento proporcional com o uso de um objeto de aprendizagem. In:
C. L. Prata & A. C. A de Nascimento (Org.). Objetos de aprendizagem: uma proposta de recurso pedagógico (pp.
17-26). Brasília: MEC, SEED.
80
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (n.d.). About Scratch. Retrieved October 06, 2013, from
http://scratch.mit.edu/about/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2013a). What's new in Scratch 2.0? Retrieved October 06, 2013,
from http://scratch.mit.edu/overview/
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2013b). Scratch Day. 2013. Retrieved October 06, 2013, from
http://day.scratch.mit.edu/home
Pinto, A. S. (2010). Scratch na aprendizagem da Matemática no 1º ciclo de ensino básico: estudo de caso na
resolução de problemas. Dissertação (Mestrado em Estudos da Criança. Área de Especialização em Tecnologias
de Informação e Comunicação). Universidade do Minho, Portugal. Retrieved October 07, 2013, from
http://scratched.media.mit.edu/resources/investigation-using-scratch-teach-ks3-mathematics
Resnick, M., Maloney, J., Monroy-Hernández, A., Rusk, N., Eastmond, E., Brennan, K., Millner, A., Rosenbaum,
E., Silver, J., Silverman, B. & Kafai, Y. (2009, November). Scratch: Programming for all. Communications of the
ACM, v. 52, n. 11, 60-67. Retrieved October 05, 2013, from http://web.media.mit.edu/~mres/papers/ScratchCACM-final.pdf
Resnick, M. (2013). Aprender a programar, programar para aprender. Retrieved October 04, 2013, from
http://www.eduteka.org/codetolearn.php
Teixeira, G. (2011). Scratch: a linguagem de programação para todos que auxilia o ensino e insere nerds no
mundo
de
criação
de
games.
Retrieved
October
03,
2013,
from
http://www.plantaonerd.com/blog/2011/05/02/scratch-a-linguagem-de-programacao-para-todos-que-auxiliao-ensino-e-insere-nerds-no-mundo-de-criacao-de-games/
Valente, J. A. (1999). Informática na educação no Brasil: análise e contextualização histórica. In J. A. Valente
(Org.), O computador na sociedade do conhecimento (pp. 11-28). Coleção Informática para a mudança na
Educação. Brasil: Ministério da Educação. Secretaria de Educação a Distância.
81
VIEWS OF TURKISH EFL STUDENTS WITH REGARD TO LEARNING GRAMMAR WITH GAMES
Dr. Onur KÖKSAL
Selçuk University
Konya, TURKEY
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ahmet ÇEKİÇ
Cumhuriyet University
Sivas, TURKEY
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ömer BEYHAN
Necmeddin Erbakan University
Konya, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
This study aims to determine the views of elementary level Turkish EFL learners with regard to learning
Grammar with games. Three dimensions were discussed in the study: students’ assessment of learning
grammar with games, their views about the challenges in the application process and their suggestions with
regard to the application. This case study was conducted on 49 students at the Faculty of Education,
Cumhuriyet University. The data was collected via semi-structured interviews to get profound insight about the
students’ opinions. Descriptive analysis method was used for the analysis of the data obtained. As a result of
the study, it was concluded that learning grammar with games was effective in learning English in that it
increased students’ motivation, changed their attitudes to English classes positively, increased their selfconfidence and thus led to better and more retainable learning in grammar as perceived by the students
themselves and the researchers.
Key Words: English grammar, learning English with games.
INTRODUCTION
In general, game is the name given all the activities used as a tool for learning, creativeness, experiencing,
communication and getting ready for adulthood and a way to express feelings, getting rid of bothers, and
source of happiness which are done freely and which provide pleasure, develop and entertain children and
support every area development in children (Poyraz, 1999). For a healthy mental and physical development,
game is a need for children just like food. Entrepreneurship, creativeness and naturalism can be developed via
games. Yörükoğlu (1979, p. 108) expresses his ideas about games as follows
"Game is the most natural way of learning for children. Games provide an environment for children where they
can test what they hear and see and consolidate what they have learnt. Children sharpen their senses and
develop their kinesthetic skills through games. Game environment is the experiment room for children. It is
such an experiment room that the child freely engages in numerous trials on his/her own. S/he makes and
spoils and freely applies various possibilities. In his/her small world s/he sets the rules and changes them.”
Following from these definitions, game is one of the most effective learning processes which may or may not
serve a certain purpose, in which children participate willingly and enjoyably. Besides, games are the basis of
physical, cognitive, linguistic, emotional and social development and a part of real life in which children can
express themselves (Karadağ and Çalışkan, 2005).
Games, language games in particular, can be a good alternative to teach grammar in EFL classrooms.
Miscellaneous exercises, activities and tasks are employed in foreign language classrooms to enhance foreign
82
language learning to yield better results. Foreign language teaching with games can be an alternative method
in EFL classes as it enables language learners to enjoy language learning experience and acquire knowledge and
skills in a fun way. Besides providing learners chances to improve their English, such a learning environment
can also help them develop their cooperation and socialization skills and self-confidence in the target language.
Grammar of the target language is one of the most important language areas to be mastered by EFL learners to
have a good command of spoken and writing language. It is now a well-established fact in EFL that language
learning is not memorizing the vocabulary items and the rules in the grammar of the target language but ability
to use them in appropriate contexts for communication purposes. The ability to use the language appropriately
to achieve certain communicative objectives requires fluency and accuracy which can be enhanced by learning
the form and function of grammar items in L2 in real-life like contexts. The emphasis on communicative aspect
required language classrooms to go beyond grammar-translation method with an aim to improve learners’
communicative competence. Following from the recent trends in EFL, games can be incorporated as integral
elements of communicative and tasks based classes to achieve fluency in equilibrium with accuracy.
Though not very widely used, grammar games in EFL classes have always been one of the most favorite
language practice activities for learners and teachers alike. So far, several books including collections of
grammar games (Rinvolucri, 1995; Zaorob & Chin 2001; Kealey & Inness, 2008) have been written and many
studies have been carried out to reveal the role of grammar games in EFL classes. In a study by Şahhüseyinoğlu
(2007) it was revealed that educational games are effective on improving pre-service English language teacher
trainees’ critical thinking and reading skills, and besides they improved their speaking skills as games provide a
real medium of communication. In a more recent study, Constantinescu (2012) examined the role that the
computer games might play in teaching, learning and practicing English grammar and concluded that
computer games can contribute to successful language learning and teaching experiences as they can bring fun
in ELF grammar classes, which can be long and, sometimes, boring.
In another study, Zhu (2012) pointed out the value and importance of using games in developing students’
communicative ability. The researcher introduced eight types of games and made some suggestions with
regard to using games. Affective factors influence learning either positively or negatively, in line with this Zhu
(2012, p.802) argued that the first aim of using games in class is to create a situation where students’ affective
filter is lowered so that the comprehensible input could be taken in. Zhu (p.804) claimed that teachers are to
be cautious about time, choice, preparation and management of games in class to reach their educational
objectives.
Azarmi (2011) carried out a quantitative study on sixth and seventh grade ELF students for a term and found
out that the students in the experimental group in which games were used outperformed the control group. In
a study by Yolageldili and Arıkan (2011) in which the views of Turkish EFL teachers working in primary schools
about games were explored, it was revealed, in line with the current literature, that Turkish EFL teachers
appreciate the effectiveness of using games in grammar teaching but do not use them as frequently as
expected. Gaudart (1999) examined some of the tried and tested games, reactions of the teacher trainees to
the games, and discussed possible problems teacher trainees will face when using games in secondary schools
in Malaysia and concluded that games are conducive for foreign language learning and their educational value
cannot be denied by even the most staid teacher.
In a more recent study, Lawrence and Lawrence (2013) examined the attitudes of student teachers towards
using the grammar games for teaching English. Based on the analysis of the data collected from student
teachers in Tirunelveli district, they found that majority of the student teachers had a favorable attitude
towards the using grammar games for teaching English at the secondary level, and that female teacher trainees
favored games more than their male counterparts. As it can be understood from the results of the studies
mentioned above, it is undeniable that games have educational value. However, we must bear in mind that
there are advantages and disadvantages of using games and that certain criteria are to be met when using
games in EFL classes.
83
Constantinescu (2012, p.112) stated that there are several points to be considered when choosing language
games:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Games should have an aim. They are used to motivate students, not only for fun.
Games should focus on the use of language. By their means students have to learn, practise, or refresh language
components
The content should be appropriate. It should fit the curriculum, be correct from all points of view and not to promote
wrong values (e.g. violence).
Games should be technically easy to use in the classroom.
Games should be in accordance with students’ age and level of knowledge.
Games should keep all of the students interested.
It is advisable to use short games; otherwise students may lose their interest.”
In foreign language learning games can be considered as a framework to provide a meaningful context for
language acquisition. Constantinescu (2012, p.114) states that educational games improve students’
understanding of written and spoken English (they get accustomed to learning words and structures in
a context, they learn correct pronunciation and spelling).
Constantinescu (2012, p.115) states the following with regard to advantages of games:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
“Games build up learners’ English repertoire in a familiar and comfortable environment (even for students who
may have special needs), where they feel confident. More than this, English is widespread used with computers.
Games increase motivation and desire for self improvement.
Challenge and competition are key factors for any game and students pay more attention to completing the task.
Interdisciplinary approach. Students use knowledge from other classes, too.
Games develop students’ ability to observe.
Games have clear rules and objectives.
Games develop critical thinking, problem solving, and imagination.
Games offer new and dynamic forms of teaching/ practicing which replace the traditional worksheets.
Games are adaptable for different levels of knowledge.
Educational games are easy to understand and use.
Educational games do not take long time to be played in the class.
There are many online educational games which are free of charge.
Immediate feedback both for the students and the teacher.
The results are more visible (sometimes both visual and acoustic) and have a stronger impact.
The working time is usually known from the beginning and it is respected
Games facilitate collaborative learning but, in the same time, students may learn at their own speed and cognitive
level.
Games may be used in the classroom as rewards for students.”
Besides games can boost motivation as they are challenging. They have both competitive and collaborative
aspects, which can be used to take account of different learning styles and individual differences in the class.
Games can encourage students to be more active during class. Games can be motivating as they provide more
chances to learners to be active participants as the constructors of knowledge in ELF class. Their creativity and
critical thinking skills can be improved as they are to be strategic in using the knowledge and skills they have.
They can find innovative ways to use knowledge and reflect upon their learning process. Therefore, games are
to be considered as valuable part of effective foreign language classrooms.
However, we must bear in mind that it is the teacher’s responsibility to arrange games in a way to emphasize
their educational value. The instructions are to be given clearly, and rules and scoring are to be explicitly stated
at the beginning. Besides, for each game teachers are to have clear educational purpose and assessment tool in
mind. The students can be asked to reflect about the experience and note down what they have learnt, the
problems they faced in the game. It is the teacher’s duty to provide feedback about the general mistakes
during games after it is over.
84
The Aim of the Study
The main aim of this study is to determine the views of elementary EFL learners about learning grammar with
games. Within the scope of the study, three dimensions were handled: students’ evaluation of learning English
grammar with games, the challenges they faced during the application process and their suggestions for
application. The study also aims to determine the level students think they can use the grammar they learnt in
this instruction period in productive skills, namely; writing and speaking. To this end, answers for the following
questions were sought:
1. What are the views of the students with regard to learning English grammar with games?
2. What are the views of the students with regard to the challenges they faced in the application process?
3. What are the students’ suggestions with regard to the application?
METHOD
This study, which attempts to determine views of elementary EFL learners with regard to learning English
Grammar, employed a case study model, which is one of the qualitative research paradigms. The essential
characteristics of qualitative inquiries are the definition of the problem- which is not necessarily be at the
beginning of the study-, examination of environmental factors within the framework of participants, data
collection from a determined small group of respondents, and the use of non-numerical and interpretive
approaches to reach descriptive stories of participants and their environments (Gay, Mills & Airasian, 2006). In
this case study, horizontal and in-depth examinations were made rather than discussing limited numbers of
variables with rigid rules (Flyvbjerg, 2006).
The study sample included 49 elementary EFL learners majoring in Pre-school education at the Faculty of
Education, Cumhuriyet University in the fall term of 2013 and 2014 education year. The group was chosen by
the researchers as one of the researchers was teaching the class. In spite of the fact that they have been
learning English for 7 seven years, they were at elementary level. At the beginning of the term, the 56 students
were given an English proficiency exam at intermediate level and 7 students passed the exam and exempted
from the course. As a result, a total of 49 elementary level students were left in the class. Some students failed
to attend all the games and thus data were collected from only those who took part in all game activities
(n=35). The students were informed about the study and learning grammar with games before the application
process and participated in the study upon their consents.
Procedure
The study was conducted by one of the researches in his classes. Games from a grammar games book were
adopted and used to practice grammar point covered in the week. The researcher as the teacher of the class
met the students 3 class hours a week during 2 hours of which he taught the grammar point and conducted the
game activities for consolidation in the last hour. The researcher provided the instructions and displayed how
the game is played with a sample group in front of the classroom. New vocabulary in the game activities were
covered and written on the board by the teacher, which remained on the board till the game activity ended as
a scaffold for students experiencing difficulty with the vocabulary in the game.
The instruction period lasted for 5 weeks and one class hours were allocated for teaching target grammar point
each week. The students practiced the Simple Present Tense, Adverbs of frequency, the Present Continuous
tense, the Future Tense, Present Perfect Tense. The activities and relevant images were taken from Zaorob and
Chin (2001) with small procedural amendments.
Considering the scope of the article, it will be sufficient to mention the procedures for only one of the games.
The game is called “Time and again” aims to practice the use of adverbs of frequency (every day, more than
once a day, quite often, almost every day, about once a week, sometimes, a couple of times a month, once or
twice a year, not very often, hardly ever, seldom, never), to make students practice asking questions in the
Simple Present Tense using “How often..” and use target vocabulary in the activity cards.
At the beginning of the game, the teacher as the researcher wrote the target adverbs of frequency on the
board and studies their meaning by providing their L1 equivalents and taught their pronunciation with
85
repetitions. Later on the pictures of the activity cards were shown and their meanings in English were discussed
with the students.
The teacher asked a group of students to play the game as a demo for the whole class. After that the teacher
asked the students to form group of fours and provided them with a set activity cards (n=15) and frequency of
adverbs cards (see the Appendix A). The teacher asked each group to shuffle and deal frequency cards out
evenly and place activity cards face down in the middle. Then, the first player starts the game by picking up an
activity card and asking a question about the activity beginning with “How often?”. The first player (and others
in turn) direct the question to whom s/he thinks will answer using one of the frequency card the first player
himself/herself has. Then, the next player picks up an activity card and asks a question and the game goes on
like this till the player who gets rid of all of his/her frequency cards first is announced as the winner.
The target language output for the game is follows:
A: How often do you do your homework?
B: I seldom do my homework.
The students were asked to reflect on the learning experience and note down challenges and suggestions
about the learning experience after each class hour. The students’ views were taken by the researcher
immediately after all the activities had been finished. Solutions and suggestions were discussed and shared
among students as a part of feedback. The following procedural steps were followed during the
implementation of the study:
Determination and adaptation of the game
Presentation of the Grammar Subject
and Application of Grammar Games
Interviews with Students
Evaluation of learning with games experience
Discussion of challenges faced during application
Students’ suggestions with regard to the application
Figure 1: The Procedure of the Study
Data Collection
In the study, semi-structured interview was conducted with students to reveal their views about learning
English grammar with games. With this aim in mind, an interview form was developed by the researchers.
Relevant literature was reviewed and expert views were taken for the validity of the interview form. After all
the game activities were finished, the interviews were made with volunteered students among the
participants, whose consent was taken by informing them that their names will be kept confidential and that
their comments will be used only for the study.
Data Analysis
For the analysis of the data, descriptive analysis method, which is one of the qualitative data analyses methods,
was used. In descriptive analysis, the aim is to present findings in an organized way with interpretations. Later
on, these descriptions are explained and interpreted, causal relations are discussed and conclusions are drawn
(Yıldırım and Şimşek, 2005).
After interviews are completed, voice records were transcribed. Transcribed interviews were thoroughly read
by the researchers to look for patterns that make sense. To achieve reliability, the transcripts were
independently coded by two of the researchers. Later on, the authors discussed their ideas and agreed on the
86
classifications. In the remaining part of the report, after the analyses by one of the authors were checked by
the other author, disagreements were discussed and related changes were made. Amendments were made
upon consensus before theme series are constructed.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
In this section, the results of the analyses of the interviews with students are presented. The findings were
classified under three themes: students’ evaluation of learning grammar with games, challenges faced during
application and their suggestions with regard to the application. Detailed information about each theme is
given below.
Evaluation of Learning Grammar with Games
With regard to learning grammar with games students stated that they learnt the grammar points better, had
fun learning foreign language and thus their motivation and self-confidence in English increased and that
learning with games can possibly lead to longer retention of the knowledge acquired. One of the students
stated the following sentences to indicate that he understood grammar points more easily:
“I understood tenses better in this class. I learnt more easily….. I think that it (game activities) should not be only
employed at the end of the class but every time.”(Mehmet)
One of the students stated that they were pleased with this application and attended classes more eagerly
during the application:
“First of all, in this class questions like “How much time do we have left ?” were reduced to the least………I have
not played any language learning game before. But now I see that many things could be taught in this
way.”(Ayla)
Some of the students stated that grammar practice with games increased their success and they think that
learning with games will yield longer retention.
“I think English should be learnt in this way…..I understood the topic better. I think I will remember (the topic)
for longer period of time.”(Maşide)
“It increased our learning and it was catchier.”(Merve)
“I think the things we learnt would be more long lasting as we studied them practically.”(Nurgül)
The students also stated that their motivation increased their attitudes toward English class changed positively
and their self-confidence increased. The participants emphasized that learning grammar with games motivated
them to study and learn used the following sentences to indicate that they willingly took part in the games and
become aware of their learning processes:
“It increased my self-confidence…….My speaking skill improved and the classes became more
entertaining.”(Aliye)
“If the classes go on like this, we can learn English more easily in a fun way.”(Asım)
“We should always do it.”(Tuğçe)
“It was better when we did it practically. I think I can ask and answer questions. I liked it very much.”(Pınar)
“The classes made me think that I can come over English.”(Emine)
“Our motivation increases when games and grammar are intertwined and thus learn better.”(Esin)
“If we go on like this, I think I can talk easily.”(Habib)
When the students’ statements are considered, it is understood that learning grammar with games made
students enjoy foreign language learning, increased their perception of success and self-confidence in English
class, and motivated them to learn the language. Furthermore, they stated that it increased retention of what
has been learnt and their attitudes toward the lesson changed positively. In addition to gains in the grammar
87
points, students stated that their speaking skills and vocabulary knowledge increased. Based on the students’
responses, it can be argued that learning grammar with games is effective in foreign language learning.
Challenges Faced During the Application Process
In their responds with regard to the problems they had during the process, the students shared their feelings
and previous language learning experiences. For example, one of the students stated the following with regard
to her feelings:
“I would be better if grammar structures were written as a summary on the board. I think I would understand
better if they were written on the board more concretely.”(Aysun)
Some of the students indicated that they had a problem to make sentences as they did not know some
vocabulary items.
“It would have been better if we wrote the Turkish meanings of the words on the board” I had difficulty in
learning the vocabulary.”(Ayla)
“The number of unknown vocabulary is a little bit more…I am having a little difficulty.”(Tuğçe)
Yet another student stated that “it would have been better if we knew more vocabulary. At least, we would
make sentences more actively.”(Asım)
Some of the students said the following:
“I had difficulty making sentences but I think it was beneficial.”(Aliye)
“I had difficulty in the Simple Past tense (game) because I did not know the V2 forms of the verbs.”(Ayşe)
Some of the students stated that the number of groups was a problem:
“….but there was a lot of confusion and noise as the number of the groups was too much.”(Havva)
As it is seen, the students stated that they had difficulty in vocabulary and sometimes in the grammar
structures. Besides, the number of the groups and the design of classroom was a problem for the students. The
problems the teachers as the researcher observed will be mentioned in as suggestions in the conclusion.
Suggestions with Regard to Application
The students made suggestions with regard to the effective English grammar learning with games. These
suggestions focused on the pace of the game activities, choice of games, the number of the groups and the
number of sessions and the quality of information and instruction provided about the games.
Some of the students made the following suggestions with regard to the game activities:
“We could have started with a larger group and then we could consolidate it (the topic) in smaller
groups.”(Ayla)
“Groups of two or three would enhance communication.”(Maşide)
“I would be better if we played them as a whole class.”(Hayriye)
“…..besides better groupings can contribute to the effectiveness of the games.”(Gülhan)
“It would be better if the class were a little slower.”(Tuğçe)
“ We can play games about vocabulary as well.”(Zeynep)
“ It would be better if the copies were colorful.”(Remziye)
As it can be understood from the students’ suggestions, for a more effective application it would be
appropriate to provide more detailed instruction about games and their objectives. Vocabulary items and
grammar points are to be written on the board and stay there till the activity ends, and the games are to be
played in smaller groups. Besides, the pace of the game is to be tuned to the level of the students.
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CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTIONS
When students’ statements with regard to the evaluation of learning grammar with games are considered, it is
understood that the students had fun learning the foreign language with games and it encouraged them to
reflect on their learning experience and improve themselves, motivated them to study EFL. Besides, the
students stated that the application motivated them to study and increased their self-confidence. The students
think that they can be more successful and use linguistic knowledge in speaking as well. Moreover, they think
that the grammar points learnt with games will be more long lasting.
The students stated that learning with games was more effective compared to traditionally conducted classes
as they played games and acquired new knowledge as they had fun. The students in the study agreed on the
idea that more detailed information is to be provided about the procedure and objectives of the games.
Besides, they stated that grouping is another important factor for the effectiveness of language learning games.
As a result of this case study, the following are research and application suggestions with regard to the use of
games in foreign language can be made:
• Longer periods of application such as a whole term or academic can increase students’ exposure to more
games and different kinds of games, which is expected to reveal the effectiveness of learning with games
more clearly.
• The instructions and objectives of the games are to be clearly stated and the game is to be exemplified in
front of the class.
• The seats in the classrooms can be arranged in a way to increase group interaction
• The materials can be printed colorfully on hard paper so that they can be reused. Besides, colorful pictures
with comic strips on them can be anchor language points in the long term memory of the learners.
• Summary of grammar structures and new vocabulary with their L1 meanings are to be written on the
board and be available during activities.
• New games can be developed so that students can learn different grammar subjects or skills in a foreign
language more easily.
• Besides descriptive studies which examines the experiences of learners and teachers other types of
qualitative research paradigms can provide in-depth insights about the processes in teaching and learning
a foreign language with games.
• In this study, elementary level EFL students were taught grammar with games. The study aimed to reveal
the effectiveness of learning grammar with games. Further studies can examine the effectiveness of games
in foreign language teaching by focusing on other areas and skills in language learning in EFL learners at
different levels and in different contexts.
89
Onur KÖKSAL started his PhD studies in education programs (curriculum) and instruction
department of Graduate School of Educational Sciences at Selçuk University in 2009. He
has carried out studies on English Language Teaching, Special Teaching methods in foreign
language instruction, Active Learning, Brain-Based learning, Mnemonics, Constructivism, 5e and 7e model, Lateral Thinking Approach, Teaching Methods and Techniques, Tutor
Supported Teaching Method, Multiple Intelligence Theory, Thematic Teaching and
Curriculum Development in English language. Besides, he has studies on problems foreign
language teachers face in teaching process.
Dr. Onur KÖKSAL
Selçuk University School of Foreign Languages
Konya, TURKEY
Born in 1979 in İstanbul, Ahmet ÇEKİÇ graduated from the ELT department of Hacettepe
University in 2002 with a bachelor degree. He worked as an English language instructor at
Selçuk University School of Foreign Languages for 10 years. Çekiç, who completed his PhD
study in English Language Teaching in 2011, currently works at the department of ELT,
Cumhuriyet University. His interests areas includes vocabulary teaching, pragmatics,
English as a lingua franca, technology enhanced language learning (TELL). He has published
several papers in international refereed journal about pragmatics, the whole language
learning, vocabulary teaching, language games and accent in ELT.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Ahmet ÇEKİÇ
Cumhuriyet University Education Faculty
English Language Teaching Department
Sivas, TURKEY
I am Ömer BEYHAN. I have been working as an Assistant Professor at Necmettin Erbakan
University, Ahmet Keleşoğlu Education Faculty, Konya /Turkey. I received my Doctorate
Degree from the Selçuk University Department of Curriculum Development and
Instruction. My thesis called “The Effects of Advance Organizers on The students
Achievement, Attitudes and Retention of the things taught”. I have lectures on teaching
methods and assessment at the undergraduate level and on Democracy and human rights
at the graduate level. Related to the field, I attended the conferences in USA, Austria,
Spain, China, japan, Portugal.
Assit. Prof.Dr. Ömer BEYHAN
Necmettin Erbakan University
Education Faculty
Konya, TURKEY
REFERENCES
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Constantinescu, R.S. (2012, April 26-27). Learning by playing. Using computer games in teaching English
grammar to high school students. eLearning & Software for Education (2) 110-115. Retrieved November 6,
2013 from Education Source. doi: 10.5682/2066-026X-12-109.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006). Five Misunderstandings about Case Study Research. Qualitative Inquiry, 12 (2), 219-245.
Gaudart, H. (1999). Games as Teaching Tools for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, Simulation &
Gaming, 30, 283-291. Retrieved November 3 2013 from Business Source Complete database. doi:
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Gay, L. R., & Mills, G. E., & Airasian, P. (2006). Educational Research: Competencies for Analysis and Applications
(Eighth Edition). New Jersey: Pearson.
Karadağ, E. ve Çalışkan, N. (2005). Kuramdan-Uygulamaya İlköğretimde Drama "Oyun ve İşleniş Örnekleriyle.
Ankara: Anı Yayıncılık.
Kealey, J. & Inness, D. (2008) Shenani Games: Grammar-Focused Interactive ESL/EFL Activities and Games.
Fredericksburg, Virginia: Sheridan Books.
Lawrence, A. J. & Lawrence, A. S. (2013). Attitude of student teachers towards using grammar games for
teaching English, International Journal on New Trends in Education and Their Implications, 4 (1), 65-72.
Retrieved November 2 2013 from Education Source database.
Poyraz, H. (1999). Okul Öncesi Dönemde Oyun ve Oyuncak. Anı Yayıncılık. Ankara
Rinvolucri, M. (1995) Grammar Games: Cognitive, affective and drama activities for EFL students. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Şahhüseyinoğlu, D. (2007) Educational Games for Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Pre-service English
Language Teachers’ views, Hacettepe Üniversitesi Eğitim Fakültesi Dergisi, 32, 266-273.
Yıldırım, A., ve Şimşek, H. (2005). Sosyal Bilimlerde Nitel Araştırma Yöntemleri. Ankara: Seçkin Yayınevi.
Yolageldili, G. & Arıkan, A. (2011) Effectiveness of Using Games in Teaching Grammar to Young
Learners, Elementary Education Online, 10(1), 219-229. Retrieved November, 02, 2013, from http://ilkogretimonline.org.tr/vol10say1/v10s1m18.pdf
Yörükoğlu, A. (1997). Çocuğun Oyunu ve Yaratıcılık. Maya Yayıncılık. Ankara
Zaorob, M. & Chin, E. (2001) Games for Grammar Practice. Cambridge University Press.
Zhu, D. (2012). Using Games to Improve Students' Communicative Ability. Journal of Language Teaching and
Research, 3 (4), 801-805. Retrieved November 1, 2013 from Education Source. doi:10.4304/jltr.3.4.801-805.
91
APPENDIX A
Examples of Activity Cards and Frequency Cards
Activity Cards
(From Zaorob and Chin, 2001)
Frequency Cards
(From Zaorob and Chin, 2001)
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INTEGRATION OF VISUALIZATION TECHNIQUES AND ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGY
IN LEARNING COMPUTER PROGRAMMING: A PROPOSED FRAMEWORK
Siti Rosminah MD DERUS
Faculty of Art, Computing and Creative Industry
Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris,
35900, Tanjong Malim
Perak, MALAYSIA
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Ahmad Zamzuri MOHAMAD ALI
35900, Tanjong Malim
Perak, MALAYSIA
ABSTRACT
This paper reviews the issues and problems faced by students in learning programming, thus recommend a
conceptual framework to overcome the problem. Computer programming courses are said to be complex and
difficult, particularly to novice students. Among the causes of students’ failure in developing programming skills
is their inability to visually illustrate the flow of the program code during the program execution. To overcome
this problem, a Program Visualization (PV) is recognized as one of the available learning support tools that can
help novice students in enhancing their understanding of the programming execution. Nevertheless, using the
PV alone without the active engagement with the tools will not produce the optimal learning outcome on
students' programming performance. Previous studies indicated that, active learning strategies are among the
most effective strategies in learning programming. Apart from learning strategies, there is a requirement of
active involvement of students in the learning process, the ability to think logically which affect their ability to
solve problems, thus lead them to develop a program. In addition, using PV as learning aids is expected to
increase the students’ self-efficacy in learning assignment activity and overcome the challenges of learning.
Consequently, it is also important that these aspects are viewed in studies related to the effectiveness of any
instructional materials such as PV to enhance programming performance, particularly in finding approaches
that can improve novices’ self-efficacy.
Key Words: Programming, program visualization, active learning, logical ability, self-efficacy.
INTRODUCTION
It was globally known that programming courses are generally regarded as complex and difficult, particularly to
novice students (Bennedsen & Caspersen, 2007; Caitlin, Pausch, & Kelleher, 2003; A. J. Gomes & Mendes, 2010;
Jenkins, 2002; Robins, Rountree, & Rountree, 2003). In fact, it is considered as one of seven grand challenges
in computing education (McGetrick et al., 2005).
Many studies have been conducted pertaining to novices’ difficulties to learn programming (A. Gomes &
Mendes, 2007; Mohd Nasir, Nor Azilah, & Irfan Naufal, 2010a; Mow, 2008; Phit-Huan, Choo-Yee, & Siew-Woei,
2009; Reginamary, Hew, & Koo, 2009; Tuovinen, 2000). Based on these studies, among the problems
frequently faced by them is a difficulty in understanding abstract programming characteristics as well as to
relate the program development environment with real problems (Ala-Mutka, 2004). According to Winslow
(1996), typically a novice approach programming “line by line” rather than using meaningful program
structures. This factor is due to their limited knowledge to surface and superficial, resulting their inability to
develop a perfect mental model for problem solution involving the programming development process
93
(Reginamary et al., 2009; Robins et al., 2003). Research finding showed that among the reason of student’s
difficulty in mastering programming skills was due to their inability in visualizing the flow of the programming
process (Ahmad Rizal, Mohd Yusop, Abdul Rasid, & Mohamad Zaid, 2011; Milne & Rowe, 2002). Moreover, the
problem worsens when static media were employed in teaching dynamic concepts of programming (A. Gomes
& Mendes, 2007; Linden & Lederman, 2011). Therefore, an effective instructional strategy with the aid of
appropriate learning support tool is crucial to ensure an optimal learning outcome (Ala-Mutka, 2004; Mow,
2008). Program Visualization (PV) is a learning support tool which can be visually assisting the students in
understanding the behaviour of programs (Lahtinen, Ala-Mutka, & Järvinen, 2005; Mow, 2008; Yousoof,
Sapiyan, & Khaja, 2005). According to Pears et al., (2007), humans have a better ability in processing visual
information. It is therefore, PV could potentially aid students to understand the important elements related to
program behavior during the execution of programs. Furthermore, visualization could also be used in assisting
students to link new knowledge with old knowledge (Hyrskykari, 1993).
PROGRAM VISUALIZATION (PV)
Program visualization (PV) can be defined as a visual representation of program or algorithm execution in the
form of graphical components. The main goal of PV is to assist students in understanding the dynamic
behaviour of the program by displaying aspects like values of variables, evaluation of statements, and changes
in the program state in general. In addition, PV could also explain visually the hidden processes during the
program run-time (Bednarik, Moreno, Myller, & Sutinen, 2005). PV consists of two categories: dynamic PV and
static PV (Rajala, Laaksi, Kaila, & Salakoski, 2008). Dynamic PV visualizes the flow of programming execution for
every line of code for each value to the program variables used. An example of a dynamic PV tool is
Jeliot3(Moreno, Myller, Sutinen, & Ben-Ari, 2004). While Static PV visualizes program structures and relations
between program objects. An example of a popular static PV tool is BlueJ (Kölling, Quig, Patterson, &
Rosenberg, 2003).
Programming involves numerous of implicit knowledge which lecturers are having constraint to explain
explicitly with greater clarity and orderly, particularly the abstraction concept in programming (Fetaji,
Loskovska, Fetaji, & Ebibi, 2007). Exist tension among novice students in understanding through static media
such as text book, projected presentation, white board or verbal explanation (Fouh, Akbar, & Shaffer, 2012).
Therefore, PV provides an environment which dynamically represent programming concepts for better
understanding (Gomes & Mendes, 2007; Gračanin, Matković, & Eltoweissy, 2005). However, in developing PV,
the role and limitation of students’ cognitive ability need to be addressed throughout the development
process. Developers need to understand how program visualization can be used to foster learning and they
should not base the design on their own preferences that may or may not fit well with learners. For that
reason, understanding how PV affects students’ learning requires deep understanding of how information is
processed in human memory structure. Design that do not consider students' cognitive ability will only lead to
failure of the device to assist effective learning (Tudoreanu, 2003).
Though PV have strong arguments towards assisting learning, the excessive studies about the effectiveness of
these teaching and learning aids show inconsistence results (Hundhausen, Douglas, & Stasko, 2002; Linden &
Lederman, 2011; Sheard, Simon, Hamilton, & Lonnberg, 2009). One of the most recognized studies in the field
of visualization in computer science education is the meta-study by Hundhausen et al. (2002). They conducted
a study which analysed 24 educational experiments using visualizations. Only 46% (11 out of 24) of studies
yielded significant results favouring the treatment group. Hundhausen et al. (2002) reported that in many of
those evaluated experiments the focus was on the number of visualized components instead of how those
visualizations benefited students’ learning. Hundhausen et al. (2002) concluded that the passive usage
(viewing) of visualization does not guarantee better learning performance and it is really important to engage
and activate the learner with visualization during the learning activity. The importance of interaction between
students and material is reported in the educational literature, in the field of multimedia learning which the
addition element of interactivity to the multimedia learning enhanced the students performance (see e.g Evans
& Gibbons, 2007; Mayer, Dow, & Mayer, 2003).
94
ACTIVE LEARNING STRATEGIES INVOLVING ENGAGEMENT OF STUDENTS
Active learning is generally defined as any method of teaching that involves students in the learning process
(Prince, 2004). It requires students to do meaningful learning activities and think about what they are doing. In
the theory of constructivism, knowledge is constructed by students as a result of the learning experience
through which they had (Driscoll, 2005; Loyens & Gijbels, 2008). It means during the learning process, students
will activate prior knowledge stored in long-term memory and try to connect with new knowledge learned
(Loyens & Gijbels, 2008).
Programming skills cannot be obtained directly if they have not actively engaged in learning activities (Fetaji et
al., 2007; Reginamary et al., 2009). Abstract concepts in programming can't be concrete unless students are
given hands-on experience that will make the concept of being clear and also learned through their own
experience (Parham, 2003). This is proven through studies carried out by Gonzalez (2006) that implement
active learning strategy and cooperative learning in the introduction programming course (CS1), showed
positive results in students' programming performance when 70% of the students successful while learning in
advanced programming courses (CS2). Therefore, as PV is beneficial for students to comprehend the abstract
concept of programming, it is essential to administer an active learning strategy in order to guide student to
actively engage with the tool. This can be implemented by utilizing Engagement Taxonomy (ET) proposed by
(Naps et al. (2002), the modes by which students could become active participants in exploring with a PV. ET
describes different forms of engagement that can be promoted by a visualization tool and it provides testable
hypotheses about how the engagement level of visualization affects the learning outcomes. The central idea of
the taxonomy is a higher-level engagement between learner and the visualization results for better learning
outcomes. The ET consists of six levels of engagement and they are described in Table 1. Nevertheless question
arises for novice students since they do not have strong existing knowledge related to topics studied. Without a
strong pre-existing knowledge, active involvement may be limited. In this regard, to study the impact of the
engagement level and programming learning performance would be of a great value and interest.
Table 1: Engagement Taxonomy Level (Source: Naps et al.,( 2002))
Engagement Level
No.
1
No Viewing
There is no use of visualization tools
2
Viewing
Considered the core of student engagement with the visualization tool. Students
only view the behavior of program activities from screen display.
3
Responding
4
5
6
Changing
Constructing
Presenting
Learner interacts with visualization by responding to visualization’s related
questions.
Visualization or state of visualization can be altered.
Learner can create own visualizations.
Learner presents visualizations for discussion and feedback.
OTHERS FACTOR RELATING TO STUDENT’S PROGRAMMING PERFORMANCE
Aspect from the correct design and the right active learning strategy still does not guarantee students’
programming performance. Factors such as student’s perception and self-efficacy that they are able to
complete tasks, control strategies and learning environment should also be taken into account (Ghazali, Nik
Mohd, Parilah, Wan Haslina, & Ahmed Thalal, 2011). Self-efficacy is a belief in an individual's capability to
organize and perform necessary actions required to attain designated types of performance (Bandura, 1977).
Previous reseach conducted showed a significant relationship between student self-efficacy learning
performance especially in the area of programming (Ramalingam, LaBelle, & Wiedenbeck, 2004). In relation to
the effectiveness of any instructional materials such as utilizing PV to enhance learning programming, these are
seen as important aspects of approaches, which could improve novice self-efficacy.
95
The relationship between problem solving and programming development should be the main focus of any
introductory course in programming (Eckerdal & Berglund, 2005; Schneider, 1978). The core skill of problem
solving is depending on competencies of students in making logical assumption (Ahmad Rizal et al., 2011).
There is a correlation between students' logical skills with programming performance (Mohd Nasir, Nor Azilah,
& Irfan Naufal, 2010b; Parham, 2003). Therefore, logical and analytical skills are function as an important
elements in determining the ability of students to solve problems. Logical and analytical skills are crucial in
order to understand the problem, to analyze the situation and review results of each step taken and, creativity
is necessary for them to form solution to the problem.
Hence, in this study, a prototype PV with various active learning strategies is developed and designed
specifically for novice to test their effectiveness of performance and self-efficacy. This study will also look at the
impact of learning strategies aided by PV on students from different logical capabilities in detail. The acctive
learning strategy is based on the engagement taxonomy levels as recommended by Naps et al., (2002).
According to Naps (2005) which stated that the level of ET truly involves students actively participate is the
highest of four levels. Therefore, this study will only focus on four active learning strategies based from the
four highest levels of ET, which is: i) responding), ii) changing), iii) constructing and iv) presenting.
Theoretical framework
The theoretical framework of this study is grounded on Atkinson-Shiffrin Memory Model (Atkinson & Shiffrin,
1971) and Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988). Learning is a process which information is received,
processed, encoded and retrievable from memory structure (Lin & Dwyer, 2004). Atkinson & Shiffrin, (1971)
classifies memory storage into three types, namely sensory memory, working memory and long-term memory
(Figure 1). Each of these memories has its own role in receiving and processing information. Typically,
information stored in sensory memory is merely about ½ to 1 second, working memory will store information
about 15 to 30 seconds and long-term memory will store information permanently (Ismail, 2011). New
information can purely be stored in long-term memory after they first appear and process in working memory.
However, as disclosed, working memory capacity is limited and the duration of information storage is very
short. Therefore, not all information penetrated the memory structures will work successfully, and registered
permanently as in the long-term memory, in the form of perfect schema (Chandler, 1995).
Figure 1: Information Flow In Memory System (Source: Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1971)
Cognitive Load theory (Sweller, 1988; 2002) describes the learning process from the perspective of information
processing system that keep all information obtained from working memory in the long-term memory in the
form of perfect schema. Scheme is a memory structure that allows students to deal with a large number of
information blocks as if they are a single block. New information which enters the working needs to be
integrated with pre-existing schemas in long term memory for sufficient mental model development in working
memory. For this to take place, relevant schemas in long-term memory must be activated and decoded into
working memory which is also defined as the process of schema aquisition. The inability of perfect mental
models construction can be a barrier in the learning process, primarily to novice students who are not capable
of recognizing the relevant pre-existing scheme in the learning process. Due to limited capacity of working
memory, when student are overloaded with information and the complexity of teaching materials that are not
well managed, it will be resulted in a cognitive load that potentially cause the process of loaded coding scheme
perfectly affected (Jong, 2009; Sweller, 1988).
96
Cognitive load is divided into three different categories of: i) intrinsic cognitive load, refers to the level of
complexity or difficulty of the information to be learned; ii) extraneous cognitive load, refers to the techniques
and strategies used in presenting information ; and iii) germane cognitive load, refer to impulse formation
scheme through learning content management and integration of educational content to student knowledge
(Hasler, Kersten, & Sweller, 2007; Sweller, Merrienboer, & Paas, 1998; Sweller, 2010). Consequently, the
development of instructional materials must be taken into consideration of principles which can reduce
intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load, and simultaneously will increase germane cognitive load
(Caspersen & Bennedsen, 2007). Optimizing the learning outcomes is through by balancing the three cognitive
loads, for instance to reduce intrinsic cognitive load and extraneous cognitive load which will indirectly increase
germane cognitive load (Bennedsen & Caspersen, 2007; Sweller, 2010)..
Conceptual Framework
Based on theories, principles and literature overview, the study proposes a framework of utilizing a
visualization technique for the purpose of learning the program as depicted in Figure 2. A prototyped PV
developed specifically for novice students in understanding the basic concepts of programming. The visual
information presented by PV dynamically is expected to help students to understand the key elements relating
to program behavior during the program execution. Nevertheless, the PV developed should be balanced with
the role and limitation of students' working memory capacity. This is because the visual information conveyed
by PV should be able to help students develop accurate mental models in working memory for processing, thus
creating the perfect scheme to be stored in long-term memory. Considering the limited capacity of working
memory, if the visual information presented is not in line with the scheme which has been in existence in the
long-term memory, this will cause cognitive load happens to students as they have to strive to understand the
new information to be conveyed without associating it with existing knowledge. Therefore, the development of
PV based on instructional design principles is crucial in this study to ensure the effectiveness of PV as a
programming learning support tool.
Engagement Taxonomy
(Naps et. al, (2002)
Learning Active Strategy (LAS)
•
LAS (Responding)
•
LAS (Changing)
•
LAS (Constructing)
•
LAS (Presenting)
Logical Ability
• Low Logic (LL)
• High Logic (HL)
Performance
Test
Self-Efficacy
Figure 2: Conceptual Framework
97
Strategy and approaches the visual representation of information is also essential to ensure effective use of
information in long-term memory. Inappropriate use of strategies will lead to increase a cognitive load during
learning activities, particularly if the visual information from the PV only focuses the dynamic presentation of
program execution. Students should be actively engaged with PV in order to active processing occurs in
working memory. Consequently, this framework proposed the implementation of active learning strategies
based upon the engagement taxonomy levels as recommended by Naps et al., (2002) with the central idea of
ET that the higher the level of student engagement with PV, the better the learning outcome. However, does
this assumption could effectively affect novice? Students will actively be involved if they have been existing
knowledge related to the topics learned. Without pre-existing knowledge, active engagement is likely to be
limited. Thus, it is important to study the impact of engagement level on the students’ programming
performance, especially among novices.
The development of education world nowadays does not only focus on learning performance. Consideration is
given towards students’ self-efficacy improvement of foreseeing them to carry out learning tasks and overcome
the challenges of learning. Students with high self-eeficacy tend to learn and strive to achieve success as
compared to students with low self-efficacy, although they have the same capabilities (Bandura, 1986). Thus,
this study is important to observe whether through the active learning strategies approach aided by PV are able
to increase students' self-efficacy, especially novice.
This framework involves the relationship of logical ability with the proposed active learning strategy. This is
because as believed, student’s logical ability is recognized as one of the important elements needed to solve
programming problems during the learning activities. Thus, it is important to investigate whether the student’s
logical ability really affect the learning performance through the active learning strategies approach aided by
PV.
CONCLUSION
Programming courses are closely related to skills comprises the set of sequence or order through the
programming language which then is translated and executed by a computer. However, the subject is said to
be difficult and complex. This is because novice students require a proper understanding to capture an abstract
concept of the learning and difficult to imagine. Previous finding shows that amongst factor students’ difficulty
to master programming is because they could not visualize the programming process. Therefore, the designed
and developed PV is function as the potential learning support tools to strengthen students' understanding of
the programming learning process. PV using the approaches and techniques of dynamic performances in
illustrating the changes to the program code and thus helping students grasp the changes that occurred to the
program states. Nevertheless, using PV merely without the active engagement of students will not be able to
give an effective impact on students' programming performance. Therefore, an active learning strategy is
functions an approach that must be embedded in the learning process of programming. Through active
learning strategies aided by PV, it is hoped that it will help to develop students' confidence in mastering the
basic concepts of programming. There is still a thin layer lining in the clowd and we may expect to see the light
at the end of the tunnel.
98
Siti Rosminah MD DERUS is currently a PHD student in the Faculty of Art, Computing and
Creative Industry, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia. She has a Bachelor degree
in Electrical Engineering (Computer Technology) from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, and a
Master in Education from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Her research interest is
instructional technology and programming visualization.
Siti Rosminah MD DERUS
35900, Tanjong Malim, Perak, MALAYSIA
Ahmad Zamzuri MOHAMAD ALI is Associate Professor of Multimedia in the Faculty of Art,
Computing and Creative Industry, Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Malaysia. He has a
Bachelor degree in Electrical Engineering from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, a Master in
Education from Universiti Teknologi Malaysia and PhD in Multimedia Design from Universiti
Sains Malaysia. His research interest is multimedia design, instructional technology, mobile
learning, and integrated knowledge.
Assoc.Prof. Dr. Ahmad Zamzuri MOHAMAD ALI
35900, Tanjong Malim, Perak, MALAYSIA
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DETERMINING PROSPECTIVE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION LEVELS
OF ELECTRICITY CONCEPTS
Dr. Özgül KAYA
Trabzon, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Seyhan ERYILMAZ
Trabzon, TURKEY
Prof. Dr. Ali Rıza AKDENİZ
Trabzon, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
Science teachers should know basic science concepts and associations between them in terms of successful
concept instruction. It is also important for prospective science teachers to know these basic concepts and
associate them properly. In this research, it is aimed to determine associations of electricity concepts taking
part in science and technology curriculums by prospective science teachers; teachers in a near future. Basic
rd
concepts partaking in the unit of ‘Electricity in Our Life’ were designated and it was asked for 3 class students
(n=55) studied in Science Teaching Program at Karadeniz Technical University to prepare a concept map by
using these concepts. Associations were written as a text and classified by researchers as false, partly true and
meaningless. It is seen that participants have difficulties in association of electricity concepts, use some
alternative concepts, do not associate all of the given concepts and add associations about some concepts that
were not given. It is suggested that teachers and lecturers should use these concepts carefully, direct students
to accurate sources; develop concept association oriented materials and implement them.
Key Words: Prospective science teachers, electricity concepts, association.
INTRODUCTION
Innovations emerge at science brings the innovations at technology itself (Ayas and Özmen, 2002). For this
reason, it is increasing day by day that students should learn about science and technology. It is not possible to
teach all of this knowledge to students therefore, science education should be made effectively at conceptual
level (Özmen, 2005). Students should know basic concepts and the ways of reaching needed knowledge in
order to interpret the innovations at science and technology. Hence, it is emphasized the importance of
teaching basic concepts and ways of reaching knowledge (Koray, Özdemir and Tatar, 2005).
Researches in recent years made at science education centre on how science concepts are perceived by
students (Sencer and Eryılmaz, 2002). As a result of these studies, it was generally determined that students do
not associate some concepts to scientific realities and they have great number of misconceptions at physics
lessons, especially about electricity concepts (Çıldır and Şen, 2006). The subject of electricity is one of the basic
areas that maintains its importance at all levels of physics instruction. At primary level, students experience
104
simple electric circuits, they learn electricity subject systematically in the following stages (Duit and Rhöneck,
1997; Suchai and Thasaneeya, 2012). There is an increasing view between teachers about instruction of
electricity concepts and the difficulty of nature of physics knowledge (Gunstone, Mulhall and McKittrick, 2009).
Many studies searching students’ misconceptions about electricity concepts and learning difficulties indicate
that students have difficulties in understanding electric current (Aykutlu and Şen, 2011; Aykutlu and Şen, 2012;
Carlton, 1999; Duit and Rhöneck 1997; Gunstone et al., 2009; Karakuyu and Tüysüz, 2011; Küçüközer and
Demirci, 2005; Küçüközer and Kocakülah, 2007; Mioković, Ganzberger and Radolić, 2012; Mulhall, McKittrick
and Gunstone, 2001; Sencer and Eryılmaz, 2002; Şen and Aykutlu, 2008; Turgut, Gϋrbϋz and Turgut, 2011;
Yıldırım, Yalçın and Şensoy, 2008). Before formal education for all age levels of learners, readability of electric
current is frequently affected by the words (e.g. power, current, voltage) that conflicts between physic
concepts and daily life use. This conflict can rarely be changed by traditional instructional strategies. The
studies about electricity misconceptions designate that there are two underlying reasons that causes concerns
about this subject. Firstly, electricity, in some forms, is seen as a centre area at all levels of physics/science
curriculums. Secondly, electric concepts are difficult to understand. Understanding these highly abstract and
complex concepts depends on analogies and metaphors (Mulhall et al., 2001).
Concepts are the most important knowledge forms in thinking process as they are mental thinking tools that
provide both understanding physical and social world and communicating (Sisovic and Bojovic, 2000). Concepts
which are seen as a knowledge form and a learning product are categories used for grouping objects and
events according to their common and changeable properties (Acat, 2003:170). Concept can be also defined as
regularity at objects and events and it is indicated by a label. These labels can be a word, word groups or
symbols (Novak and Cañas, 2006). Misunderstanding of basic concepts by students in the process of
constructing knowledge affects learning advanced level concepts. This situation causes students to have
difficulties in associating previous and new knowledge (Canpolat and Pınarbaşı, 2012). Determining
misconceptions of students gives opportunity to teachers to gain an understanding about how students
perceive a concept and to prepare a learning environment that can remove learning difficulties (Suchai and
Thasaneeya, 2012). Effective science education can occur by approaching scientific knowledge at concept level
which serves to classify and organize learnt (Ayvacı and Devecioğlu, 2002: 62; Koray et al., 2005). Knowledge
can be learnt by associating previous and new ones. While teaching a scientific knowledge teaching concepts
included by knowledge and associations between concepts enables learning. For this reason it is important
associating concepts at teaching process (Acat, 2003; Ayas, 2007; Canpolat and Pınarbaşı, 2012).
Concept mapping, prediction-observation-explanation, interviews about instances and events, interviewing
about concepts, drawings, and word association are some techniques used for determining misconceptions
(Ayas, 2007; Özmen, 2005; White and Gunstone, 1992). In this study, it is focused on concept mapping among
given techniques. Concept maps are graphical tools used for organizing and presenting knowledge (Novak and
Cañas, 2006). A concept map reveals an individual’s structural knowledge about a concept or subject (Zele,
Lenaerts and Wieme, 2004) and aims to indicate how individuals see relations between objects, thoughts and
people (White and Gunstone, 1992: 15). In a study that was made on association of concepts by concepts
maps, it was designated that there are four intended purpose of concept maps as teaching, learning, planning
and assessing readability of scientific concepts (Novak and Gowin, 1984 cited by Taşkın Can, Yaşadı, Sönmezer
and Kesercioğlu, 2006). Besides using concept maps as a tool of teaching, while researching students’ cognitive
structures they are valid and reliable tools in terms of reifying associations between concepts (Atasoy, 2002)
and they are used as an alternative assessment tool (Barertholz and Tamir, 1992; Kalaycı and Çakmak, 2000;
Karakuyu and Tüysüz, 2011; Şen and Aykutlu, 2008). There are studies in literature about importance of
concept maps in science education (Karamustafaoğlu, Ayas and Coştu, 2002), using concept maps in teaching
process (Ayvacı and Devecioğlu, 2002; Çakmak, Gürbüz and Kaplan, 2012); Duru and Gürdal, 2002; Kalaycı and
Çakmak, 2000; Šket, 2005; Taşkın Can et al., 2006; Türkmen, Çardak and Dikmenli, 2005; Üce and Sarıçayır,
2002) and using concept maps as an assessment tool (Barertholz and Tamir, 1992; Gemici, Küçüközer and
Mergen Kocakülah, 2002; Kandil İngeç, 2008; Kaya, 2003; Şahin, 2002; Şen and Aykutlu, 2008).
When these studies are analyzed, the existence of conflicted ideas and beliefs with scientific realities can be
seen at all levels and all age groups (Özmen, 2005). Anywhere in the world, students of all ages have
105
misconceptions about basic science concepts. It is possible to remove these misconceptions by well educated
teachers who do not have any misconceptions. For this reason, it is important to determine whether
prospective teachers have misconceptions or not (Aydın and Altuk, 2013; Sarıkaya, 2007). If prospective
teachers do not gain understanding about basic concepts, later on it will affect their students negatively
(Haidar, 1997). Therefore, prospective teachers’ possible misconceptions should be determined and teacher
educators should be aware of these misconceptions (Aydın and Altuk, 2013). Within this context, prospective
science teachers were chosen and concept maps were used as an assessment tool. In this study it is aimed to
determine prospective science teachers’ association levels of electricity concepts taking part in science and
technology curriculums via concept maps formed by themselves.
METHOD
Information about participants, data collection tools, data collection process and data analyze are taking part in
this section.
Participants
rd
According to the aim of the research participants consists of 55, 3 class prospective science teachers who are
studying at Karadeniz Technical University in 2011-2012 academic year and know how to make a concept map.
Data Collection Tools and Process
Concept maps which are effective at determining students’ valid and invalid thoughts (Novak and Canas, 2006)
were used as a data collection tool. Generally, concepts used for forming concept maps are chosen from
curriculums, class notes, lesson notes and other sources taking part in classroom (Atasoy, 2004). In this study,
th
th
th
acquirements and concepts about the unit ‘Electricity in Our Life’ taking part in the 6 , 7 and 8 class science
curriculums were investigated and 51 concepts (electrical energy, conductor, non conductor, solid conductor,
metals, solid non conductor, liquid conductor, solutions, liquid non conductor, electrical conductivity,
brightness of the bulb, length, cross-sectional area, kind, resistance, ohm, ohmmeter, electrification, electric
charge, positive, negative, neutral, electrification by touching, charge imbalance, electroscope, grounding,
electrification by effect, electric current, generator, positive pole, negative pole, ampermeter, voltmeter,
electrical energy sources, connection in series, connection in parallel, bobbin, magnet, electromagnet,
magnetic effect, number of turn, motional energy, heat energy, heat, electrical fuse, light energy, electrical
power and electrical devices) were designated. Concepts were given to students and they were asked to
prepare a concept map in a period by using these concepts. Students were not informed about concept maps
as they have already known.
Data Analysis
Scoring methods of concept maps can be classified as quantitative and qualitative methods (Zele et al., 2004).
Intended purpose of concept maps is important in determining analyze method of collected data (Şen and
Koca, 2003). Quantitative analyzing methods are appropriate for investigating learning process in mental
structure and revealing personal differences whereas qualitative analyzing methods are appropriate for
confirming previous knowledge and learning difficulties. In this study data collected by concept maps were
converted into text in the manner indicating associations between two concepts. Descriptive analysis is used
for data analysis. Two physics teachers’ opinions were taken during analysis. Inappropriate association words
or additions may refer partly true or false understandings therefore researchers took cognizance of
associations and additions. In studies searching associations between concepts, data were classified as
understanding, misunderstanding, not understanding and irresponsiveness (Ayas and Özmen, 2002); true,
false, acceptable and meaningless (Aykutlu and Şen, 2008; Çıldır and Şen, 2006); true, partial misconception,
misconception, unanswered, not being able to associate (Kalın and Arıkıl, 2010). In this study associations were
classified as false, partly true and meaningless. Definitions of classifications are indicated below:
False association: There is a false association between two related concepts or concepts which have no
relations are associated.
106
Partly true association: Inappropriate associations between two related concepts, far or indirect associations
between related concepts
Meaningless association: Associations have no meanings when converted into text.
FINDINGS
Categories related to associations were determined according to the definitions given in data analysis part.
Associations representing same relations and associations stated by more than one student were shown in
tables.
Students’ false associations about electricity concepts and frequency of these associations were given in Table
1.
Table 1: False associations
Associations
Positive, negative and neutral are types of electricity charges
Electrical conductivity is supplied by electrification
Grounding is a type of electrification
Magnet has positive/negative poles
Bobbin/magnet are examples of electrical devices
Electromagnet is an example of electrical devices
Electrification by magnet is a type of electrification
Electrification by touching creates positive/negative pole
Metals are sorted as conductor/non conductor
Resistance is inversely proportional to electric current
Resistance creates voltage
f
24
6
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
According to Table 1, 24 students have false associations about types of electricity charges. Students think that
electricity charges are sorted as positive, negative and neutral. Being neutral is not considered as the balance
of positive and negative charges.
6 students falsely associated electrical conductivity to electrification concepts. They think that electrical
conductivity is a result of electrification. Another false association is about poles of magnet. 3 students
consider that magnet has two poles called as positive and negative. Whereas 3 students think that magnet is
an electrical device, another 2 students describe electromagnet as an electrical device. 8 students have false
associations about electrification. Whereas 2 of them think that electrification by magnet is a type of
electrification, 4 of them think that grounding is a type of electrification. 2 students think that electrification by
touching creates positive and negative poles. 2 students think that metals are sorted as conductor and non
conductor.
Another false association is about ‘Ohm’s Law’. 2 students think that resistance -independently of conductor- is
inversely proportional to electric current. Finally, 2 students falsely associated resistance to voltage. They think
that resistance creates voltage in an electric circuit.
Students’ partly true associations about electricity concepts and frequency of these associations were given in
Table 2.
107
Table 2: Partly true associations
Associations
Electric energy is related to electrification
Electric current creates magnetic effect
Non-conductor does not conduct electricity
Conductor conducts electricity
Electric current is formed by electric charges
Electric current is conducted by electrification
Electrification is formed by electric charges
Electric creates magnetic effect
Electrification causes electricity
Electrical conductivity is not conducted by non conductor
Electrical conductivity is conducted by conductor
Electrical devices works with electrical power
Electrical current creates magnet
Electric energy is formed by electric charges
Electric energy is produced by electricity
Electrical conductivity depends on resistance
Motional energy/light energy/heat energy are types of electric energy
Bobbin/magnet/electromagnet produces magnetic effect
Electrification is formed by electric current
Resistance is a react to electric energy
Generator is formed by positive/negative poles
f
14
6
6
5
5
3
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
Partly true associations in Table 2 come under three themes as associations not expressed clearly, associations
with alternative concepts and far associations. These themes are presented below.
Associations not expressed clearly
As shown in Table 2, 14 students associated electrification to electrical energy partly true. Students used
different words that have same meaning in relating concepts but they did not express clearly what kind of
electrical energy will be created by electrification and they did not mention that energy is electrical potential
energy.
6 students associated electric current to magnetic effect. Students are of one mind that electric current creates
a magnetic effect but they did not mention that electric charges’ motion is the source of magnetic effect.
4 students associated conductor and non conductor to electrical conductivity. 2 students defined non
conductor as not conducting electrical conductivity, 2 students defined conductor as conducting electrical
conductivity.
5 students associated electric current to electric charges. Students stated that electric charges create electric
current but they did not mention which aspects of electric charges create electric current. There is an
association between electric charges and electrical energy indicated by 2 students. They stated that electric
charges may create electrical energy without mentioning how it happens.
Another two concepts that students try to associate are electrical conductivity and resistance. 2 students
stated that these concepts are related to each other without mentioning what kind of relation it is. They did
not write how electrical conductivity will be affected in case resistance increase or decrease.
When associations between electric energy and other energy types are taken into account, it is seen that 2
students thought that light, heat and motional energy are types of electrical energy. These concepts have a
relation but this relation should be ‘electrical energy transforms into light, heat and motional energy’.
108
Bobbin, magnet and electromagnet are the other concepts associated to magnetic effect. 2 students indicated
that bobbin, magnet and electromagnet may create magnetic effect but they did not give place to how this
effect will occur.
Associations with alternative concepts
17 students made associations using electric concept instead of electrical energy or electric current concepts. 6
of them indicated that non conductors do not conduct electrical energy or electric current, whereas 5 of them
indicated that conductors conduct electrical energy or electric current by using only electricity concept. 2
students used electricity concept while stating electric current may create magnetic effect. 2 students both
used electricity concept and made far association in regard to electrification causes electric current. 2 of them
could not express relation between concepts well enough in spite of they used concepts properly. Finally, 2
students chose electric concept instead of electric current while they were indicating that electric current
produces electrical energy.
Far associations
2 students associated electric power to electrical devices. They indicated that electrical devices use or work
with electrical power.
There is an association between electric current and magnet stated by 2 students. Students mentioned that a
magnet can be derived from electric current but there is no direct relation between these concepts.
Students’ meaningless associations about electricity concepts and frequency of these associations were given
in Table 3.
Table 3: Meaningless associations
Associations
Ohm meter is related to voltmeter
Electricity creates electric current
Electrical energy sources creates resistance
f
2
2
2
According to Table 3, there are 3 different meaningless associations indicated by 6 students. 2 of them
mentioned that ohmmeter and voltmeter have a relation. 2 students stated that electric may create electric
current. Finally, 2 students associated electrical energy sources to resistance. They stated that resistance is
created by electrical energy sources.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Prospective science teachers’ association levels of electricity concepts were determined via concept maps in
this study. Generally, prospective science teachers have difficulties in associating electricity concepts, they do
not associate all of the concepts given and they add some concepts to associations that were not given.
According to the findings, discussion, conclusion and suggestions were given below in detail.
It is determined that prospective science teachers’ false associations were mostly about electrification taking
part in electrostatics unit. In a research Kurnaz, Tarakçı, Saydam and Pektaş (2013) aimed to reveal secondary
school students’ mental models about electrification, thunderbolt and lightning. They precipitated that
students have some non scientific knowledge about these concepts. However, it is seen that prospective
science teachers could not express the relation between electrostatics and flowing electricity clearly. They did
not articulate the relation between electrification and electrical energy or electric current. Electrostatics as a
subject is firstly taught at primary level. It is precipitated that electrostatics and electric circuits are seen as
independent subjects at a research made with university students in France and Sweden (Rainson, Tranströmer
and Viennot, 1994). This may be rooted in previous knowledge of students or studied materials before. Moreau
& Ryan (1985) stated that the relation between electrostatics and electric circuits is given superficially or not
109
touched in many textbooks. Ünsal and Güneş (2002) made an argumentative research about 4. class science
textbook in terms of physics subjects. They expressed that electrification subject taking part in electricity unit
should be changed otherwise it will ground students’ misconceptions. However, according to researchers, it
will be hard to remove the thought that ‘statics’ and ‘current’ states opposite points. Therefore, it is suggested
that materials should be prepared by not permitting misconceptions.
It is seen that some prospective science teachers have difficulties in interpreting mathematical formula of Ohm’
Law. They think that resistance will be decrease if electric current increases or resistance will increase if voltage
increases. There are similar findings about Ohm’s Law in literature (Afra, 2009; Çıldır, 2005; Duit and Rhöneck,
1997; Periago, 2005; Picciarelli, Di Gennaro, Stella and Conte, 1991). In a study made by using concept maps
with 244 secondary school students, it is determined that there are false associations between resistance and
electric current or voltage. Students’ not understanding Ohm’s Law literally and perceiving this law as a simple
mathematical formula may cause this misconception (Çıldır, 2005). Students think that resistance depends on
electric current or voltage rather than it is a property of conductor. This way of thinking may be also a source of
this misconception. Another study carried out with 12 students at the age of 14-15 revealed that students
failed at understanding that resistance is a property of conductor’s itself. Students have a misconception as ‘If
there is not electric current there will be no resistance’ (Afra, 2009). Prospective science teachers have similar
misconceptions with the indicated 14-15 aged students and that may arise from maintained misconceptions of
prospective science teachers. Teachers and lecturers should not give only mathematical formula of Ohm’s Law,
they should express it qualitatively and examine in detail to remove this kind of misconceptions (Periago,
2005).
It is seen that some prospective science teachers can not comprehend electricity, electric current and electrical
energy literally. Prospective teachers sometimes use these concepts interchangeable whereas sometimes they
associate them each other. These results are in compliance with the results of researches made by Çıldır (2005)
and Cheng and Kwen’in (1998). Abstract nature of electricity, usage in daily life and mistakes made by teachers
about electricity subject may cause students not to comprehend these concepts (Çıldır, 2005). Quantity of
electric charges, quantity of energy, electrical potential, force, field, net charge, current or power can be
mentioned by the word ‘electricity’. Trying to mention all of these concepts with one word may complicate
electricity subject (Ünsal and Güneş, 2002). It is important to indicate the difference between scientific
meaning and daily meaning of these concepts for preventing misconceptions. Definitions which are in accord
with scientific realities should be given during the instruction of these concepts.
As distinct from literature, prospective science teachers have a misconception in regard to electric charges
have three types. They think being neutral is another type of electric charges rather than balance of positive
and negative charges. Usage of these three concepts generally together may cause this misconception. The
misconception ‘magnet has positive and negative poles’ is taking part in literature as ‘south and north magnetic
poles are the same as positive and negative charges’ (Barrow, 2000).
It is seen that prospective science teachers could not associate basic concepts that should be known well as
conductor and non conductor. However, they know that there is a relation between electricity and magnetism
concepts but they could not articulate this relation. Demirci and Çirkinoğlu (2004) aimed to determine
misconceptions and previous knowledge of university students about electricity and magnetism concepts. As a
result of the study it was found that students have problems about charge distribution of conductors and non
conductors and also they have misconceptions about electricity and magnetism.
Some prospective science teachers did not use all of the concepts given while preparing concept maps.
Unassociated concepts are differing from each student. Some prospective science teachers added certain
concepts that were not given. These concepts taking part in concept maps are ‘energy, heat and frictional
electrification’. Students’ previous knowledge about these concepts and the related concepts may cause these
adding.
110
BIODATA AND CONTACT ADDRESSES OF THE AUTHORS
Dr. Özgül KAYA completed her PhD at Karadeniz Technical University, Institute of
Educational Sciences, Department of Secondary Science Education. She is specially
interested in educational change, curriculum change, concept teaching and physics
education.
Dr. Özgül KAYA
Res. Assist. Seyhan ERYILMAZ is currently a PhD student at Karadeniz Technical University,
Institute of Educational Sciences, Department of Secondary Science Education. She is
specially interested in is problem solving at physics education, material development,
concept teaching, physics education.
Res. Assist. Seyhan ERYILMAZ
Prof. Dr. Ali Rıza AKDENİZ is currently employed as a Professor at Karadeniz Technical
University, Fatih Faculty of Education, Department of Secondary Science Education. He is
specially interested in physics education, teacher education, material development and
concept teaching.
Prof. Dr. Ali Rıza AKDENİZ
Akçaabat, Trabzon- TURKEY
111
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AUGMENTED REALITY APPLIED TO NATURAL SCIENCES
Prof. Bárbara Maria Lemos FERREIRA
BRAZIL
Prof. Thaís Nogueira FERNANDES
BRAZIL
Prof. Dr. Suzana da Hora MACEDO
BRAZIL
ABSTRACT
This research presents Augmented Reality applied to Natural Sciences, specifically wind energy. A Learning
Object showing the generation of wind energy was used in an experiment with high school students. In this
Learning Object, the student can see the energy generation in an Augmented Reality environment. In the
environment created in Augmented Reality there is the simultaneous presence of real and virtual objects. In
this environment, the students could interact with the Learning Object. This work was based on the theory of
Meaningful Learning, which, according to Ausubel, occurs when a concept is related in a substantive way and
not arbitrary concepts with pre-existing in the cognitive structure of the individual. Reviews and evaluations
were done to complete the work, highlighting its advantages in the learning process.
Key Words: Augmented Reality, Meaningful Learning, Natural Sciences.
INTRODUCTION
Several studies have shown the importance of content integration in the school environment. The unification
of related content leads to an increase of interest in addition to lead students to a greater understanding of the
content covered.
In different segments of education, broad themes such as the environment can be identified in the curriculum
of various disciplines, being, however, more common in areas of Natural Sciences and Geography.
Thus, when it is about environment, interdisciplinarity emerges as an appropriate pedagogical propose
(Fazenda, 2011), but lacks practical measures that can articulate the actions of teachers and students.
This paper aims to present results regarding the use of a Learning Object constructed on an Augmented Reality
environment. In this experiment, it was observed that, through a common point of view, knowledge can be
increased leading to production of a new collective knowledge with a critical understanding of the whole, with
a transforming perspective (Barbosa, 2011).
It is a work facing educators from disciplines in question, which are mainly in search of new strategies for
teaching and learning, making use of a methodology that will arouse the interest of students in the light of the
theory of Meaningful Learning. Aims to:
116
•
•
•
Present the software Windows Movie Maker as a resource to facilitate in the learning process of the
Natural Sciences and Geography;
Exposing the methodology used as a proposal to raise the interest of high school students in science and
geography;
Demonstrate the ability to go beyond the traditional boundaries of the classroom from technological
resources.
Thus, during the implementation of the project, we sought a real integration of disciplines, enabling the
subject to be addressed in a unified way. Thus, teachers of disciplines involved alternated their placements
with the purpose of bringing students to an understanding on wind energy.
WIND POWER
The conversion of kinetic energy of wind into mechanical energy has been used by mankind for over 3000
years, and the great development of the application of wind energy in Denmark began in 1980 when the first
turbines were manufactured by small companies of agricultural equipment. From the 1990s the wind energy
industry grew worldwide (Martins et al., 2008). And, according to Santos (2006) the installation of the first wind
power plant in Brazil, Ceará happened in 1999 (the wind power plant of Taiba).
The energy issue is one of the most important topics of our time and the quality of life of society is closely
linked to their energy consumption, and where the growth of world energy demand due to the improvement of
living standards in developing countries brings concern with aspects essential for energy policy and planning of
all emerging economies. Among these aspects we have the amount of energy needed for social and economic
development of a country and the environmental costs to meet this increase in energy consumption (Martins
et al, 2008). According to Ortiz and Kampel (2011) since the early twentieth century, some scientists have
suggested the power supply, to society, from renewable sources.
To Inatomi and Udaeta (2005) concern with the sustainability issue, widely discussed in academic circles,
aiming the inclusion of new sources of energy that are renewable and impact the environment as little as
possible, comes to the need for global that future generations are able to survive.
AUGMENTED REALITY (AR)
Augmented Reality is a type of unconventional interface that allows users to mix images of a real environment,
obtained by video camera or other processes with virtual three-dimensional objects, enriching the user's view.
In this environment, the user has the feeling that the real and virtual objects coexist in space, to the extent that
the virtual objects are amenable to visualization and interaction as they exist in the real world (Akagui, Kirner,
2004).
In AR there is an emphasis on visualization together with the interaction. With the use of glasses or helmet
virtual reality (VR), one can visualize virtual objects mixed with the real world, in a highly realistic, increasing
the perception of the user in the use the computer interface. Still, when the RA interface uses hands as
interaction elements, allows the overlay virtual objects in the real world, it enables the manipulation of these
objects with their hands, making feasible the development of numerous applications that benefit human
training, motivating more to the user tasks to be accomplished (Utiyama, Kirner, 2004) (Figure 1).
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Figure 1: Functioning of Augmented Reality (http://www.agenciadda.com.br/realidade-aumentada-ra)
In building an environment of RA, it is necessary the use of sensory devices that allow the user to make the
integration of virtual objects in the real environment. So, the technological breakthrough of peripherals for
Virtual Reality (RV) contributes greatly to the development of Augmented Reality and basically uses the same
devices, such as helmets or Head Mounted Display (HMD) optical or videos, stereoscopic or stereo glasses and
monitors (visual devices); headphones and external microphones (hearing aids).
Besides allowing virtual objects to be placed in real environments, Augmented Reality also provides the user to
manage those objects with their own hands without the need for special equipment, ensuring then a process of
interaction with the natural environment mentioned (Zorzal et al., 2006), allowing him an attractive interaction
with the environment and motivating.
WINDOWS MOVIE MAKER
Windows Movie Maker (WMM), is a simple tool to edit videos created in 2004 and is constantly updating. In
Figure 2 we can see the home screen of Windows Movie Maker.
Among its capabilities, the program allows the user to import files (images, video segments, audio, photos) on
your computer or through Webcam. Also, allows ordering scenes, create titles, captions, transitions and special
effects to the recording of the final work in different formats. Given the functionality of this feature, its
implementation is given in order to provide dynamism to the process of teaching and learning, overcoming
some limitations of the classroom, making the student, the builder of his own knowledge.
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Figure 2: Windows Movie Maker's home screen
CONSTRUCTIVISM
Constructivism gives a higher value to the storage of information by students, emphasizes the act of knowing, it
is concerned with how the individual constructs his cognitive structure, where the goal of learning is the
construction of meaning by the student to he gives his own things, without requiring the memorization of
"right" answers with the intention of replicating the direction of another person. So, to Moreira (1999) the
human being has the creative ability to interpret the world, not only to respond to it.
Objectively, the cognitivist philosophy studies mostly mental processes, aiming the assignment of meaning,
understanding, processing, storage and use of the information involved in cognition. Thus, the student is no
longer seen as a mere receiver of information, no matter how it stores and organizes your mind, and is
regarded agent of a building that is their cognitive structure, where he also will be able to new mental models
to include and organize new experiences.
The challenge of any project that involves technological innovations in education is that they do not become
ephemeral, without the possibility to change the routine involved in the learning process. Thus, constructivism
appears to guide the development of computerized learning materials, especially of multimedia learning
environments. Rezende (2002) says that constructivist epistemology relates fundamentally to the idea of
construction, which planning of computerized instructional materials can be translated in creating learning
environments that allow and give support to the construction of something or the active involvement of the
student in conducting a task, which can be individual or group, and the context of this task (Rezende, 2002).
And according to Carvalho et al. (2011) at the Freire's concept, curiosity is an ontological necessity and
characterizes human existence in its process of creation and recreation. This curiosity, that principle can be
naive by being associated with the common sense, becomes critical to be exercised, and, as soon as
approaches with methodical rigor to the knowable object, becomes epistemological. Cruz-Cunha et al. (2010)
think that technology has been continually changing in profound ways how people learn and live. Even as the
Internet, many other tools of information technology can be useful in learning contexts and certainly there are
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issues that are best suited to their use. [...] Some technologies bring advantages to institutions, since they can
benefit from its use in teaching, both on campus and to reach new audiences, such as the fact that they can be
seen as a mechanism for computer-assisted learning which can provide simulations, support visualization and
interactive tools (Cruz-Cunha, 2010).
METHOD
The work was developed by students from the 8th grade of elementary school II from Alpha College in Campos
dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro state, Brazil. The production period of work, has been two weeks since the
proposal was submitted on 12 August and the presentation to the whole school happened between 26 to 30
August 2013.
The proposal offered to students aimed to propose a discussion about the importance of wind energy,
especially in the city of Campos dos Goytacazes, because it is home of the students, highlighting their benefits,
costs, operating turbines, pros and cons for the production energy through this renewable source.
The experiment was done with 16 students, and these were divided into 4 groups of individuals, with the task
of creating a video using Windons Movie Maker lasting between 2 and 3 minutes each. The genre of the videos
could have been chosen by students, not just the documentary genre is required. However, the students had to
respect the age rating of 10 years to avoid inappropriate images to school environment. In the video, still was
required an explanation of the operation of a wind turbine at Augmented Reality environment. Taking into
account the objectives and the questions asked, the research is a case study of a qualitative nature.
According to Almeida (2011), in an increasingly globalized world, using new technologies in the pedagogical
project is a way of approaching the generation who are in school. She also emphasized that "technology is not
a garnish and the teacher needs to understand in which situations it effectively helps to student learning". Of
the 16 students who participated in this research, one chose not to respond to questionnaires proposed,
despite having effectively participated in the making of the video using Windows Movie Maker and Augmented
Reality. Thus, students answered questionnaires qualitative, where responses are at the following charts.
The students were asked if they had done any study on Wind Energy and the result was that eigth of them had
studied, because the option marked "agree" (53 %). Four students marked the option "strongly agree" (27 %),
which leads us to believe that they best remember learning. Two students marked the option " have no
opinion" (13 %), which makes us think that there is no remembrance of this learning, and one marked the
option “disagree” (7 %), which means they had no contact with this earlier (Graphic 1).
Graphic 1: udents who studied wind energy
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Still, considering constructivism, students were asked if they were familiar with the interface Augmented
Reality (AR), and 9 students did not know, because the options marked "disagree" (7%) and "strongly disagree"
(2%) while 6 knew, perceived by dialing options "agree" (5%) and "strongly agree" (1%) (Graphic 3).
Since constructivism pedagogy was employed in this work, was asked if they already knew the Windons Movie
Maker (WMM), and the responses were tabulated and organized in Graphic 2, where it is seen that 13 students
already knew, because options marked "strongly agree" (66%) and “agree” (20%), and only two did not know,
that realized the options "disagree" (7%) and "strongly disagree" (7%).
Graphic 2: udents who knew about Windows Movie Maker
Still, considering constructivism, students were asked if they were familiar with the interface Augmented
Reality (AR), and 9 students did not know, because the options marked "disagree" (7%) and "strongly disagree"
(2%) while 6 knew, perceived by dialing options "agree" (5%) and "strongly agree" (1%) (Graphic 3).
Graphic 3: Students who knew about Augmented Reality
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CONCLUSION
The methodology and strategies used in the development of this project show that the use of technological
materials always arouses great enthusiasm in our young people. But the fact of the use of the video camera,
the operation of turbines for wind energy production through Augmented Reality interface, is shown as a
novelty well accepted by the students, and constituted as a motivational factor in increasing order.
Still, it is possible to observe that the technological resources are already part of learning moments and
increases the interests of the students, given that his world includes technology.
BIODATA AND CONTACT ADDRESSES OF THE AUTHORS
Barbara Maria L. FERREIRA is a teacher at Colégio e PréVestibular Alpha and Conselheiro
Josino Municipal School, Brazil. In 2010, Ferreira was graduated in Natural Sciences Specialization in Biology at Instituto Federal Fluminense de Campos. She is finishing her
specialization in Teaching in the XXI century, at Instituto Federal Fluminense de Campos.
Her research interest is the pedagogical use of Augmented Reality (AR) and digital
technologies applied to Science and Biology.
Barbara Maria L. FERREIRA
Rua Dr. Smith, 273,
Parque Dom Bosco - 28030-130.
Thaís Nogueira FERNANDES is Geography teacher at private and municipal schools in
Campos dos Goytacazes, Brazil. She is finishing her specialization in Teaching in the XXI
century, at Instituto Federal Fluminense de Campos. Her research interest is the
pedagogical use of digital technologies.
Thaís Nogueira FERNANDES
Rua Dr. Siqueira, 273
Parque Dom Bosco – 28030-130
Campos dos Goytacazes, RJ, BRAZIL
122
Suzana da Hora MACEDO is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil, since 1987.
In 1986, Macedo has graduated in Electrical Engineering, at the Universidade Santa
Úrsula. She received her Master’s Degree in Tecnology, with focus on Electrical
Engineering, in 1998, at Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Sukov da Fonseca
(CEFET/Rio), Rio de Janeiro. She received her Ph.D. in Information Technology on
Education from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, in 2011.
Her research interest is Augmented Reality and Digital Technologies applied to Education.
Rua Rodrigues Peixoto, 30
Parque Tamandaré – 28035-060
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http://www.lbd.dcc.ufmg.br/colecoes/wra/2004/002.pdf.
Almeida, M. E. B. (2011). A tecnologia precisa estar presente na sala
http://educarparacrescer.abril.com.br/gestao-escolar/tecnologia-na-escola-618016.shtml.
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Barbosa, Derly. (2011). A competência do educador popular e a interdisciplinaridade do conhecimento. In:
Fazenda, I. C. A. (Org.) Práticas interdisciplinares na escola. São Paulo: Cortez, 2011. p.65-78.
Carvalho, J. D. S.; Ramacciotti, A. & Rocha, J. C. D. (2012). O diálogo na Educação online inspirada na pedagogia
freiriana: algumas aproximações. In:
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Cruz-Cunha, M.. M.; Reis, M. G. A. D.; Peres, E.; Varajão, João; Bessa, M.; Magalhães, L.; Barbosa, L.; Barreira, J.
(2010). Realidade Aumentada e Ubiquidade na Educação. IEEE-RITA, v. 5, n. 4, In:
http://rita.det.uvigo.es/201011/uploads/IEE-RITA.2010.V5.N4.A8.pdf.
Fazenda, I. (2011).Práticas interdisciplinares na escola. São Paulo: Cortez.
Inatomi, T. A. H. & Udaeta M. E. M. (2005). "Análise dos impactos ambientais na produção de energia dentro
do planejamento integrado de recursos." Brasil Japão3. Trabalhos2005. Coordenadoria de Relações
Institucionais e Internacionais. UNICAMP – Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Disponível em
http://www.espacosustentavel.com/pdf/INATOMI_TAHI_IMPACTOS_AMBIENTAIS.pdf
Martins, F. R.; Garnieri, R. A. & Pereira, E. B. O aproveitamento de energia eólica. Revista Brasileira de Ensino de
Física. V. 30. n. 1. 1304 (2008). In: http://www.sbfisica.org.br/rbef/pdf/301304.pdf
Moreira, M., A. (1999.)Teorias de aprendizagem. São Paulo: EPU.
Ortiz, Gustavo P. & Kampel, M. (2011) Potencial de energia eólica offshore na margem do Brasil. V Simpósio
Brasileiro de Oceonografia. Oceanografia e Políticas Públicas. Santos, SP, Brasil. In: http://mtcm19.sid.inpe.br/col/sid.inpe.br/mtc-m19/2011/07.06.17.10/doc/Ortiz_Potencial.pdf
Rezende, F. (2008) As novas tecnologias na prática pedagógica sob a perspectiva construtivista. Ensaio pesquisa
em Educação em Ciências [on-line], v. 2, n. 1, In:
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Santos, A. (2006). Projeto de geração de energia eólica. Projeto de Conclusão do Curso de Engenharia
Mecânica. Universidade de Santa Cecília. Santos, SP, In:
http://cursos.unisanta.br/mecanica/polari/energiaeolica-tcc.pdf
Utiyama, F. & Kirner, C. (2004). Rastreamento de Trajetórias para treinamento com Realidade Aumentada.
Disponível em: http://www.lbd.dcc.ufmg.br/colecoes/wra/2004/003.pdf
Zorzal, E. R.; Buccioli, A. A. B. & Kirner, C. (2006) “Usando Realidade Aumentada no Desenvolvimento de
Quebra-cabeças Educacionais”. In: http://www.lbd.dcc.ufmg.br/colecoes/svr/2006/019.pdf
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MEANINGFUL LEARNING AND CONCEPT MAPS TO TEACH
ELECTRICAL MACHINES FOR ADULTS
Prof. Msc. Evanildo dos Santos LEITE
BRAZIL
ABSTRACT
This paper presents the use of concept maps as a tool for teaching and learning Electrical Machines for adults.
This experience is based on the Theory of Meaningful Learning. An experiment was conducted in a classroom
where adult students could produce concept maps according to the subjects studied. Reviews and evaluations
were done to complete the work, highlighting its advantages in the learning process.
Key Words: Meaningful Learning, concept maps, teaching adults, electrical machines.
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of computer new learning spaces begin to be planned and built, no longer restricted to the
perimeter where there is a closed and traditional relationship between teachers and students. Informatics
allows rethink more dynamic and new approaches to the universe of knowledge working, creating new forms
of learning and communication, encouraging the active participation of students in the educational process,
urging them to see the world from a more critical, with the teacher as guiding this process. As stated by Leite
et al., therefore, the construction of knowledge can and should be mediated by resources more enjoyable and
stimulating (Leite et al., 2010, p.11).
Having your favor application versatility and adaptability in the application to various activities, information can
promote curriculum integration, the breaking down of barriers between disciplines and between different
cultures, enriching the education of students and contributing to raise the cultural and technological of
learners. Moreover, according to Leite et al., digital technologies are increasingly, as mediating tools in
teaching and learning (Leite et al., 2010, p.2).
In this context, the computer can be expected to contribute positively to accelerate the cognitive and
intellectual development of the student, especially as this relates to the development and formal logical
reasoning, the ability to think with rigor and systematicity, the ability to invent or find solutions for problems
(Costa, 1998). You can also enable the student to develop their ability to learn to learn, stimulating autonomy which is based on learning by doing - experimenting and creating. This is now a priority of the school, using this
new technology, this process can become richer and more enjoyable (Coll, 2000). Accordingly, to the words of
Leite et al., Information and Communication allow the organization of more flexible curriculum, in form that it
been adapted to individual learning styles, and to promote greater academic autonomy and professional (Leite
et al., 2010, p. 3). Figure 1 shows a concept map about how computing resources can be used in educational
activities.
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Figure 1: How the computing resources can be used in educational activities (Albuquerque et al.)
This work presents the use of concept maps as a tool to teach Electrical Machines in a class of adults. The
objective was to provide teachers with new potentially meaningful situations on teaching-learning of Electrical
Machines using concept maps.
THE PROEJA
Considering that in Brazil there are a lot of people who left the school before the right time, the government is
starting to minimize this problem with some politics of including these person in educational system again. By
the Decree 5.478/05 which was replaced by Decree 5.840/06 made mandatory the implementation and
expansion of the number of vacancies in the network of Federal Institutions of Professional Education for the
sport PROEJA (National Integration of the Vocational Education and basic education in d mode and Education
for Young people and Adults) (Leite and Franco, 2011).
The PROEJA, offering integrated technical vocational training in high school level in the form of education for
young people and adults, absorbs students with varying degrees of difficulty of assimilating the content,
students who have interrupted their studies and now want to resume it, in others words, features that need to
be taken into consideration when establishing a planning. Thus, in the words of Leite et al., PROEJA faces its
own problems and seek to solve them critically and creatively. (Leite et al., 2010, p. 02).
Computer resources are well observed by Albuquerque et al. (2009). According to them, given the demands of
society, globalized character and networked, the proceeds with the development of IT have a meaningful
contribution to the training and qualification of students entered in the National Program for the Integration of
Professional Education with basic education in mode of Young and Adults Education (PROEJA).
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In this paper, the concept maps were used for the enrichment of the student study, allowing a better
understanding of the contents studied.
MEANINGFUL LEARNING AND THIS WORK
This educational proposal is based on the Theory of Meaningful Learning David Ausubel. Meaningful learning is
a process by which a new information relates to an important aspect of the knowledge structure of the
individual (Moreira and Masini, 2001).
Concept maps are only diagrams indicating relationships between concepts or between words we use to
represent concepts (Moreira, 1997).
This work intends from existing concepts in the cognitive structure of the student in Electrical, concepts such as
electrical current and voltage, the student uses them as subsumers in order to underpin the new concepts to
be learned, as the interaction between magnetic fields, these concepts are fundamental to understanding the
functioning of Electrical Machines. According to Moreira (2006, p. 15) the subsumers are a concept, an idea, a
proposition already existing cognitive structure, able to serve as 'anchor' the new information so that it
acquires thus meaningful to the individual (i.e., it has able to assign meaning to this information). In this
respect the concepts previously "anchored" in the cognitive structure of the learner, such as voltage and
current, act as subsumers, so that new information is acquired by the learner. As new information, understand
the concepts needed for the teaching of Electrical Machines.
According to Moreira (2006, p. 13), the most important idea in Ausubel's theory can be summarized in the
following proposition Ausubel's own, the most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner
already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly (Ausubel et al., 1980, p. viii).
According to Moreira (2006), Ausubel is referring to the cognitive structure of the learner. It takes the content
to be learned meaningfully.
Also, when Ausubel refers to "what the learner already knows" for learning to occur of new information, it is
referring to specific aspects of cognitive structure.
Still according to Moreira (2006, p. 14), ascertain would be discover the pre-existing structure, concepts that
already exist in the mind of the individual, his organization and their interrelationships; doing a "mapping" of
cognitive structure, which is also something difficult to accomplish. This information serves as a basis for that is
the planned use of concept maps as a teaching resource (Silveira, 2008, p. 95).
In Ausubel’s proposition, "teach him accordingly", Moreira (2006) states that it means education basing on
what the learner already knows, and identify it is not an easy task.
This work intends from existing concepts in the cognitive structure of the student of Electrical Engineering, the
student uses them as subsumers in order to underpin the new concepts to be learned.
In this aspect concepts previously "anchored" at the student cognitive structures, act as subsumers, so that
new information is acquired by the learner. As new information, understand the concepts needed for the
teaching of Electrical Machines. As teaching Electrical Machines occurs in the second year of the Technical
Course of Electricity and the student already has the concepts of current, voltage and magnetism well-founded,
serving thus as subsumers to new learning. Ausubel says:
The essence of the meaningful learning process is that symbolically expressed ideas are related in a
nonarbitrary and substantive (nonverbatim) fashion to watch the learner already knows, namely, to some
existing relevant aspect of his structure of knowledge (AUSUBEL, 1968, p. 331).
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Therefore, it is important that students relate the concepts in new concepts with pre existing in their cognitive
structure. In this case, such concepts are concepts grounded in the disciplines of low voltage electrical
installations. Also, according to Moreira, one of the conditions to the occurrence of meaningful learning is that
the material to be learned is relatable to the cognitive structure of the learner, in the way not arbitrary
(Moreira, 2006, p. 19). Therefore, the Theory of Meaningful Learning will be of great value and will be used as a
theoretical foundation in this work.
CONCEPT MAPS
Concept Maps are closely linked to Meaningful Learning Theory proposed by Ausubel. However, Ausubel never
addressed concept maps in his theory. This is a technique developed by Joseph Novak and his colleagues at
Cornell University (USA) (Moreira, 2010, p.17). Therefore, the concept maps were developed by Joseph Novak
as a constructivist tool to support Meaningful Learning of Ausubel. Diagrams are used to represent, describe,
organize, communicate concepts and the relationships between them. The concepts are the nodes (crosslinks)
of the map and relations are the links. Generally, concepts are nouns and relationships are represented by
verbal expressions. Figure 2 illustrates what is a concept map.
Concept maps can be used as an evaluation tool of learning, study strategy, content presentation, learning
resource, among others. Concept maps may be used in obtaining evidence of meaningful learning, namely the
evaluation of learning (Moreira, 2010, p. 22).
Figure 2: Definition of concept maps (adapted from: http://yohabloespaol.blogspot.com.br/2011/05/mapaconceitual-sobre-cultura-flamenca_20.html
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According to Carvalho et al. (2010, p. 8), the evidence of meaningful learning will be checked in the records of
the students by reports and especially in concept maps constructed. But be careful, because, like concept maps
have meanings personal, some maps are very poor and demonstrate that there was no understanding of the
desired content.
EXPERIMENT CONDUCTED IN THE CLASSROOM: CONCEPT MAPS CONSTRUCTED BY STUDENTS
This experiment was carried out using the tool CMap Tools which is free and can be downloaded on:
http://cmap.ihmc.us/download/.
This experiment was conducted in a class that was studying the discipline Electrical Machines, night shift,
module IV, PROEJA, Technical Course of Electricity at the Institute Federal Fluminense in Campos dos
Goytacazes, state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. As the class was already in Module IV, had prior knowledge of the
concepts needed as subsumers in the experiment. How Silveira says, recognition of prior skills is important in
order to identify pre-existing subsumers in cognitive structure of the students (Silveira, 2008, p. 95).
The class had a total of eleven students aged 18-45 years, nine men and two women. The experiment was
conducted at the first semester of 2011. We carried out a study on "Step Motors". Activities in the classroom
were developed by lectures with handouts on their issues to be worked out. According to Moreira, it is possible
to draw up a concept map for a single class for a unit of study for a course or even for a complete educational
program (Moreira, 2010, p .16). Therefore, the end of each class the students were asked to jointly do a
concept map on the subjects studied. The concept map on "Stepper Motors" is illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Concept map on "Stepper Motor" performed by students (Students at the classroom)
In the construction of the maps is a fundamental constant observation of the teacher, because, according to
Silveira, the big challenge for the teacher is to help the student to use, consciously and productive, the
potential of thinking (Silveira, 2008, p. 86).
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At the end of the realization of the map, the students were asked to explain the same to all colleagues, since,
according to Moreira, concept maps should be explained by those who do them. So, explain it to the person
externalizes the meanings (Moreira, 2010, p. 15). At this time the students were able to present all material
learned demonstrating that the making of the map facilitated the learning. In the words of Silveira, concept
maps are different instruments that must be evaluated, especially qualitatively, in order to obtain evidence of
meaningful learning (Silveira, 2008, p.87).
The maps prepared by students and later in the explanation made by them at the classroom, was evident the
evolution of the students on the issues studied, making possible to observe evidence of meaningful learning.
Noticed on the maps that students can do connections between the concepts studied, demonstrating a good
knowledge of the subjects proposed.
FINDINGS
After the experiment, the students answered a questionnaire and the main results are described below.
Importantly, all stated that, while they were constructing the concept map, they could realize what were their
difficulties in relation to the content studied and also considered it important to discuss with colleagues the
subject studied during the making of the map.
All students said they considered easy to use the tool concept map and all the students said they had a broader
view of the subject studied in the classroom.
Questions were asked in which students could freely respond to questions. Below are highlighted the most
relevant answers.
A)
"There are benefits to the student because it helps to organize the content studied." ... "I think there
should be more widespread in educational institutions."
B) "You can interact more with the matter."
C) "Should be used more often."
D) "I thought cool. I would like to take more classes using these materials. "
E) "It is easy to learn, well organized. Good for organizing the contents. "
F) "Illustrates the best content studied. Great software for teaching. I realized that is very easy to learn
the subject".
DISCUSSION
According to the questionnaire responses, the students had no difficulty to build the concept maps. Also, they
have a more comprehensive view of the content studied. Together construction of concept maps enabled the
interaction between students, and bringing the possibility of inclusion and appreciation of the tacit knowledge
of each student. The students were succeeded in better organize the contents studied. Was important that the
map was made exclusively by students, becoming a great authoring tool. Another aspect observed was the
creativity of the students at the time of construction of the maps. The students felt very motivated, both at the
time of creation, and in time the explanation of the maps, allowing a good possibility of evaluation by the
teacher, the content studied. Another aspect to be addressed is the economy, because it is a free software,
which only needs a computer. With the analysis of the concept map the teacher can have a great information
about how learning is being developed.
CONCLUSION
It is important to recognize the subsumers pre-existing cognitive structure of the students so that they can plan
the best use of concept maps as a teaching resource.
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The teacher has to make a good planning so that activities in the classroom are developed efficiently.
Concept maps were presented as a great resource for teaching and learning.
Moreover, consider important to observe that this work applied the concept maps tool only with adults and
young people that have a lot of living experience to put on the maps together the contents.
Evanildo dos Santos LEITE is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil, since 1996.
In 2004, Leite has graduated in Industrial Maintenance Technology, at the Centro Federal
de Educação Tecnológica de Campos (CEFET-Campos). He received her Master’s Degree in
Mechanical Engineering, with focus on Automation, in 2008 at Universidade Federal
Fluminense (UFF). Today he is a doctoral student and studies new Electric Materials at
Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF).
Prof. M.Sc. Evanildo dos Santos LEITE
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Moreira, M. A., Masini, E. F. S.( 2001). Aprendizagem Significativa – A Teoria de David Ausubel. São Paulo:
Centauro.
Silveira, F. P. R. A. (2008).Levantamento preliminar de habilidades prévias: subsídios para a utilização de mapas
conceituais como recurso didático. In: Revista Eletrônica Experiências em Ensino de Ciência, v. 3, p. 85-96.
132
CONTEMPORARY CHILDREN’S LITERATURE: TEACHERS’ FEEDBACK ON SUPPORT,
RESOURCES, TRAINING AND TIME ALLOCATION
Siti Salina MUSTAKIM
Faculty of Education and Human Development
Sultan Idris Education University
Tanjung Malim, 35900 Perak
MALAYSIA
Othman LEBAR
Tanjung Malim, 35900 Perak
MALAYSIA
Abdul Aziz MOHAMED
Sekolah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 2
Bandar Puncak Alam, 42300 Selangor
MALAYSIA
Hasniza BASRI
MALAYSIA
Nerlizam MAHAD
MALAYSIA
ABSTRACT
Support from the administrators, resources provided, training for the teachers and allocation of time for
effective classroom learning are amongst the important components provided by schools. The main purpose of
this study is to evaluate the implementation of Contemporary Children’s Literature Program based on the
feedback by upper primary school teachers. Using survey questionnaire of four Likert scale as research
instrument, this study seeks to identify the quality of support from administrators, availability and utilization of
resources, scope of training, and appropriateness of time allocation in the implementation of the program. A
total of 45 respondents were asked to complete the survey. Data were analyzed using SPSS 19. Results of the
study indicated that 75.6% teachers agree that the administrators give opportunity to try out new ideas in their
teaching, 53.3% strongly agree on the provision of appropriate textbook to be used as teaching materials in the
classroom, 17.8% disagree that the training provided is sufficient as a preparation to teach literature in the
classroom, and 62.2% agree that the allocation of time is sufficient for the teaching of literature in the
classroom. This study proposed the importance of cascade training provided by the Ministry of Education to be
conducted yearly to ensure the effectiveness of transfer of training, the availability of resources to ensure the
success of the program, and consideration of time allocated in the timetable of teaching and learning.
Key Words: Contemporary, Literature, Children’s Literature.
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INTRODUCTION
The literature component in English is aimed at enhancing students’ language proficiency, and it is also geared
for the purpose of generating the aesthetic part of the language that is personal response from students. The
English language Curriculum Specifications stated that the aim of literature is not only meant to address the
interpersonal, informational aesthetic value of learning but also the learning of the English language in general.
Outlined with six learning objectives for the literature components, Cheng (2008) stated that the study of
literature aids in language acquisition be developing the children’s awareness on how language works in
communication and experiencing the form of narratives. It is also an attempt to curb the declining levels of
achievement in standard assessment of English proficiency in recent years in primary schools (Basree, 2009). In
line with the Contemporary Children’s Literature (CCL) Program’s objectives and aims in the implementation,
the Ministry of Education (MOE) has given good support in the implementation of children’s literature into the
schools systems. Without the belief an support of the MOE in the importance of literature of literature as a
component in the syllabus, the death of literature is a sure thing (Cheng, 2008) in the schools syllabus.
This study looks into the provision of support, resources, training, and time allocation in the implementation of
Contemporary Children’s Literature Program as previous study conducted by (Basree, 2009) indicated that the
child-centered approaches and activities required by CCL were largely ignored as teacher continued in their
usual teacher-centered patterns. The existence of limited opportunities for pupils to initiate talk due to the
failure, on the part of teachers, creates pupils less contributions in the classroom. Teachers too, did not
differentiate between more and less proficient students. In fact, the more proficient students complained
about being bored by in appropriate activities. This findings is supported by supported by recent study
conducted by (Radzuwan Abdul Rashid & Vethamani, 2010) in their findings which stated that after ten years
literature in the syllabus, teachers should be able to teach literature effectively, however, the incorporation of
literature component is still argued and debated amongst teachers, students, researchers, parents as well as
the policy makers. These findings lead to remarkable questions of the importance of support, resources,
training, and time allocation that teachers received for the teaching and learning of literature in the classroom
instruction.
In implementing the CCL Program into the school syllabus, the Curriculum Development Centre (CDC) has
provided resources for the CCL Component. Materials provided include power point slides and a guide. The
power point slides walk the teacher through the plot, setting, characters, lesson learnt and the emotions
evoked by the story (Cheng, 2008). There is a specification in the writing guidelines for the English Language
textbook, that books for the CCL Program must be utilized in the textbook.
In line with the implementation of the program, a wide support from administration is crucial to ensure the
success of programs at school level. Bernam, P. and McLaughlin (1977) discover in the first major study of
innovation involving over 300 US school districts, for instance, that projects which received the active support
of the principal are likely to fair well. Hall, G. E. Hord, S. and Griffin (1980) argue that the degree of
implementation of the innovation is different in different schools because of the actions and concern of the
principal. Nevertheless, with regards to the implementation of CCL Program, it was noticeable that there was
no attempt at detailed discussion regarding the suitability of the book, the content of the program and any of
the related problems (Shireena Basree, 2007). Head teachers in three schools conducted by Shireena Basree
showed broad general support for the program. Their grasp of what it was expected to entail was often
limited. Many of the observation conducted in the previous study drew attention to poor levels of
understanding of the expectations of the program.
A thorough read of the aims and objectives of the CCL Program, however, leaves no room for doubt that it is a
standardized intensive reading program whereby all schools across all states are required to use a designated
set of three storybooks. The Ministry Official provided confirmation that it is compulsory for all the students to
complete the three titles specified by the Ministry first; it is only at this point that teachers may provide other
134
forms of extended reading, especially for the more proficient classes. However, a study conducted by (Basree,
2009) states that schools received ‘a lot of books’ when actually; at the most, they received only a total of one
hundred and twenty books, forty books per title. In overcoming the shortage of book provided to schools,
teachers were able to use stories of any kinds in the classroom instruction. According to Maley (2001) cited by
Saraceni (2003), the text may also be used as an example of certain types of pattern and structure. Using any
kind of stories could lead to the same objective of learning.
In the early year of its implementation, cascade training was provided by the MOE for teachers who are
teaching upper primary school students. In the year 2008, a group of 24 ESL teachers from three states in
Malaysia were sent to a one month project-based course in RELC Singapore about how to teach English
through literature (Sarala A/P Subramanyam, 2012). These teachers were then required to conduct the same
course to other teachers in their particular states, districts and schools. However, the course held was
inadequate and insufficient and sometimes held even just for one day. The cascade training is important for
the teachers to adapt with the teaching using modules provided by the MOE and at the same time, to ensure
the classroom instruction fits with the needs and expectation of the time scheduled in the timetable allocated
by the administrator. Shireena Basree, (2007) states that there exist various problems with the cascade model
of training used to prepare teachers responsible for the implementation of CCL. The shortage of specialist
English teachers available for training, the in-house training is not common in Malaysian schools, the heavy
workload placed upon the teachers, and the very limited nature of monitoring the program and assistance
beyond state level training are just some of them.
Another consideration is the allocation of time for the teaching and learning of CCL Program is one period per
week (Malaysia Ministry of Education., 2006). Teachers and students are required to teach and to learn three
books in a year which consists of stories and poems. At any one time, students will have one book to read for
every three months. The CDC has allocated “books on rotation basis” to be taught by teachers and learnt by
students in the classroom. They are shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1: Books on Rotation Basis in CCL Program
January – April
May – July
August – September
5A
Title 1
Title 3
Title 2
5B
Title 2
Title 1
Title 3
5C
Title 3
Title 2
Title 1
With the implementation of one period per week, teachers are required to fulfil the requirement of the aims to
(1) improve pupils’ English reading, (2) provide a continuum for the literature component introduced in
secondary school, and (3) create and enjoyable learning environment. They are also required to fulfil the
objectives to (1) instil and inculcate the reading habit among pupils, (2) enrich pupils’ vocabulary and language
content, (3) enhance pupils’ thinking skills, (4) promote cultural understanding in the Malaysian context, (5)
improve English language proficiency, and (6) provide lively, enjoyable and high-interest readings (Malaysia
Ministry of Education., 2006).
It is essential to receive good support, available resources, training, and adequate time allocation in the
implementation of CCL Program to ensure the success of CCL Program’s effectiveness in the schools syllabus.
In order to determine these, this study evaluates the provision of support, resources, training, and time
allocation for the teaching and learning of literature component in CCL Program.
METHODOLOGY
Research Design
The primary objective of this study is to investigate the implementation of Contemporary Children’s Literature
Program (CCL) in primary schools via the four components involved; 1) support, (2) resources, (3) training and
(4) time allocation from the feedback of upper primary school teachers. A survey method is used in this study.
Survey research is the most widely used research method in educational research, commonly used to measure
135
attitudes, opinion or achievements, feelings and any number of variables in natural setting (Leary, 2001;
Wiersma, 1991).
Forty-five respondents from the upper primary schools teachers in the state of Selangor, Malaysia were
selected for this study. In each school, five ESL teachers were selected to answer the questionnaire. The
research objectives of this study are:
1. to determine the provision of support by the schools’ management in the context of role and assistance in
the implementation of CCL Program?
2. to determine the provision of teaching and learning resources by the schools’ management in the context
of language room, teaching aids and financial support in the implementation of CCL Program?
3. to determine the provision of training by the schools’ management pertaining to the implementation of
CCL Program?
4. to determine the provision of time allocated by the schools’ management for the implementation of CCL
Program?
Research Instruments
A survey questionnaire adapted and adopted from Nordin (2011) is employed. The questionnaire was
validated by five experts from the field of Curriculum and Instruction. The items consists of two main parts
covering the general background information from a respondent, including the provision of support, resources,
training and time allocation in the implementation of CCL Program. Table 2 below illustrates the items
evaluated in the questionnaire:
Table 2: Items in the Questionnaire
Item
Part A:
1-10
Part B :
11-18
19-26
27-34
35-42
Description
Respondent’s general information
Provision of support by school management (role and
assistance)
Provision of resources by school management (language
room, teaching aids, and financial support)
Provision of training by State / District / School
Department respondents’ have attended
Provision of time allocation by school management
References
Nordin (2011)
Salina 2013
Salina 2013
Salina 2013
Nordin, 2011 & Salina 2013
Part A of the questionnaire contains 10 statements with regards the demographic background of the
participants. It was designed to obtain information related to their individual background and prior experience
of similar courses. Individual background in this study included race, gender, age, teaching experience, years of
teaching, educational attainment and attendance of the related course. Name and present position of the
participants were not mentioned in the report. Data collection was referring to ethical consideration by
(Mertiler, C. A. & Charles, 2005) on principle of beneficence, principle of honesty, and principle of accurate
disclosure. Part B of the questionnaire consist four likert scale of obtaining information related to four
variables of 1) support, 2) resources, 3) training, and 4) time allocation of the program implemented in their
schools. An explanation session was held to help the participants to clearly understand the questions. Quick
check of the returned questionnaires is done to make sure that every question is answered. Otherwise, the
participants were requested to do so with the guidance of the researcher. The main intention is to increase the
validity of the instruments. As suggested by Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C., Razavieh, A., & Sorensen (1990), a return rate
of any research must be well above 75% for external high relative validity. In this study, the researcher
obtained 100% return rate from the participants.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Results are presented in accordance to the research objectives of the study. Results and discussion of this
study contains the following heading: 1) Demographic Profile of Teachers, 2) Teachers’ Feedback on Support,
3) Teachers’ Feedback on Resources, 4) Teachers’ Feedback on Training, and 5) Teachers’ Feedback on Time
Allocation in the implementation of CCL Program in primary schools.
Demographic Profile of Teachers
Malay was the majority respondent in the study. The number of female respondent is 88.8% and male 11.1%.
Out of 45 respondents, 15.5% were 50 years and above, 42.2% were in age group of 40 to 49 years old. The
other 33.3% and 8.88% were in age group of below 39 years old. Teaching experience of the respondents
showed that the highest teaching experience was teachers in age group 20 to 29 years old (33.3%) and the
lowest teaching experience were teachers in age group 30 years and above (8.88%). 22.2% were belonged to
age group of 10 to 19 years old teaching experience. The other 20.0% and 15.5% were belonged to age group
of below 9 years of teaching experience. Education attainments of the respondents were categorized
according to Malaysia Certificate Examination (MCE), Higher Certificate Secondary Examination (HSCE),
Diploma, Bachelor, Bachelor of Education, and Master level. Results showed that Diploma had the highest
percentage of respondents (35.5%) while STPM had the lowest percentage of respondents with only 24.2%.
24.2% of them are Bachelor Degree holders, and 25.5% of them are Bachelor of Education holders. Teachers’
specialization in Malaysian Education of Institution (MEI) or University showed 62.2% majoring at English as
Second Language (ESL) teaching and the other were at various field of teaching. With regards to levels of
courses attended in the implementation of CCL Program, 37.7% of the respondents attended courses only at
school level and 28.8% of the respondents never attended any courses related to CCL Program. Only 1
respondent (2.2%) attended Professionalism Course at State level, and another 1 respondent (2.2%) attended
Primary Literature Training Workshop. The other 60.0% of the respondents never attended any course related
to CCL Program.
Teachers’ Feedback on Support
Table 3 below provides further information related to provision of support by school management via the role
and assistance of the administrators. It was found that in item 2, majority of the respondents strongly agreed
(80%) that the administrators paid attention and sensitive to provide the necessary equipment and facilities in
the implementation of the program. 57.8% of the respondents agreed that the administrators observe and
supervise their teaching in the implementation of the program. However, item 1 stated that only 37.8%
disagree that their administrators understand the objectives and goal of CCL Program implemented in their
schools. Only 6.7% of the respondents agree that they are given opportunity to try out new ideas in the
teaching of literature, and 13.3% disagree that the administrators are concerned with all matters and problems
associated with CCL Program. 22.2% of the respondents disagree that the administrators provide guidance and
assistance in carrying out the implementation of the program, and observe as well as supervise their teaching
in the implementation of the program. Only 13.3% of the respondents strongly agreed that the administrators
provide adequate training before the implementation of the program. Details findings related to respondents’
feedback on Support is described in Table 3:
137
Table 3: Respondents’ Feedback on Support (N=45)
Questions below are related to support given by the school management towards the implementation of
Contemporary Children’s Literature Program in school. To what extent do you agree with the role and
assistance given by the administrator at your school in the following areas?
Items
Questions
Percentage
SDA
D
A
SA
37.8
26.7
35.6
8.9
Give opportunity to try out new ideas in teaching.
15.6
Provide guidance and assistance to me in carrying out the implementation of CCL Program
22.2
5.
Provide time to listen to teacher’s problem in implementing the CCL Program.
22.2
6.
Observe and supervise my teaching in the implementation of CCL Program.
15.6
7.
Are concerned with all matters and problems associated with CCL Program.
13.3
8.
Provide adequate training before the implementation of CCL Program.
33.3
SD – Strongly Disagree; D – Disagree; FA – Fairly Agree; A – Agree; SA – Strongly Agree
11.1
6.7
80.0
77.8
31.1
46.7
35.6
42.2
57.8
26.7
37.8
48.9
53.3
13.3
1.
Understand the objectives and goals of CCL Program
implementation in school.
-
2.
Pay attention and are sensitive to provide the necessary
equipment and facilities.
-
3.
4.
Teachers’ Feedback on Resources
Results in Table 4 are related to respondents’ feedback on resources by school management via the provision
of language room, teaching aids, and financial support. Only 13.3% of the respondents strongly agreed that the
administrators allowed teachers to carry out activities in the language room, and the opportunity for teacher to
be involved with the planning of expenditure of CCL Program. 75% of the respondents agree that the
administrator provide appropriate textbook to be used as teaching materials in the classroom. However, 42.2%
of the respondents disagree that the school management provide sufficient textbook. 11.1% of the
respondents disagree that the administrator provide materials to perform activities in the learning process, the
usage of CCL Program module as a guide to teacher, and opportunity to be involved in the purchase of goods
pertaining to the implementation of CCL Program. Details result related to respondents’ feedback on resources
is described in Table 4:
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Table 4: Respondents’ Feedback on Resources (N=45)
Questions below are related to teaching and learning resources provided by the school management
(Language room, teaching aids and financial support) towards the implementation of Contemporary
Children’s Literature Program in school. The resources provided by the school management at my school
fulfil the following aspects:
Items
Questions
Percentage
SDA
D
A
SA
1.
Provision for students to carry out activities in the language room.
24.4
62.2
13.3
2.
Provision of materials to perform activities in the learning process.
11.1
71.1
17.8
3.
Usage of CCL Program module as a guide to teacher.
11.1
82.2
6.7
4.
Provision of sufficient textbook.
42.2
51.1
6.7
5.
Provision of appropriate textbook to be used as teaching materials in the classroom.
24.4
75.6
0.0
6.
Opportunity for teacher to be involved with the planning of expenditure of CCL Program.
20.0
66.7
13.3
7.
Opportunity to be involved in the purchase of goods pertaining to the implementation of CCL Program.
11.1
88.9
0.0
8.
Permitting the English Language panel to be responsible to manage the expenses for the CCL Program.
20.0
8.9
71.1
Teachers’ Feedback on Training
Table 5 provides information related to respondents’ feedback on training provided by the state / district /
school department that the respondents’ have attended. 71.1% of the respondents agree that the training and
courses provided assists them in the teaching of CCL Program. 55.6% of the respondents agree that the
training provided is sufficient as a preparation to teach literature in their schools. Respondents are strongly
agree in Item 2 (42.2%) stated that the instructor for the training is a capable and knowledgeable person, Item
3 (46.7%) stated that the time for training is sufficient form preparation to teach literature in their schools,
Item 4 (75.6%) stated that the handouts and other related materials provided during the training are sufficient
and adequate, and Item 5 (60%) stated that they received full benefit each of the course they attended.
However, Item 6 and 8 stated that only 33.3% of the respondents always attended training and course
provided by the state / district / school management, and 33.3% feel confident to teach after attended the
training and courses provided.
Table 5: Respondents’ Feedback on Training (N=45)
Questions below are related to training pertaining the implementation of Contemporary Children’s
Literature Program in school. To what extent do you agree with statements provided below related to
trainings provided by the State / District / School Department that you have attended?
Items
Questions
Percentage
SDA
D
A
SA
1.
The training provided is sufficient as a preparation to teach CCL Program in my school.
31.1
55.6
13.3
2.
The instructor for the training is a capable and knowledgeable person.
26.7
31.1
42.2
3.
The time for training is sufficient for preparation to teach CCL Program in my school.
20.0
33.3
46.7
4.
Handouts and other related materials provided during the training are sufficient and adequate.
24.4
0.0
75.6
139
5.
6.
7.
I received full benefit each of the program that I attended.
20.0
I always attended training and courses provided.
33.3
The training and courses provided assist me in the teaching of CCL Program in my school.
6.7
8.
I feel confident to teach after attended the training and courses provided.
33.3
20.0
35.6
60.0
31.1
71.1
22.2
26.7
40.0
Teachers’ Feedback on Time Allocation
Table 6 below provides results related to respondents’ feedback on time allocation in the implementation of
CCL Program. Respondents were strongly agreed in Item 1 that 75.6% the allocation of time is sufficient for the
teaching and learning of CCL Program. 77.8% of the respondents were strongly agreed that the time allocated
is adequate for the While and Post-Reading activities. 71.1% of the respondents were also strongly agreed that
the time provide sufficient time for teachers to fulfill their requirement of teaching two textbook in a year.
31.1% of the respondents disagree that in setting the timetable for the implementation of CCL Program,
priority is given to CCL Program before the other program takes place. Only 8.9% of the respondents agree
that the combination of teaching schedule is appropriate for the teaching and learning of CCL Program. 60.0%
were strongly agreed that the time allocated in the implementation of CCL Program, there is no overlap with
any other use of the Language Room when the CCL Program is implemented. 48.9% of the respondents
disagree that the time allocated gives consideration for teachers to adjust the teaching elements of literature
teaching. Details result of respondents’ feedback on time allocation is described in Table 6:
Table 6: Respondents’ Feedback on Time Allocation Content (N=45)
Questions below are related to the allocation of time by the school management for the implementation of
Contemporary Children’s Literature Program in school. I found that the allocation of time:
Items
Questions
SDA
1.
2.
Percentage
D
A
6.7
17.8
is sufficient for the teaching and learning of CCL Program.
for the combination of teaching schedule is appropriate for the teaching and learning of CCL Program.
24.4
3.
by the administrators for the implementation of CCL Program in setting the timetable give priority to the
implementation of CCL Program.
31.1
4.
gives consideration to the views of English teachers.
17.8
5.
ensures that there is no overlap with any other use of the Language room when the CCL Program is implemented.
24.4
6.
is adequate for the While and Post-Reading activities.
4.4
7.
provide sufficient time for teachers to fulfil the requirement of teaching two textbook in a year.
20.0
8.
gives consideration for teachers to adjust the teaching elements (plot, setting, characters, etc) of literature
teaching.
48.9
SA
75.6
8.9
66.7
31.1
20.0
37.8
62.2
15.6
17.8
60.0
77.8
8.9
71.1
28.9
22.2
CONCLUSION
Respondents’ feedback concerning the support, resources, training, and time allocation in the implementation
of CCL Program is generally positive. Of the 45 respondents who answered the survey questionnaire, 75% of
their feedback on support agreed that the administrators pay attention and sensitive to provide the necessary
equipment and facilities in the implementation of CCL Program, and provide opportunity for teachers to try out
new ideas in the teaching of literature. However, only 40% of the feedback stated that the administrator
understand the objectives and goals of CCL Program implementation in school. However, it is evident that the
140
training provided does not successfully helping respondents to teach literature in the
implementation of the program. Feedback from respondents’ stated that only 55.6%
agree that the training is sufficient as a preparation to teach the program and only
33.3% stated that they attended the training and course provided. The lack of
training provided lead to teacher’s lack of confident to teach the program.
Obviously, it is proven that the resource provided by the administrator is generally
positive too. Majority of the respondents agree that their administrator provide
enough resources in the implementation of the program. Nevertheless, one
consideration is highlighted in the findings of resources whereby 42.2% of the
responded disagree that the administrators provide sufficient text book. This is due to each school has an
enrolment of at least a hundred over students, whereby, in the early implementation of the program with
standard four students, schools were only provided with four sets of 35 books. The following year that is for
standard five students the schools were provided with four sets of 15 books. And, the standard six students
were provided with only four sets of 14 books per schools.
The provision of time allocation by the school management revealed that more than 70% of the respondents
strongly agree that the time allocated is adequate for the While and Post-Reading activities, sufficient for the
teaching and learning of CCL Program, and sufficient time for teachers to fulfill the requirement of teaching two
text book in a year. However, the setting of timetable is given priority to the implementation of CCL Program,
and it does not given consideration for teachers to adjust the teaching elements of literature teaching.
In conclusion, it is important for the authority to conduct cascade training similar to the early year of CCL
Program implementation to ensure the effectiveness of transfer of training among teachers or even
educational leaders, to provide sufficient resources, and consideration of time allocation in the timetable of
teaching and learning. It would also be great if the training is provided among administrators for them to have
better understanding of the aims and objectives of the program. These would lead to the effectiveness of the
program, thus, to add the limit of understanding of the CCL Program.
Siti Salina MUSTAKIM is currently a PhD Scholar by the Ministry of Education, pursuing her
Philosophical Doctorate in the Faculty of Education and Human Development, Sultan Idris
Education University, Malaysia. She has been a teacher of Teaching English as a Second
Language (TESL) for eight years in secondary school before pursuing her PhD. She holds a
Diploma in Secretarial Science from Malaysia University of Technology, Bachelor of
Education TESL (Hons.) from Malaysia University of Technology, and Master of Education
(TESL) from University Putra Malaysia.
Siti Salina MUSTAKIM
Tanjung Malim 35900 Perak
MALAYSIA
141
Othman LEBAR is currently teaching at the Faculty of Education and Human Development,
Sultan Idris Education University, Malaysia. He has been appointed as Director of Centre of
Educational Testing, Director of International Relation, Deputy Dean and Dean Faculty of
Cognitive Science and Human Development, Sultan Idris Education University. His career
as lecturer started when he joined Sultan Idris Education University in 1997, and to date
he has served for 16 years. Before joining Sultan Idris Education University, he was
teaching for several years in secondary schools and teacher training colleges, holding a
position as Assistant Director at the Teacher Education Division, Ministry of Education,
Malaysia. He earned his Bachelor Degree from University of Malaya, and Master degrees
in the field of Educational Testing, Measurement and Evaluation from the Michigan State University, East
Lansing, Michigan USA and his PhD degree in Educational Evaluation from the University of East Anglia,
Norwich, UK. As a Professor at the Faculty of Education and Human Development, he has been entrusted to
teach undergraduate and graduate courses in his field of expertise, i.e Educational Testing,
Othman LEBAR
Tanjung Malim 35900 Perak
MALAYSIA
Abdul Aziz MOHAMED is the Headmaster of Sekolah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 2, Bandar
Puncak Alam, Selangor. He has served as a Geography teacher for more than 30 years in
primary schools. He has been entrusted to hold the position of Chairman of the
Headmaster’s Department in Selangor, and granted the title of Excellent Headmaster by
the Malaysia Ministry of Education. Abdul Aziz Mohamed has been invited by various
national organizations in Malaysia to conduct seminars, workshop, and courses related to
teaching education in Malaysia.
Abdul Aziz MOHAMED
Bandar Puncak Alam 42300 Selangor
MALAYSIA
Hasniza BASRI earned a Bachelor of Business Administration from the Malaysia University
of Technology, Malaysia. She furthers her studies in the teaching college of Temenggung
Ibrahim, Johor, Malaysia in order to qualify her to be English for Second Language (ESL)
teacher. Her career as a teacher started in the year 2005 and to date she has served for
eight years in the teaching of English for upper primary schools students. Hasniza Basri is
the Head of English Department in the Sekolah Kebangsaan Puncak Alam 2, Malaysia, and
the Committee of English District Department, Selangor. She is entrusted to teach the
Year 12 students in upper primary schools as a preparation for the Standard Examination
in Malaysian Primary Schools.
Hasniza BASRI
MALAYSIA
142
Nerlizam MAAHAD earned a Diploma in Teaching English as Second Language (TESL) from
the teaching college of Srikota, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. She has been teaching English as
Second Language (ESL) for upper primary schools for more than twenty years. Between
209 and 2010, she served as the Head of English Department in Sekolah Kebangsaan
Puncak Alam 2, Selangor. She is also the Committee of English District Department,
Selangor. Nerlizam Maahad has been entrusted to teach the Year 11 and Year 12 students
in upper primary schools as a preparation for the Standard Examination in Malaysian
Primary Schools.
Nerlizam MAAHAD
MALAYSIA
REFERENCES
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144
TEACHING THE MAGNETIC FIELD OF A BAR-SHAPED MAGNET
USING AUGMENTED REALITY
Prof. Filipe Arantes FERNANDES
ABSTRACT
It is proposed in this paper the use of an Augmented Reality environment developed to support the teaching of
the magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet. It was created a prototype with software based on Augmented
Reality that has been tested with students of engineering. In this environment the student can see in 3D and
interact with the magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet. In a screen of Augmented Reality there is the
simultaneous presence of real and virtual objects. In this work the magnetic fields are displayed, in the virtual
world, which will be around a magnet, in the real world. From the results, analysis and evaluations were done
to complete the work.
Key Words: Augmented Reality, Magnetic field, Teaching.
INTRODUCTION
With the advent of computer, new learning spaces begin to be planned and built, no longer restricted to the
perimeter where there is a closed and traditional relationship between teachers and students. From the
indications of the National Curriculum to High school in the area of Information Technology (Brazil, 1999), some
schools already have the integration of information technology in their daily lives, beginning the shift to value
learning activities for virtual experiments and experiences in places, spaces and times where and when things
happen, as a way to enrich teaching. In other words, they show their concern by offering a better quality
teaching, encouraging the involvement of teachers and students to build individual and colective knowledge
(Kenski, 2003). The computer allows the creation of new forms of learning and communication, providing the
student to know the world more critically.
In this context, the computer can be expected to contribute positively to the acceleration of cognitive and
intellectual development of the student, especially as this relates to the development and formal logical
reasoning, the ability to think with rigor and systematicity, the ability to invent or find solutions to problems
(Costa, 1998). You can also enable the student to develop their ability to learn to learn, stimulating autonomy which is based on learning by doing - experimenting and creating. This is now a priority of the school, using this
new technology, this process can become richer and more enjoyable (Coll, 2000).
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According to Lemos and Carvalho (2010), educational software can be the interface between teachers and
students as an auxiliary tool to improve the processes of teaching and learning content or educational issue.
For this process to happen in our study, Augmented Reality was used to support the teaching of the magnetic
field of a bar-shaped magnet.
Milgran and Kishino (1994) argue that Augmented Reality is the combination of real and virtual objects. In the
study of the magnetic field of a magnet bar shaped the actual object used was the magnet and the virtual
object is its magnetic field. Supported by Augmented Reality the student can see in three dimensions the
magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet. This phenomenon can not be seen with the naked eye because the
magnetic fields are not visible to the human eye. For teaching purposes, teachers use spray iron filings around
a magnet, as shown in Figure 1. A magnet is placed on a flat surface and gently pulverized iron powder thinly
thereby forming a figure would be a representation of the magnetic field. However, even if using real
elements, this representation is two-dimensional, bringing great difficulties to students in the sense that they
have to imagine a three-dimensional (3D) magnetic field from a two-dimensional figure (2D).
Figure 1: Magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet (http://fuches.wordpress.com/)
However, as stated by Buchau, Rucker, Wössner and Becker (2009), the real-life problems are in 3D.
Augmented Reality can help in this aspect, because with this technology it is possible to show these magnetic
fields in 3D, and d and according Buchau et al., the magnetic invisible fields can be shown in an Augmented
Reality environment.
According Kaufmann et al., the main advantage of using Augmented Reality is that students actually can see
three dimensional objects (2005). Thus, the magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet was demonstrated in the
virtual world interacting with the real world. According to Buchau et al., Augmented Reality helps students to
understand the electromagnetic field’s theory. In this work, the Augmented Reality enables the three146
dimensional visualization and interaction with the magnetic field under study, providing the student to view
objects in the virtual world that cannot be seen in the real world. This environment in Augmented Reality will
act as Learning Object.
SOME PROPOSALS USING OF AUGMENTED REALITY IN EDUCATION
Although relatively new, this technology is already being used successfully in several areas. Some of the
proposed use of Augmented Reality in Education will be addressed at this section.
Buchau et al. (2009) created three applications based on Augmented Reality for use in magnetic field of a
magnet, the magnetic field of a solenoid and a magnetic field of an antenna. In figure 2, the magnetic field of a
magnet can be seen, result of their work.
Figure 2: Magnetic field of a magnet (Buchau et al.)
These applications allow the student to view the magnetic field in three dimensions. This study does not
present the results of using the student applications.
Also using Augmented Reality in teaching, Lemos and Carvalho (2010) created the SISEULER, which acts as
Learning Object where the student can have a better understanding of the relationship of Euler through
visualization and manipulation of objects. This experiment was tested with a positive result with basic
education Mathematics teachers. Figure 3 shows a dodecahedron using SISEULER.
147
Figure 3: Dodecahedron using SISEULER(Lemos and Carvalho)
Macedo et al. (2010) presented one method to teach Solids using Augmented Reality, providing the student
interaction and visualization of solids. Figure 4 shows the user in an Augmented Reality environment
manipulating a pyramid.
Figure 4: User in an Augmented Reality environment manipulating a pyramid (Macedo et al.)
148
Lima et al. (2008) developed the VSTARGD (Viewer of Torus Surfaces of Descriptive Geometry Through Reality).
With this viewer the user can see torus surfaces, which three are animated. Figure 5 shows the VSTARGD.
Figure 5: VSTARGD (Lima et al.)
HOW AUGMENTED REALITY WORKS
Augmented Reality from d and shoot a scene in real time and from a marker at the scene, brings to the
computer screen a scene in a virtual world mixed with a real world, which is the world Augmented Reality. The
formation of the Augmented Reality environment is the exemplified in figure 6.
Figure 6 : Formation of the Augmented Reality environment
149
To create Augmented Reality environment it was used the ARToolKit (Augmented Reality Toolkit), which is a
library with open source and free, suitable for developing applications of Augmented Reality (Zorzal et al.,
2008). According to Coelho and Bähr:
Through Augmented Reality scenes are formed in a certain place, in real time, from real world scenes and
scenes of a virtual world, corresponding to this location. The scenes are formed to give the impression that
virtual objects exist in real world (2005).
Augmented Reality works as follows:
1. Puts up a marker on an object where you want the interaction to occur;
2. This marker will be displayed by the camera's microcomputer;
3. If it is recognized, will lead to a pre-established library;
4. Will appear on the computer screen, the first object where was the marker mixed with the object that was
at the library.
5. The two objects will be merged into a world that mixes the real world with the virtual world.
In Figure 7, an example of Augmented Reality where the user and the bar-shaped magnet are mixed in the real
world with a magnetic field of the virtual world in the same screen.
Figure 7: The user and the bar-shaped magnet mixed
The magnet used at this experiment can be seen in Figure 8.
150
Figure 8: Magnet bar-shaped
A marker (figure 9) is placed in front of the camera. Then the link has been established and the virtual image
emerged, which is the magnetic field.
Figure 9: Marker
151
Figure 10, shows that there is no presence of the magnet.
Figure 10: Marker without the magnet
Subsequently, the marker was placed just in front of the magnet and the camera captured the image. The
camera recorded the marker image and made the link with the magnetic field that was stored in a preset
library. The user, the magnet and the magnetic field are now in an environment of Augmented Reality (Figure
11).
Figure 11: The user, the magnet and the magnetic field are now in an environment of Augmented Reality
152
In this proposal, a research was conducted with the students, where the magnetic field of a magnet was mixed
into the real world environment in Augmented Reality.
AN EXPERIENCE IN THE CLASSROOM
The intent of this experiment was to create a playful environment in the classroom, where students could
interact with the Learning Object and could also visualize this object, also increasing the students motivation,
aiming to learn. The students can view the magnetic field of a bar shaped magnet like never previously
experienced. In this experiment, the learner has the opportunity to visualize the magnetic field in three
dimensions.
Also the aspect of motivation has been taken into consideration. The students have needs that must be met, it
is up to the teacher to make this happen (Mouly, 1963). With Augmented Reality the students have the
opportunity to visualize the magnetic field on a ludic way. Thus, the learning process will be more attractive
and, therefore, the learning is more efficient, since, according Mouly (1963), the efficiency is proportional to
the motivation of the individual.
Figure 12 shows a student with the lap top's camera in class. The marker is located on the bar-shaped magnet.
This marker made the link with the virtual world, bringing to the screen the magnetic field.
Figure 12: Student at the Augmented Reality environment
Participated in this experiment three groups of Technical Course of Electricity and One group of Technical
Course of Electromechanical of the Instituto Federal Fluminense, totaling 33 students, aged between 19 and 44
153
years. Among students who participate at this experiment, a group of Electricity is day shift, with a total of 12
students and the other classes are night shift.
The experiment was conducted in classes in march/2011. After the experiment they answered a questionnaire
and the main results are described in the next section.
FINDINGS
When asked if they found it easy to use Augmented Reality, 32 students answered yes and one said he did not
know.
The 33 students responded, when asked, they could see the magnetic field of the magnet bar shaped.
To the question: "Would you like to take more classes using Augmented Reality?", also 32 students responded
that they would like and just one said “I don’t know”.
There have also been questions in which students could respond freely to questions. The following will
highlight the main responses:
A) (20 years - man) "I really liked. I think that’s useful, functional and practical to help us understand the
physical phenomena. "
B) (24 years - man) "I found it very useful and easy to use but best of all, what you see in practice is what
is said in theory."
C) (19 years - woman) " Helps understand how it works in reality."
D) (24 years - man) "I like it because of the view of the things that we cannot see with the naked eye."
E) (21 years - man) "Becomes more practical the understanding the issues difficult to demonstrate."
F) (29 years - man) "Much interesting to observe the magnetic field in 3D."
G) (44 years - man) "Other materials could also use this technology."
H) (31 years - man) "I finally could see the ‘so famous’ magnetic field."
It’s important to highlight that there was no negative response demonstrated by the students.
CONCLUSIONS
The Learning Object on Augmented Reality environment proposed aimed to introduce students to a way of
interaction and visualization, in three-dimensional, of the bar-shaped magnetic field. This work proposes is a
new way of teaching magnetic fields. With this experiment, and According to the questionnaire answered by
the students, it was observed that the students were able to visualize the magnetic field of a bar-shaped
magnet, and they found it's easy to use the Learning Object based Augmented Reality. Also, all the students
would like to have more classes using Augmented Reality. According to the questions that could respond freely,
the students commented that they found useful, practical to use and it helps to understand the physical
phenomena. From what was shown, the students could actually see the magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet
in three-dimensions and were also able to interact with this field.
Augmented Reality presents the following advantages, among others:
•
Allowed students to visualize the magnetic field of a bar-shaped magnet;
•
Allowed student interaction with this magnetic field;
•
From the moment the Learning Objects in Augmented Reality has been prepared, its use is simple and
practical;
•
Simplicity and economy of the equipment used: the experiment was conducted with only a webcam and a
laptop. Also, a data show with big screen, only to enrich the experiment.
•
The Augmented Reality environment is excellent to visualization of magnetic fields.
154
We conclude, therefore, that, with this technological apparatus, contributions to education will be of great
value.
Suzana da Hora MACEDO is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil, since 1987. In
1986, Macedo has graduated in Electrical Engineering, at the Universidade Santa Úrsula.
She received her Master’s Degree in Tecnology, with focus on Electrical Engineering, in
1998, at Centro Federal de Educação Tecnológica Celso Sukov da Fonseca (CEFET/Rio), Rio
de Janeiro. She received her Ph.D. in Information Technology on Education from the
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil, in 2011. Her research interest is
Augmented Reality and Digital Technologies applied to Education.
Evanildo dos Santos LEITE is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil, since 1996. In
2004, Leite has graduated in Industrial Maintenance Technology, at the Centro Federal de
Educação Tecnológica de Campos (CEFET-Campos). He received her Master’s Degree in
Mechanical Engineering, with focus on Automation, in 2008 at Universidade Federal
Fluminense (UFF). Today he is a doctoral student and studies new Electric Materials at
Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense Darcy Ribeiro (UENF).
Filipe Arantes FERNANDES is professor at Instituto Federal Fluminense, Brazil. He is
bachelor at Tecnologia em Informática from Centro Universitário São José de Itaperuna
(2009). Has experience in Computer Science, acting on the following subjects: augmented
reality and teaching-learning. Also is graduating student in Software Engineering by
COPPE/UFRJ.
Prof. Filipe Arantes FERNANDES
155
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Mouly, G. (1963) Psicologia Educacional, 1 ed. São Paulo. Livraria Pioneira Editora.
156
THE IMPACT OF LANGUAGE LEARNING EXPERIENCE ON LANGUAGE LEARNER STRATEGY
USE IN TURKISH EFL CONTEXT
Dr. Mehmet Sercan UZTOSUN
Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University
Anafartalar Campus C1-205
17100 Çanakkale, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
This study aims at investigating language learner strategies deployed by 275 Turkish university students at
English Language Teaching Department and seeks for possible differences in strategy uses of learners with
different educational backgrounds. The theoretical framework of the study was informed by Oxford’s
taxonomy (1990) and SILL was implemented as a data collection tool. The findings of the study parallel previous
studies conducted in Turkey, in that Turkish university students mostly employ compensation and
metacognitive strategies. The present study goes beyond this and reveals that educational background is a
factor influencing the strategy choice: more experienced learners have wider range of strategy repertoire and
use compensation and cognitive strategies significantly greater than less experienced learners. This article
introduces the educational backgrounds of experienced learners as a sample of English language learning that
promotes the use of language learner strategies.
Key Words: Language learner strategies, language learning experience, language educational background,
English as a foreign language, English language teaching in Turkey.
INTRODUCTION
Language learning strategy research goes back to the 1960s (O’Malley & Chamot, 1990). The scopes of research
studies have undergone significant changes according to the conceptualisation of the learner role in learning a
language. The early studies (for example, Rubin 1975; Stern 1975) were informed by behaviouristic point of
view, in that the main concern was to identify the strategies employed by good language learners which can be
transferred to less successful learners (Greenfeel & Macaro, 2007; Lai, 2009; Wong & Nunan, 2011). By the
development of cognitive psychology in the 1980s, the focus of language learning strategies shifted from
methods of teaching to learner characteristics and second language acquisition process (Wenden, 1987). In the
1990s, O’Malley and Chamot (1990) and Oxford (1990) introduced language learner strategies from learnersas-individual’s perspective and learners, rather than teachers, were seen as responsible agents of learning
process (Cohen, 1998). This gave birth to the consideration of language learner strategies as having valueneutral nature: there is no good or bad strategies but they are used either effectively or ineffectively by
learners (Grenfell & Macaro, 2007). In the light of this, qualitative studies were conducted and individuals
became focal points of post-1990 strategy research (Grenfell & Macaro, 2007).
The history of strategy research summarised above illustrates that, despite differences in its conceptualisation,
strategy research is still a significant area of investigation in the field. This is because strategy research allows
for gaining insight into language learning process through revealing how learners cope with various problems
to learn language effectively. To address this, the present study introduced a new perspective through
comparing strategy uses of learners with different educational backgrounds. To shed light on the backdrop of
language learning strategy use, this study is designed to explore whether language learning experience is a
significant factor influencing strategy choice.
157
THE DEFINITION AND CLASSIFICATION OF LANGUAGE LEARNER STRATEGIES
Defining and classifying language learner strategies were the major concerns of strategy research (Grenfell &
Macaro, 2007). There are different views about its definition, each of which relies on different understanding of
what constitutes language. Stern (1983) considers strategies as particular form of observable language
behaviours. O’Malley and Chamot (1990) highlight the cognitive process and define learning strategies as
“special ways of processing information that enhanced comprehension, learning or retention of the
information” (p.1). Oxford (1990:8) provides a humanistic point of view and states that “language learning
strategies are behaviours or actions which learners use to make language learning more successful, selfdirected, and enjoyable”.
Macaro (2006) provides an alternative theoretical framework underpinning cognitive psychology and claims
that strategies should not be defined but described in relation to variables such as a goal, a situation and a
mental action. He also criticised previous research studies and put forward a number of problematic issues in
strategy research. Macaro’s emphasis on some unresolved issues portrays the lacks of strategy research and
provides a glimpse about the issues to be addressed in future strategy research studies. Nevertheless, the high
number of unresolved issues cannot undervalue strategy research but should increase researchers’ enthusiasm
to provide profound insight in the role of strategies in language learning.
In addition to defining the term, different classification systems were proposed (e.g. Rubin, 1987; Oxford, 1990;
O’Malley & Chamot 1990). This study was informed by Oxford’s taxonomy (1990) because it is ‘very
comprehensive’ (Ellis, 1994:539; Lai, 2009: 256) and ‘detailed and systematic’ (Vidal, 2002:47). Oxford’s
classification of language learner strategies is displayed in Table 1.
Table 1: Oxford’s strategy classification system (1990)
Category
Function
Memory Strategies
Cognitive Strategies
Compensation
Strategies
Enable learners to store verbal
material and then retrieve it when
needed for communication
Sets of categories
Creating mental linkages
Applying images and sounds
Reviewing well
Employing action
Practising
Enable learners to better
understand produce the target
language
Receiving and sending messages
Analysing and reasoning
Creating structure for input and output
Enable learners to use the new
language for either comprehension
or production despite the
limitations in knowledge
Guessing intelligently
Overcoming limitations in speaking and
writing
Centring your learning
Arranging and planning your learner
Evaluation your learning
Metacognitive
Strategies
Enable learners to coordinate their
own learning process
Affective Strategies
Enable learners to gain control over
affective factors
Lowering your anxiety
Encouraging yourself
Taking your emotional temperature
Social Strategies
Enable learners to interact with
others through the target language
Asking questions
Cooperating with others
Empathizing with others
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LANGUAGE LEARNER STRATEGY RESEARCH
Many studies devoted to explore how language learning strategy use is influenced by different variables.
Overall, these studies conclude that more proficient students employ more language strategies (Chamot,
Kupper & Impink-Hernandez, 1988; Green and Oxford, 1995; Lai, 2009; Magogwe & Oliver, 2007). Gender is
also found as a factor influencing strategy use and females were reported to employ greater number of
strategies (Ehrman & Oxford, 1995; Macaro, 2000; Oxford & Nyikos, 1989; Yalçın, 2006). Some studies also
confirmed that strategy use differs across contexts (Levine, Reyes & Leaver, 1996; LoCastro, 1994; Oxford &
Nyikos, 1989).
The context-specific nature of language learning strategies was confirmed by Chamot (2005), who asserted that
“learning strategies are sensitive to the learning context and to the learner’s internal processing processes”
(p.113). According to Ellis (1994), situational factors influence strategy choice, and therefore, it may be
problematic to generalise findings to other cultural context in strategy research (Lai, 2009: Olivares-Cuhat,
2002).
A number of studies has been carried out to investigate Turkish learners’ strategy uses in relation to different
variables such as 'proficiency' (Yılmaz, 2010), 'learner perceptions' (Yalçın, 2006), 'adult learners' (Karatay,
2006) 'class grade' (Karahan, 2007; Razı, 2012), 'self-efficacy beliefs' (Yılmaz, 2010), 'age' (Hiçyılmaz, 2006),
'tutored and non-tutored learning' (Alptekin, 2007), and 'gender' (Dursun, 2007, Karahan, 2007; Razı, 2012;
Yılmaz, 2010).
Three studies addressed learners’ language learning experiences (Hiçyılmaz, 2006; Yalçın, 2006; Razı, 2012).
Yalçın (2006) compared strategy uses of preparatory students from different departments at a university and
focused on different variables such as gender, subject of study, and type of high school that students had
graduated. He compared strategies employed by learners with different educational experiences: the ones who
had and had not taken preparatory class in high school. The only significant difference was found in the use of
compensation strategies: students who had taken preparatory class employed greater number of
compensation strategies.
Hiçyılmaz (2006) compared strategy uses of ninth grade high school students and university preparatory
students. She revealed a disconnection between language learning experience and strategy use, in that ninth
grade students employed more strategies than university students. Although this finding seems interesting as it
conflicted with the common assumption, Hiçyılmaz’s study has a number of limitations. Firstly, the study was
small-scale and the sample comprised of 50 students. Furthermore, no information is available regarding the
educational backgrounds of university students and it is doubtful whether all participants have similar
educational backgrounds. Ninth graders may have more effective educational background compared to
university students.
Razı’s study (2012) had similar scope to the current study. He investigated English Language Teaching (ELT)
department students’ language learning strategy uses with reference to gender, class and period of English
study. With regard to language learning experience, he grouped students into two: with less than ten years of
learning experience and with more than ten years of learning experience. His analysis did not reveal significant
differences in terms of both class and learning experience. This showed that having more or less than ten years
of English language learning experience does not differentiate learners’ strategy uses.
The studies discussed above show that the pedagogical tendency to investigate strategy uses of language
learners affects the scope of studies in Turkish context and a great number of studies devoted to investigate
strategy use. However, the role language learning experience on strategy use is still questionable. This study
attempts to mask this gap through investigating strategy uses of learners with different educational
backgrounds and aims at revealing the impact of language learning background on the use of language learner
strategies.
159
This study addresses following research questions:
1. What language learner strategy categories and individual language learner strategies do Turkish EFL
learners use?
2. Are there significant differences between Turkish EFL learners with different educational backgrounds in
terms of the use of language learner strategy categories?
METHODOLOGY
The scope of present study is in line with the objectives of survey methodology, which is one of the most
common methodologies seeking for the relationship between variables in data collected from a large group of
participants (Mackey and Gass, 2005). A scale was administered to collect valid and reliable data, which allows
for implementing statistical analyses to explore similarities and differences between variables.
The sample involved 275 students pursuing different years of university at ELT Department. Purposive sampling
was used: preparatory (Level 1), first year (Level 2) and fourth year (Level 3) students participated in the study.
Preparatory students had recently graduated from high school. Considering the structure-based English
language education in Turkey (Alagözlü, 2012; Işık, 2011), these students, around eighteen years old, mostly
focused on developing their grammatical, reading and lexical skills, and hence, they are highly competent in
these skills but less so in listening, speaking, pronunciation and writing. Level 2 students completed the
preparatory class last year and had been taking skill-based classes at more advanced level than Level 1
students. Level 3 students were the final year students, around 22 years old, who would be qualified as English
language teachers at the end of the year. These students experienced five-year ELT department education and
had taken various courses that required dealing with different aspects of English such as writing short
dissertation projects, doing several micro-teachings and giving oral presentations. For that reason, these
students experienced various aspects of English compared to other groups of participants. The biographic
information of participants is presented in Table 2.
Table 2: The Distribution of participants according to level, age and gender
Years of study
N
Gender
Male
Female
Prep (Level 1)
101 (38%)
21 (21%)
80 (79%)
First Grade (Level 2)
92 (34%)
28 (30%)
64 (70%)
Fourth Grade (Level 3)
80 (28%)
14 (18%)
66 (82%)
Total
273 (2 missing)
63 (24%)
210 (76%)
Age
(average)
18.88
19.75
22.17
20.13
Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was implemented. Being informed by Oxford’s taxonomy
(1990), SILL is most widely used questionnaire in strategy research (Chamot, 2005) because of its high reliability
across many cultural groups with Cronbach alpha values 0.93-0.98 (Oxford & Burry-Stock, 1995). SILL
comprises 5 point Likert-type items in 6 categories, involving ‘memory’, ‘cognitive’, ‘compensation’,
‘metacognitive’, ‘affective’, and ‘social’ strategies. The Turkish version of SILL, which was formed by Dursun
(2007) with Cronbach alpha values 0.76, was implemented in this study to ensure that the participants
understand the items thoroughly.
The participants’ responses are measured on an interval scale and the mean and standard deviation were
calculated by using SPSS v.16. The levels of differences were checked through ANOVA and the LSD posthoc test
was used to see the direction of significant differences between participants.
The use of SILL categories of all participants
The frequencies of the use of SILL categorises revealed in the current study are displayed in Table 3.
160
Table 3: Frequency of the use of SILL categories
Rank
Category
Compensation Strategies
Metacognitive Strategies
Social Strategies
Cognitive Strategies
Memory Strategies
Affective strategies
TOTAL
N
273
265
273
263
264
268
239
Mean
3.76
3.75
3.46
3.28
3.19
3.10
3.43
Std. Dev.
.59
.61
.61
.44
.50
.54
.61
According to Oxford’s category sets (1990), a frequency between 2.5 and 3.49 is the mid-level of strategy use.
This shows that the participants employ language learner strategies at medium level. This is in line with
previous studies conducted in Turkish context (e.g. Hiçyılmaz, 2006; Yalçın, 2006). Participants reported a highlevel of compensation and metacognitive strategy use, which parallels Yılmaz’s study (2010), a study with
similar scope conducted in the same context.
Turkish learners’ higher dependence on compensation strategies was also supported in previous studies (e.g.
Alptekin, 2007; Hiçyılmaz, 2006; Karahan, 2007; Razı, 2012; Yalçın 2006; Yılmaz, 2010). Furthermore, relying on
compensation, metacognition and social strategies more than other three strategies was another common
point of previous studies, the results of which are presented in Table 4.
Table 4: Findings of previous studies on the use of SILL categories
Yalçın (2006)
Hiçyılmaz (2006)
Dursun (2007)
1.
Compensation
Social
Metacognitive
2.
Metacognitive
Compensation
Social
3.
Social
Metacognitive
Compensation
4.
Memory
Cognitive
Cognitive
5.
Affective
Affective
Affective
6.
Cognitive
Memory
Memory
Razı (2012)
Compensation
Metacognitive
Cognitive
Memory
Social
Affective
Current Study
Compensation
Metacognitive
Social
Cognitive
Memory
Affective
The frequent use of compensation strategies may reflect Turkish learners’ weaknesses in speaking skills
because compensation strategies serve the purpose of comprehending or producing the language despite the
limited knowledge (Oxford, 1990). This is because compensation strategies concern using the language rather
than learning it (Dörnyei, 1995). In doing so, learners employ different strategies to compensate the lacking
information such as using clues, getting help, coining words, adjusting or approximating the message, and using
mime or gesture.
The less dependence on cognitive strategies may seem contradictory because it is believed that there is a linear
relationship between cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Green & Oxford, 1995; O’Malley & Chamot,
1990). This is probably because cognitive strategies play important role in achieving a particular objective and
metacognitive strategies indicate whether the objective is achieved or not (Phakiti, 2003). However, as
confirmed by other studies conducted in Turkey, Turkish learners do not tend to use cognitive strategies as
frequently as metacognitive strategies. This may indicate that Turkish EFL learners employ strategies to
organise their learning through setting goals and objectives but they do not frequently use strategies that help
them learn and produce the target language. With regard to social strategies, participants seemed to prefer
involving others by asking questions, co-operating and empathizing with others. This reliance illustrates the
willingness to collaborate with other people.
The less frequent use of the affective strategies confirms that learners do not tend to gain control over
emotional factors through lowering anxiety, encouraging or taking emotional temperature. The low frequency
161
of memory strategies may not indicate participants’ low reliance on memory strategies (Goh and Kwah, 1997):
there are numerous memory strategies to be used in language learning and SILL only addresses a limited
number of it. I would therefore restrain to make generalisation about the use of memory strategies.
The use of individual strategies
In addition to the use of SILL categories, it is worth considering the popular individual strategies, which profile
the strategy repertoires of Turkish EFL learners. The descriptive analysis of the use of individual strategies is
displayed in Table 5.
Table 5: Most frequently used individual strategies
Rank
Item
N
Mean
Std. Dev.
1
32
274
4.38
.78
2
45
275
4.33
.80
3
29
275
4.21
.80
4
5
31
27
275
275
4.11
4.05
.80
.90
6
1
274
4.03
.80
7
8
9
24
42
33
275
273
272
4.02
4.01
4
.82
1.09
.90
10
37
274
3.97
.94
Strategy
Paying attention to the interlocutor
Asking for slowing down or repetition
Using a different word or phrase with similar
meaning
Noticing and using mistakes for doing better
Trying not to look up every word while reading in
English
Trying to make connections between known and
new things
Guessing unknown words
Noticing nervousness when speaking English
Trying to find different ways to learn English
more effectively
Having clear objectives about improving abilities
in English
Some of these findings are in line with previous studies: ‘Paying attention to the interlocutor’, ‘asking for
slowing down’, ‘trying to make connections between known and new things’, ‘noticing and using mistakes’
were found as the most popular individual strategies employed by Turkish learners (Karatay, 2006; Razı, 2012).
It is possible to categorise these popular strategies into three. First category specifies that Turkish learners
frequently deal with problems stemming from the lack of competency in speaking skills. To overcome this, they
closely pay attention to interlocutors to understand the message thoroughly and frequently ask them to slow
down or repeat. The third popular strategy, which is about circumlocution, refers to participants’ lack of
speaking skills as well because this strategy is used when the speaker has difficulty in sending a message and
tries to send it by using different words or phrases (Dörnyei & Scott, 1997). Furthermore, noticing nervousness
during conversations was another issue mentioned by participants. This is also related to other popular
strategies as students may not feel comfortable when dealing with problems in conversations because
speakers need to find immediate solutions while speaking, and therefore, speaking is considered as the most
anxiety-producing experience (Young, 1990). The second category indicates that Turkish EFL learners tend to
use existing knowledge through connecting it with the new information: they try to guess unknown words and
avoid looking up the dictionary. The third category may reflect students’ attitudes towards studying English:
reporting that they frequently try to learn from mistakes, find different ways to learn English more effectively
and have clear objectives about improving their abilities in English, the participants seemed to be pleased with
their learning process.
In addition to the popular strategies, unpopular strategies may also profile the characteristics of Turkish EFL
learners. The results of the ten least-used individual strategies are displayed in Table 6.
162
Table 6: Unpopular individual strategies
Rank
Item
N
Mean
41
41
273
2.97
42
14
274
2.94
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
21
44
17
23
5
7
6
43
275
272
274
275
270
274
274
274
Std. Dev.
2,96
2,93
2.93
2.70
2.69
2.63
2.47
2.04
1.95
1.37
Strategy
Rewarding yourself after a success
Creating opportunities to speak English inside or
outside the classroom
Finding the meaning from the structure of a word
Explaining feelings to other people
Writing notes, messages, letters in English
Making summary of what is learned
Using rhymes to remember new words
Physically acting out new English words
Using flashcards to remember new words
Keeping a language diary
2,93
2,70
2,68
2,63
1,12
1,17
1,06
.83977
The less dependence on some of these strategies parallels Razı’s study (2012), where ‘keeping a language
diary’, ‘using flashcards’, ‘physically acting out new words’, ‘explaining feelings’, ‘using rhymes’, and ‘rewarding
your success’ were the most unpopular strategies.
When the natures of these strategies are examined, it is clear that participants do not create opportunities to
use the language through speaking and writing in English. This tendency also shows less dependence on
cognitive strategies and illustrates the fact that Turkish learners do not deal with English outside the class.
Although Turkish EFL learners prefer involving others to their learning process, they do not tend to share their
feelings. Examining the structure of a word to find the meaning and making summary of what is learned may
also indicate that they do not commonly analyse and synthesis the target language.
The differences in the use of SILL categories
To explore the differences in strategy uses of participants with different educational backgrounds, One-Way
ANOVA and LSD post-hoc tests were carried out, the results of which are displayed in Table 7:
Table 7: The differences between participants in using SILL categories
Category
Memory
Strategies
Cognitive
Strategies
Compensation
Strategies
Sum of Squares
df
Mean
Square
Between
Groups
4,987
Within Groups
Total
73,407
78,394
261
263
.281
Between
Groups
1,571
2
.786
Within Groups
Total
65,357
66,929
260
262
.251
Between
Groups
4,665
2
2,332
Within Groups
92,457
270
Total
97,122
272
2
F
Sig
2,494
Direction of
differences
Level 3>1 p<.000
8,866
.000
Level 3>2 p<.007
3,125
.046
Level 3>1 p<.023
6,812
.001
Level 3>1 p<.000
.342
163
Metacognitive
Strategies
Affective
Strategies
Social Strategies
TOTAL
Between
Groups
.569
Within Groups
Total
98,371
98,940
262
264
.375
Between
Groups
.199
2
.100
Within Groups
101,604
265
Total
Between
Groups
Within Groups
101,804
267
2,985
2
1,493
101,535
270
.376
104,520
272
.455
2
.228
45,689
46,145
236
238
.194
Total
Between
Groups
Within Groups
Total
2
.285
.758
.470
N/A
.260
.771
N/A
.383
Level 1>3 p< .014
3,969
.020
Level 2>3 p< .015
1,176
.310
N/A
As can be seen in Table 7, Level 3 students employ memory, cognitive and compensation strategies significantly
more than Level 1 students. Although Level 3 students develop more varied English competencies than Level 1
students, I would be cautious to argue that participants’ proficiency levels are different in this study because no
proficiency test was administered. However, the differences between Level 3 and Level 1 students parallel the
differences between proficient and less proficient learners in terms of the use of cognitive strategies, in that
proficient learners employ cognitive strategies significantly greater than less proficient students (Chamot,
Kupper & Impink-Hernandez, 1988; Green &Oxford, 1995; Lai, 2009; Magogwe & Oliver, 2007).
According to Oxford (1990), cognitive strategies are crucial for language learning. Employing cognitive
strategies enhances language practice and this is essential for learning a language. Through practice, learners
develop competencies in different aspects of English and they are more likely to internalise the language
through integrating it to everyday life by carrying out activities such as watching English programmes or films,
reading English books, and studying on pronunciation. Considering the participants of the present study, as a
result of dealing with English only in classroom, less experienced learners regard English solely as a course
rather than a language and this hinders using cognitive strategies.
Compensation strategies are the other type of strategies that were employed significantly greater by Level 3
students. Yalçın (2006), who compared strategy uses of students who had taken and who had not taken
preparatory class at high schools, also found significant differences in the use of compensation strategies. In
essence, compensation strategies are different in nature. As maintained by Dörnyei (1995), these strategies do
not address language learning but language production. Therefore, compensation strategies are closely related
to communication strategies which are used to overcome communication difficulties in spoken language
(Dörnyei & Scott, 1997). The present study illustrated that dealing with different aspects of English result in
greater use of compensation strategies.
Another strategy type that the participants differed was social strategies. However, contrary to other
categories, social strategies employed by less experienced learners and significant differences were found not
only between Level 1 and Level 2 but also between Level 2 and Level 3. This result parallels Magogwe and
Oliver’s study (2007), who concluded that social strategies are deployed more by less proficient learners. This is
probably because less experienced learners need more support. They reported to rely on other people who are
more competent in English through asking questions, cooperating, and empathizing. This is what Williams and
164
Burden (1997:133) term as ‘the involvement of significant others’. The greater use of social strategies by less
experienced learners may indicate their needs for assistance in language learning.
IMPLICATIONS
A number of useful implications for ELT field can be suggested considering the findings of the present study.
Firstly, this study showed that learners with different educational backgrounds use language learner strategies
differently: learners who have experienced different aspects of English tend to use greater number of
strategies compared to learners solely focused on structural aspects of the target language. To address this,
teachers should be aware of the needs of learners in using language strategies and appropriate teaching
procedures should be provided to develop learners’ ability to use varied language strategies.
Secondly, the findings of the study parallel earlier studies conducted in Turkey (e.g. Alptekin, 2007; Hiçyılmaz,
2006; Karahan, 2007; Razı, 2012; Yalçin 2006; Yılmaz, 2010), in that Turkish EFL learners are high users of
compensation and metacognitive strategies. This shows that learners mainly have problems in using the
language communicatively because, in broad perspective, compensation strategies serve the purpose of coping
with problems in speaking by means of communication strategies. Furthermore, compensation strategies were
found to significantly differentiate more experienced learners and less experienced learners. Considering the
differences of participants in language educational backgrounds, this may indicate that, dealing with different
aspects of language lead to the development of ability to use compensation strategies. For that reason, rather
than solely dealing with the structural aspects of English, language classes should also focus on communicative
aspect of the target language. It is therefore recommended that less experienced learners’ weaknesses in using
compensation strategies should be considered in classes and teachers should take into account their needs to
learn and use strategies while using English communicatively.
Thirdly, despite common belief in the literature (Green & Oxford, 1995; O’Malley and Chamot, 1990), the
majority of strategy research studies in Turkish context support that high metacognitive strategy use do not
lead to the high use cognitive strategies. Moreover, the data yielded by this study revealed that gaining
experience in language learning results in higher use of cognitive strategies. The less dependence on cognitive
strategies may be problematic for less experienced language learners because cognitive strategies are directly
related to specific learning tasks (Brown, 1987) and allow for practising the language which enables learners to
use and produce the target language (Oxford, 1990). This should be one of the major concerns of English
language teachers in Turkey and appropriate teaching procedures should be presented to provide learners with
the opportunity of using their cognitive skills in learning English.
Lastly, this study revealed a disconnection between language experience and the use of social strategies. This is
probably because less experienced learners needs more support, and therefore, they tend to rely on other
people more. More experienced learners, on the other hand, are better at controlling their own learning. To
address these, teachers should consider learners' characteristics and less experienced learners should actively
take part in the learning process.
CONCLUSIONS
This study was designed to investigate possible differences in language learner strategy use of learners with
different language learning backgrounds. The results portrayed the strategy repertoire of Turkish EFL learners
and statistically significant differences were found in strategy choice.
The present study confirmed that Turkish EFL learners rely more on compensation and metacognitive
strategies. However, the high use of metacognitive strategies was not congruent with the use of cognitive
strategies. Additionally, this study concluded that more experienced learners use compensation and cognitive
strategies significantly more than less experienced learners. On the other hand, less experienced learners’
social strategy use were significantly higher than more experienced learners.
165
Although this study goes beyond previous research studies by addressing different perspectives of strategy
research, it also posed a number of limitations. This study was conducted in Turkish context, and therefore, it is
difficult to generalise the findings into other contexts. However, readers and researchers can compare the
research context with their own context and see the relevance of the findings and implications. The study was
conducted at a particular university in Turkey. For that reason, it is difficult to assure that the sample
represents the characteristics of Turkish EFL learners at other universities. The study also reported of the
findings of one data collection method. Further research is needed employing multiple data collection tools. It
is also recommended to conduct qualitative studies which will be useful to gain more insight into the use of
learner strategies.
BIODATA AND CONTACT ADDRESS OF THE AUTHOR
Mehmet Sercan UZTOSUN is a research assistant at English Language Teaching
Department, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. His current research interests focus on
teaching speaking through student negotiation, action research methodology, language
learning strategies, and communication strategies.
Research Assistant Dr. Mehmet Sercan UZTOSUN
Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University
Anafartalar Campus C1-205
17100 Çanakkale, TURKEY
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168
THE COMPARISION OF 54-66 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN’S READINESS FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL
DURING PRESCHOOL PERIOD AND THEIR ADAPTATION TO PRIMARY SCHOOL
Assist. Prof. Dr. Özgül POLAT
Marmara University Atatürk Education Faculty
Preschool Teacher Education
Istanbul, TURKEY
Inst. Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU
Istanbul, TURKEY
Inst. Şennur SOHTORIKOĞLU NIRAN
Istanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Fatma Özge ÜNSAL
Istanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ
Istanbul, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
The preparation process of children for primary school can only be effective by means qualified education in
which necessary pre skills in every zone of development are supported. This preparation process also makes
children’s social adaptation to primary school environment easier. For this reason, the purpose of this study is
to compare children’s social adaptation when they start primary school by identifying their readiness for
primary school. The participants of the study are 54-66 months old 22 students who attended Prof. Dr. Ayla
Oktay’s Preschool Education Application Unit during 2012-2013 academic year. Children’s readiness level for
primary school in 2012-2013 academic year was assessed by Marmara Scale of Readiness for Primary School. At
the beginning of 2013-2014 academic year, the same students’ adaptation levels to the school they attended
was measured by School Social Behavior Scale. The data obtained were interpreted by comparison.
Key Words: Preschool education, readiness for primary school, adaptation to primary school, social adaptation.
169
INTRODUCTION
When an individual starts primary school, an important phase begins for her educational life. One of the most
important criteria for a child to improve in this phase is to have the necessary and sufficient readiness level in
all development phases for primary school education. Meisels emphasizes that readiness for school must be
regarded as “process that occurs over time and is not complete by the first day of Kindergarten”. He states
that readiness for school is more than a checklist of skills and conceptual knowledge and more than a set of
behaviors that are compliant in the classroom. Meisels keynoted that readiness incorporates all aspects of a
child’s life that affect child’s ability to learn and is focused on relations which means relations among children,
parents and educators are important during the transition period to school (Dockette & Perry, 2002). Parallel
to Meisels, according to Polat readiness for school is the state when children reach to a maturity level in which
they can fulfill what is expected from them at primary school by supporting them in each development phase
equally throughout the period that the child is continuing pre-school education (Polat, 2010).
What are expected from a child who has just started school different from the child’s home environment are to
join tasks that are necessities of his first programmed education, to obey the rules within a discipline plan, to
follow the instructions of the teacher, to behave in the frame of some basic rules, to leave his/her mother
easily, to communicate with his friends, to fulfill his own self-care needs and most importantly to learn subject
matters such as reading-writing, arithmetic. (Polat Unutkan,2006 ). Whereas some children can succeed this
transition easily, some of them need more support to achieve. They have difficulties in leaving their mothers on
the first day of school, entering classroom and following what is said in the classroom. The children who have
trouble in getting used to their friends and teachers need more time, more understanding and help than the
others to adapt the school and class atmosphere (Oktay, 2004). Maturity or readiness concept needs to be
dealt with caution at this point. However, it is known that the children who received a good pre-school
education adapt the school better. The Ministry of National Education describes its one of the basic purposes
of pre-school education as preparing a child to primary school; pre-school education programs are prepared in
line with this purpose. Preparing children to primary school, creating a common education atmosphere for
children who came from unfavorable environment or families, make the children who receive preschool
education more advantages in their readiness for primary school (M.E.B.,2013). In other words, a successful
pre-school period makes readiness for primary school and academic success and passing primary school easier.
(Liubica, Simona & Katia, 2008; Gürkan,1979; Görmez, 2007).
Social skills that are acquired in pre-school education period are important because for children who pass from
pre-school to primary school first grade this process necessitates leaving game childhood and becoming a
student of an education process with rules and this is highly stressful. Besides behavioral, cognitive, socioemotional and physical worries, new tasks and a difficult social environment emerge as the factors that
complicate this transition. (Fox, Dunlap & Cushing, 2002). Because of these reasons, readiness process require
readiness not only for children but also for their parents, schools and the social environment that the child is in.
Moreover, primarily basic health controls (physical examination, eye examination etc.) should be held and
should be waited until the child reach a certain degree of social, emotional, cognitive, motor and language
maturity (Polat, 2010).
In the light of this information the purpose of this study is to compare social adaptation of children who
attended Marmara University Prof. Dr. Ayla Oktay’s Preschool Education Application Unit during 2012-2013
academic year when they start primary school by identifying their readiness for primary school.
METHOD
Research Design
In this research study, the single screening model, which is a type of general screening model, was applied.
Research models conducted for the identification of the variables are called as single screening models. By
means of single screening models, temporal developments and changes can also be identified. Such research
170
studies are called as longitudinal research studies carried out by means of observations and cross-sectional
approaches. In observations, the variable, whose temporal development and change is to be specified, is
observed focusing on the same elements or units either continuously or at regular intervals starting from a
certain point (Karasar, 2005). This study is a longitudinal study aiming to follow the social adaptation process of
primary school children in the 2013-2014 academic year after they attended the Marmara University Prof. Dr.
Ayla Oktay Pre-school Education Unit in the 2012-2013 academic year.
Population
The population of the study was comprised of children who completed Marmara University Prof. Dr. Ayla Oktay
Pre-school Education Unit in the 2012-2013 academic year and started primary school in the 2013-2014
academic year. Among the total number of 21 children, 8 were female (38%) and the remaining 13 were male
(62%).
6 of the children (29%) received two years and 15 of them (71%) received 3 years of pre-school education. 6
children who received 2 years of pre-school education were born between January-March 2008; 15 children
who received 3 years of pre-school education were born between April- December 2007. 5 of the children
(24%) started to kinder garden at their schools, 1 of them (5%) settled in another country, 15 of them (71%)
started first grade. The data of 10 of 15 children who started first grade (48%) could be obtained for
longitudinal study from their teachers.
Data Collection Instruments
Marmara Primary School Readiness Test (MPRT): The test was developed by Özgül Polat Unutkan in 2003 as a
part of her PhD thesis. The scale was designed and standardized specifically for Turkish children so as to reveal
to what extent 60-78-month-old children are ready for the primary school in terms of basic skills and each
developmental area included in the scale. The Scale includes two forms that are the Application form and the
Development form. The item total, item remaining and discriminant analysis of the scale yielded significant
results at the level of p<. 001. The confirmatory factor analysis and the validity analysis of the scale were
carried out using the data collected from 1002 children. The Cronbach α value of the Development form was
found to be .982 while the Cronbach α value of the Application Form was found to be .930. The Application
form is comprised of 5 parts as mathematics, science, sound, drawing and the labyrinth and 74 questions. The
questions were prepared in line with application areas needed by the children for the preparation for the
primary school. The responses given by the children were scored as (1) if they were correct and (0) if they were
incorrect. On the other hand, the Development form includes 4 sub-scales that are mind and language
development, socio-emotional development, physical development, and self-care skills as well as 175 items.
Each item designed to be filled by teachers or parents has four possible responses related to the frequency of
the behavior displayed by the child: always (3 points), often (2 points), sometimes (1 point) and never (0 point).
(Unutkan Polat, 2003).
School Social Behavior Scales (SSBS): School Social Behavior Scales were developed by Kenneth W. Merrell in
1993 and translated into Turkish by Yüksel (2009). Aiming to evaluate the levels of social skills of pre-school and
primary school children, the scales designed in line with the five-point Likert model is comprised of 65 items. As
a result of the linguistic equivalence analysis, each item was found to be significantly related to one another at
the level of p<.001. The item total, item remaining and discriminant analysis of the scale revealed significant
results at the level of p<.001. The confirmatory factor analysis and the validity analysis of the scale were done
using the data collected from 467 students and teachers. The Cronbach α value for both sub-scales was found
to be .98. School Social Behavior Scales is comprised of two sub-scales that are social competence and negative
social behavior. The Social Competence sub-scale includes three sub-dimensions, such as interpersonal
relationship, self-control skill and academic skills while the Negative Social Behaviors sub-scale has three subdimensions that are assailant-angry, antisocial-aggressive and destructive-demanding.
Application
The data was collected from children attending the Pre-school Education Unit in the 2012-2013 academic year.
The social skills of the children were identified through the “School Social Behavior Scales” (SSBS). On the other
171
hand, “Marmara Primary School Readiness Test” (MPRT) was focused on to assess children’s readiness for
primary.
The assessment of the children during the pre-school period was carried out in April, 2013 while their social
skills at the primary school was investigated by means of the SSBS in the first term of the 2013-2014 academic
year. The scales were administered in 6 months intervals. By this means, the changes and developments of the
children participating in this study were observed during six months.
The applications throughout the pre-school period were carried out by their classroom teachers while the
primary school applications were done by their classroom teachers at the primary school they were attending
at that time.
Data Analysis
The data obtained was analyzed using the SPSS 16.0 statistical package program. The relationship between
children’s level of social behavior at school and their readiness for primary school as well as the relationship
between their social skills in pre-school and primary school were investigated by means of the Spearman’s Rho
Correlation analysis. Simple linear regression analysis was administered to identify the effect of school maturity
as an indicator of social adaptation in primary school. The significance of the data gathered for the study was
tested at the level of .05 .
FINDINGS
Table 1: Spearman’s Rho Correlation Analysis Done to Identify the Relationship between the Scores of Subdimensions of the MPRT and Scores of SSBS Applied in Pre-school
Spearman's rho
Pre-school
Pre-school
Pre-school
SC
SSB Total
SSBS Total
Math
Science
Vocal
Drawing
Labyrinth
Implication
Cognitive and Lang.
Skills
Spearman's rho
R
,286
-,082
,335
P
,209
,723
,138
N
21
21
21
*
R
,141
-,467
-,099
P
,542
,033
,669
N
21
21
21
R
,064
-,149
-,015
P
,782
,518
,950
N
21
21
21
R
*
,454
-,376
,251
P
,039
,093
,273
N
21
21
21
R
,424
-,305
,272
P
,056
,179
,232
N
21
21
21
R
,386
-,283
,305
P
,084
,214
,179
N
21
21
21
Pre-school
SC
Pre-school
SSB Total
Pre-school
SSBS Total
172
Math
Science
Vocal
R
,286
-,082
,335
P
,209
,723
,138
N
21
21
21
,141
-,467
-,099
P
,542
,033
,669
N
21
21
21
,064
-,149
-,015
P
,782
,518
,950
N
21
21
21
,454
*
-,376
,251
R
R
*
Drawing
R
Çizgi çalışmaları
P
,039
,093
,273
N
21
21
21
,424
-,305
,272
P
,056
,179
,232
N
21
21
21
,386
-,283
,305
P
,084
,214
,179
N
21
21
21
-,295
,519
Labyrinth
Implication
Cognitive and Lang.
Skills
Socio-Emotional
Physical
Self-Care
Developmental
R
R
R
**
,563
*
P
,008
,193
,016
N
21
21
21
-,365
,428
R
**
,590
P
,005
,104
,053
N
21
21
21
,468
*
-,222
,411
P
,032
,334
,064
N
21
21
21
,402
-,368
,164
P
,071
,101
,476
N
21
21
21
-,338
,481
r
r
r
**
,573
*
173
P
,007
,134
,027
N
21
21
21
As can be realized from the table, the relationship between the scores of MPRT’s “drawing” and the scores of
the “social competence” sub-scale of the SSBS applied in pre-school (r=,454; p<.05) was found to be statistically
significant at the level of p<.05 and positively meaningful. The same is also true for the relationship between
the scores of the MPRTS’s Mind and Langeage sub-dimension and the scores obtained from the “social
competence” (r=,563; p<.01) and for the total score of the SSBS (r=.519; p<.05).
The relationship between the scores of MPRT’s “socio-emotional” and the scores of the “social competence”
sub-scale of the SSBS applied in pre-school (r=,590; p<.01) was found to be statistically significant at the level of
p<.01 and positively meaningful; between scores of MPRT’s “physical” and the scores of the “social
competence” sub-scale of the SSBS applied in pre-school (r=,468; p<.05) was found to be statistically significant
at the level of p<.01 and positively meaningful.
The relationship between the scores of MPRT’s “developmental” and the scores of the “social competence”
sub-scale of the SSBS applied in pre-school (r=,573; p<.01) and for the total score of the SSBS (r=,481; p<.05).
Table 2: Spearman’s Rho Correlation Analysis Done to Identify the Relationship between the Scores of Subdimensions of the MPRT and Scores of SSBS Applied in Primary School
Spearman's rho
Math
Science
Vocal
Drawing
Labyrinth
Primary School SC
Primary School SSB
Primary School
SSBS Total
r
,763*
-,138
,763*
P
,010
,704
,010
N
10
10
10
r
,381
-,208
,195
P
,278
,564
,589
N
10
10
10
r
,379
,094
,429
P
,280
,796
,216
N
10
10
10
r
,325
-,507
-,033
P
,359
,135
,929
N
10
10
10
r
,580
-,737*
,193
P
,079
,015
,593
N
10
10
10
174
Implication
Cognitive and Lang.
Skills
Socio-Emotional
Physical
Self-Care
Developmental
r
,854**
-,286
,738*
P
,002
,423
,015
N
10
10
10
r
,651*
-,215
,563
P
,041
,550
,090
N
10
10
10
r
,673*
-,414
,456
P
,033
,234
,186
N
10
10
10
r
,682*
-,563
,391
P
,030
,090
,263
N
10
10
10
r
,511
-,488
,429
P
,131
,152
,216
N
10
10
10
r
,704*
-,306
,595
P
,023
,390
,070
N
10
10
10
As can be understood from the table, the relationship between the scores of MPRT’s “Math” and the scores of
the “social competence” sub-scale of the SSBS applied at the primary school was found to be statistically
significant at the level of p<.01 and positively meaningful (r=,763; p<.01). The same case also applies the
relationship between the scores of the MPRTS’s math sub-dimension and the scores obtained from the total
score of the SSBS (r=,763; p<.01).
The same is also true for the relationship between the scores of the MPRTS’s Implication Dimension and the
scores obtained from the “social competence” (r=,854; p<.01) and for the total score of the SSBS (r=,738;
p<.01).
The relationships between the scores of the “social competence” sub-scale of the SSBS applied at the primary
school and the scores of MPRT’s “Mind and Languages” (r=,651; p<.05); “Physical” (r=,682; p<.05);
“Developmental” (r=,704; p<.05) were found to be statistically significant at the level of p<.05 and positively
meaningful.
175
Table 3: Spearman’s Rho Correlation Analysis Done to Identify the Relationship of the Scores of the SSBS and its
Sub-tests Applied in Pre-school with the Scores of the SBSS and its Sub-tests Applied at Primary School
Spearman's rho
Pre-School
SC
Pre-School
SSB
Pre-school
SSBS Total
Primary
School
SC
Primary
School
SSB
Primary
School
SSBS Total
Pre-school
SC
Pre-school
SSB
Pre-school
SSBS Total
Primary
School SC
Primary
School SSB
Primary
School
SSBS Total
R
1,000
-,434*
,894**
,892**
-,545
,702*
P
.
,049
,000
,001
,103
,024
N
21
21
21
10
10
10
*
*
R
-,434
1,000
-,126
-,201
,732
,142
P
,049
.
,588
,577
,016
,696
N
21
21
21
10
R
**
,894
,720
-,276
,683
,019
,440
,029
10
10
10
,588
.
N
21
21
21
,892
*
1,000
,000
R
10
-,126
P
**
10
*
*
-,201
,720
1,000
-,394
**
,881
P
,001
,577
,019
.
,260
,001
N
10
10
10
10
10
10
*
R
-,545
,732
-,276
-,394
1,000
,013
P
,103
,016
,440
,260
.
,972
N
10
10
10
10
10
10
,013
1,000
R
*
*
**
,702
,142
,683
P
,024
,696
,029
,001
,972
.
N
10
10
10
10
10
10
,881
The table above shows that there is a positively meaningful and a statistically significant relationship at the
level of p<.05and negatively meaningful between the scores of the SSBS’s “social competence” sub-scale
applied in pre-school and the “negative social behaviors” sub-scale (r=-,434; p<.05). The scores of the SSBS’s
“social competence” sub-scale was also found to be significantly and positively related to the total scores of the
SSBS (r=,894; p<.01); to the “social competence” scores of the SSBS applied at primary school (r=,892; p<.01);
and to the total scores of the SSBS (r=,702; p<.05).
The scores obtained from the SSBS’s “negative social behaviors” sub-scale applied in pre-school were found to
be statistically (p<.05) and positively related to the scores obtained from the “negative social behaviors” subscale (r=,732; p<.05).
On the other hand, the total scores obtained from the SSBS administered in primary school were found to be
statistically (p<.01) and positively related to “social competence” sub-scale administered at pre school (r=,892;
p<.01); to to the total scores of SSBS (r=,720; p<.05) and to the total scores of SSBS administerede at primary
school (r=,881; p<.01).
176
Table 4: The Results of the Regression Analysis Showing Whether the School Readiness for Mathematics Levels
of Children who Received Pre-school Education Predict Their Levels of School Social Behavior at Primary School
β
t
p
R²
F
P
Modal 1
Regression
126,530
8,846 ,000
,563
10,318 ,012
Math
,751
3,212 ,012
As can be realized in Table 4, as a result of the regression analysis applied to identify the extent to which the
MPRT Math Sub-Scale can justify the total score of the SSBS (F=10,318; p<,01), the model was found to be
significant. Thus, the predictive power of MPRT Math Sub-Scale predicting the “the total scores of the SSBS
2
(R =,563; p<.01) was found to be significant. School readiness for Math justifies around 56% of the social
competence levels of the children who started primary school after receiving pre-school education.
Table 5: The Results of the Regression Analysis Showing Whether the School Readiness for Implication Levels of
Children who Received Pre-school Education Predict Their Levels of School Social Behavior at Primary School
(PS)
β
t
p
R²
F
P
Modal 1
Regression
119,345
6,857 ,000
,535
9,220 ,016
Implication
,732
3,036 ,016
MPRT Implication Scale can justify the total score of the SSBS (F=9,220; p<,05), the model was found to be
significant. Thus, the predictive power of MPRT Implication Scale predicting the “the total scores of the SSBS
2
(R =,535; p<.01) was found to be significant. School readiness for Implıcations justifies around 53% of the social
competence levels of the children who started primary school after receiving pre-school education.
Table 6: The Results of the Regression Analysis Showing Whether the School Readiness for Mind and Language
Levels of Children who Received Pre-school Education Predict Their Levels of School Social Behavior at Primary
School
β
t
p
R²
F
P
Modal l 1
Regression
-16,970
-,229 ,824
,447
6,457 ,035
Mind and language
,668
2,541 ,035
MPRT Mind and Language sub-scale can justify the total score of the SSBS (F=6,457; p<,05), the model was
found to be significant. Thus, the predictive power of MPRT Mind and Language predicting the “the total scores
2
of the SSBS (R =,447; p<.01) was found to be significant. School readiness for Implıcations justifies around 45%
of the social competence levels of the children who started primary school after receiving pre-school
education.
Table 7: The Results of the Regression Analysis Showing Whether the School Readiness Levels of Children who
Received Pre-school Education Predict Their Levels of School Social Behavior at Primary School
β
t
p
R²
F
P
Modal 1
Regression
41,937 ,760
,469
,407
5,494 ,047
Developmental
,638
2,344 ,047
MPRT Developmental Scale can justify the total score of the SSBS (F=5,494; p<,05), the model was found to be
significant. Thus, the predictive power of MPRT Developmental Scale predicting the “the total scores of the
2
SSBS (R =,407; p<.05) was found to be significant. School readiness for Implıcations justifies around 40% of the
social competence levels of the children who started primary school after receiving pre-school education.
177
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study is to compare children’s social adaptation when they start primary school by
identifying their readiness for primary school. The findings are discussed below in the research questions order.
The results of the statistical analysis yielded that readiness for school of 54-66 months old children is an
effective factor in primary school social adaptation. A significant correlation was observed between School
Social Adaptation scores in pre-school and primary school and social competence, negative social behaviors
and SSBS total scores. Besides, having a higher readiness level to primary school in pre-school period affects
primary school social skills positively and consequently these children adapt primary school quicker.
It has been reported by many researchers that receiving education to develop social skills during pre-school
period affects social emotional development and readiness for school positively (Powless & Eliot, 2002 Metin,
1999; Ayhan, 1998; Unutkan, 2003; Boz, 2004; Atılgan, 2001; Başal, 1998). Bracken, Stacey and Storch (2007),
examined the readiness for school of children with social skills and behavior problems. Social skills of children
who has received pre-school education as from four years old and have social skills and behavioral problems
have improved during pre-school education. It has been stated that linguistic and mathematics skills also have
developed and became ready for school. Yüksel et all (2013) indicate that social skills and abilities are effective
in children to start school. Uğur (1998) found out that the children who joined kinder garden in private and
state schools have higher socialization grades compared to children who didn’t receive any pre-school
education. . Gürkan (1979), Yazıcı (2002) and Balat Uyanık (2003),indicated that in first grade children who
received pre-school education were in better condition in terms of mental, social, emotional development,
skills and interests, physical development and health and were adaptive and successful with regards to social
behaviors compared to children who didn’t get any pre-school education. According to Özbek (2003) study
results, there is a significant relationship between first graders who received pre-school education and first
graders who didn’t in terms of social skills that are need to be gained in primary school which are initiating a
relationship and sustaining it, working in groups, skills related to emotions, skills to handle stressful events,
planning, problem solving skills, managing self-control in favor of pre-school education group. In addition, it has
been proven by several researches that emotional maturity of a child, language improving acvities at home and
school, cognitive activities are important for a successful school start (Unutkan, 2003).
This study’s other findings; MPRT Math sub-scale, Implication Scale, Mind Langduages Sub-scales and
Developmental Scale justifies the social competence levels of the children who started primary school after
receiving pre-school education. Akşin (2013) investigated the relation between children’s sense of self and their
readiness for primary school; the results of the study yielded a positive correlation between children’s selfconfidence and since of self, and their success in mathematical studies. To put it in a different way, it was
observed that the higher a child has a self-confidence and total sense of self scores, the better he becomes at
mathematical studies. Wang and Lin (2008) also compared sense of self of children who studies in China and
the United States of America and their mathematical success, and found out that ,in both countries a positive
relation was obtained between sense of self and mathematical success as a result of anaysis conducted in these
countries. Adıbelli (2011) stated that in the report that was prepared together with 52 teachers who were
teaching first graders in Merzifon District by Merzifon District National Education Directorate it is reported that
common traits of the children who didn’t receive pre-school educaiton are having poor skills in expressing
themselves, adapting school environment late, underdeveloped hand skills, undeveloped communicaiton skills,
having problems with self-confidecne, over dependent to their familaies and shy, having difficultires in
understaning concepts, having problems with their self care. Yenilmez and Kakmacı (2008) suggest that
individuals with higher reaidness levels understand concept quicker and can comment on the subject matter.
Since the individual learns the subject and concepts related to that subject can do homework easily, since he
learns the previour subject well he can become ready for the next subject matter. For this reason, an
individual’s physical needs should be catered and the love and attention that an indivual needs amotionally
should be given so that he can have a higher level of readiness (Akt:Harman ve Çelikler; 2011).
178
SUGGESTIONS
The suggestions proposed based on the reserah findings;
• Pre-school education is an important process that need to be supported since it affects children’s social,
cognitive, emotional, physical and self-care skills positively. It is important that pre-school education
especially in rural areas and areas in which socioeconomically low-income families live should be extended
so that the inequalities in term of readiness for school throughout turkey can be destroyed.
• Instead of using the chronologic age as the only criteria to start primary school, children should take a
nationalized and compulsory readiness tests in our country. Children’s readiness level to primary school
can be identified and children who aren’t ready should be supported in terms of the specific fields of
development they have not fully developed and it should be determined whether they need to have one
or more year of preschool education.
• To raise awareness by preparing seminars, radio and TV broadcasts, families can be made aware of the
fact that what is important is children should start school when they are ready, not as soon as possible.
• In pre-school education facilities, the activities that support social skills such as cooperating, controlling
themselves, enterprise, problem solving, empathy and activities that support the relationship between the
same age groups should be integrated.
• In pre-school period, the activities related to readiness should be inserted as classroom activities.
Dr.Özgül POLAT ia an Assistant Professor in in the Department of Primary Education, Preschool Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University. Her
researh interest include school readiness, early childhood education programme, familiy
education, writing and reading in primary school and development of children capacity in
early years.
Assist.Prof .Dr. Özgül POLAT
Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Implementation Unit
Istanbul, TURKEY
Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU is a instructor in the Department of Primary Education, Preschool Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University. She is in
carge of managing the Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Unit. She completed her
undergraduate and master education in Department of Pre-school Teaching and still
registered to doctorate program therein. Her researh interest include early childhood
education programme, visual and auditorial perception children, teaching tecnologies and
material design in pre-school education.
Ins. Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU
Istanbul, TURKEY
179
Şennur SOHTORİKOĞLU NİRAN is a instructor in the Department of Primary Education,
Pre-school Teaching Department at Atatürk EDUCATİON Faculty, Marmara University. She
is in carge of managing the Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Unit. She completed
her undergraduate and master education in Department of Pre-school Teaching. Her
researh interest include early childhood education programme, educational drama.
Ins. Şennur SOHTORİKOĞLU NİRAN
Istanbul, TURKEY
Fatma Özge ÜNSAL has been working as a research assistant in the Department of Primary
Education, Pre-school Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara
University. She completed her undergraduate and master education in Department of Preschool Teaching and still registered to doctorate program therein. She specially focused on
socio-emotional development, behavioral problems and urban awaireness in early
childhood.
Res.Assist. Fatma Özge ÜNSAL
Marmara University Atatürk Education Faculty,
Prof.Dr.Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Implementation Unit
İstanbul- TURKEY
E..Mail: [email protected]
Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ has been working as a research assistant in the Department of Primary
University. She is in carge of teaching the Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Unit. She
specially focused on early childhood education programme and family involvement in early
childhood.
Res.Assist. Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ
İstanbul- TURKEY
E..Mail: [email protected]
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MOTIVATION, LEARNER IDENTITY AND LANGUAGE LEARNING
Hakan TARHAN
TOBB University of Economics and Technology
Ankara, TURKEY
Sena BALBAN
Ankara University
Ankara, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
This case study was conducted at a state university in Turkey. The participants were 9 students from the same
classroom consisting of 24, registered in the English Preparatory Program at Ankara University. The main
methods of the of data collection were a survey adapted from Gardner’s (2004) Attitude/ Motivation Battery
Test and the interviews conducted based on the results of the survey. In this study, we aimed to explore the
context-based relationship among motivation, learner identity and second language acquisition in the given
context. The findings indicated that learners possessing integrative and instrumental motivation in line with
their ideal self and ought-to self invested into the target language more, compared to the learners having only
instrumental motivation towards the target language.
Key Words: Motivation, identity, learner investment.
INTRODUCTION
For around 3 decades, the sociocultural theory has been regarded as one of the most respected philosophical
frameworks in education and in foreign language teaching besides many other fields such as medicine or
business management (Schoen, 2011). According to the sociocultural perspective, learning process can be
defined as a dynamic and complex social activity structured in and through the physical and social context;
therefore, highly affected from people, tools and activities (Johnson, 2009). In contrast to the behaviourist
theories of learning, Sociocultural theory (SCT) suggests that social life is the base of higher level of human
cognition, which, in return, encourages the researchers to study the relationship among human mental
functioning, culture, institutional and historical settings.
In SCT, individuals, their behaviours, former learning experiences and learner identities come forward in the
process of learning, which is perceived as the transformation of the self. Learning depends mostly on
individuals and their social context. In this respect, Johnson (2009) states the following:
How an individual learns something, what is learned, and how it is used will depend on the sum of the
individual’s prior experiences, the sociocultural context in which learning takes place, and what the individual
wants, needs, and/ or is expected to do with that knowledge.
(p.2)
Regarding Johnson’s (2009) claims, it can be argued that L2 identity and motivation can be used as a powerful
mean to explore the sociocultural context of learners and to examine language learning and discourse giving
power to speakers ( Miller, 2009). Although there are many terminologies used to discuss identity and its
implications; such as, social identity, ethnic identity, cultural identity and so on, this study aims to address L2
identity to explore the relationship among motivation, negotiation of learner identity and second language
acquisition.
Norton (2000) defines identity as “how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that
relationship is constructed across time and space, and how that person understands possibilities for the future”
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(p.5), while Johnson (2003) argues it as “relational, constructed and altered by how I see others and how they
see me in our shared experiences and negotiated interactions” (p.788). As it is seen, identity is a dynamic
construct negotiated by individuals in a social setting rather than a state attained or reached. In this sense, L2
can be seen as a social formation necessary to negotiate meaning about self within a social context used as a
tool to organize one’s former and current experiences for knowledge. For this reason, the concept potentially
can serve researchers and educators to further explore how internalization process of knowledge takes place in
relation to individual’s participation in the social interaction (Falsafi, 2010).
Motivation
The role of motivation in second language acquisition field has been a topic studied vastly by many researchers,
since understanding of motivational characteristic helps teachers to better address diverse individual learner
needs, and enables educators to adopt strategies to motivate learners (Salili & Hoosain, 2007). However, over
time, the theoretical framework examining the nature of learner motivation has changed. Especially, with the
globalization of the world, and the new status of English as an international language affected the learners’
motivation to learn a new language along with their needs (Ushioda & Dörnyei, 2009). For this reason, the
concept of L2 motivation has been in the process of reconceptualization by embracing other concepts such as
self and identity, in which motivation is seen as a part of learners’ identity.
Motivation has been regarded as a key element of language learning since the last three decades. While some
researchers questioned the importance of motivation in learning a language (Clement & Kruidenier, 1983),
some of them even argued that it is impossible for a motivated language learner not to learn the target
language with enough exposure to it (Corder, 1967). After this first recognition, the importance of L2
motivation attracted more attention especially after the early works of Gardner (Rubrecht & Ishikawa, 2012)
and, as a result, the concepts that attracted the widest attention in motivation research was put forward by
Gardner (1959). The first of these concepts was integrative orientation towards language learning, which is
defined as “reflecting a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the other group”
(Gardner & Lambert, 1972, p.132). To put it simply, a learner with integrative motivation ultimately desires
himself/herself to be regarded as a member of the community that has the target language as its native
tongue. For the validity of this process of social identification, the L2 learner “must be willing to identify with
members of another ethnolinguistic group and take on very subtle aspect of their behaviour” (Gardner &
th
Lambert, 1972, p.135). However, especially towards the end of the 20 century a debate about the relevance
of integrative motivation in L2 teaching after the spread of English as a global language (Dörnyei & Ushioda,
2009). After this new status of English language as a lingua franca, the number of people who used English for
communicative purposes even though none of them is a native speaker of English, increased considerably
(Graddol, 2006). That being the case, a lot of linguists started to question whether it is possible to accept the
existence of the concept of integrative motivation when there is no reference group to target (Dörnyei &
Ushioda, 2009). As a result, more than forty years after its introduction, Gardner (2001) re-characterised the
concept of integrative motivation as follows:
“Integrativeness reflects a genuine interest in learning the second language in order to come closer to the
other language community. At one level, this implies an openness to, and respect for other cultural groups and
ways of life. In the extreme, this might involve complete identification with the community (and possibly even
withdrawal from one’s original group), but more commonly it might well involve integration within both
communities.”(p. 5)
The other concept introduced by Gardner was the instrumental orientation towards learning a language, which
can be defined as learning a target language for practical reasons (Gardner & Lambert 1972). As Schmidt,
Boraie and Kassabgy (1996) put it “an instrumental orientation results from recognition of the practical
advantages of learning and is identified when learners say that they want to learn the target language to pass
examinations or for economic or social advancement (p. 10)”. While these two concepts of motivation are
sometimes regarded as mutually exclusive, this is not necessarily the case since it is possible for a learner of a
particular target language to have both integrative and instrumental orientations (Dörnyei, 1991).
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Identity and Learner Identity
Norton (2006) claims that the relationship between identity and language learning has been drawing attention
from the researchers since 1970s and 1980s. Drawing upon the distinction between “social identity” and
“cultural identity, which were seen as “the relationship between the individual and the larger social as
mediated through institutions such as families, schools, workplaces” and “ the relationship between an
individual and members of a particular ethnic group who are considered to share a common history, a common
language and similar ways of understanding the world”; respectively, Norton (2006) finds the diverse research
findings problematic (p.2). However, this distinction has been vaguer, since the concept of “sociocultural
identity” intertwined the similarities belonging to both concepts. In understanding identity, institutional and
contextual practices have outshined which shape language learners meaning construction socially and
dynamically. In this respect, a number of characteristics of sociocultural identity are put forward by Norton
(2006) by synthesizing the conceptualization of identity examined in various research designs. First of all,
identity is a dynamic construct changing across time and space constantly; therefore, it is complex and
multifaceted. It constructs and is constructed by language. Finally, it is affected by the social processes and
classroom practices (p.3).
Similarly, Dörnyei & Ushioda (2009) assert that with the rise of technology and globalisation, the characteristics
and motivations of second language learners have changed. Sociocultural diversity and communication
patterns encouraged researchers in examining self and identity, and notions like social identification and
ethnolinguistic identity come along with “the integrative concept”. Dörnyei (2005) explained the integrative
concept by drawing on the theory of “possible selves”. Possible selves consist of the “ideal self” and “ought-to
self” in “L2 Motivational Self System”. Ideal self is referred as “the representation of the attributes of someone
would ideally like to possess (i.e. a presentation of personal hopes, aspirations or wishes)”, while ought-to self
embodies “the attributes that one believes one ought to possess (i.e. a presentation of someone else’s sense of
duty, obligations or responsibilities)” (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2009, pp.3-4). In this regard, if the learners
accommodate the idea to be proficient in L2 in their ideal and ought-to self, they will be more motivated
towards the targeted language.
In a like manner, with regard to motivation and L2 identity, Norton (2000) refers to the term “learner
investment” explained as “socially and historically constructed relationship of learners to the target language,
and their often ambivalent desire to practice it” (p.10). As it is claimed, the more learners invest in a language,
the more opportunities they will have to construct cultural concepts and L2 identity. Nevertheless, she further
argues that it is not easy to distinguish the motivated and unmotivated features with clear L2 identities due to
the changing and contradictory nature of identity and motivation. In other words, even if learners invest in the
target language with different type of motivations in different amounts, depending on their ideal and ought-to
self, it can be still problematic to draw generalized and clear-cut conclusions about L2 identity. For these
reason, by referring on Dörnyei & Ushioda (2009) and Norton (2000), this study explored the contextdependent relationship of motivation and L2 identity in the given context.
Motivation and Learner Identity Research
The increasing role of motivation in second language acquisition attracted a lot of researchers. One of the most
notable examples of research on this subject was conducted by Dörnyei, Csizer, and Nemeth (2006) with
13,391 students learning five target languages (English, German, French, Italian, and Russian) in Hungary. First
of all, the study showed that the learners’ will to integrate themselves into the culture of the target language
was one of the most important components of motivation, which is a finding that is also supported by many
researchers including Gardner (1985) and Taguchi, Magid, and Papi (2009). Another important result was that,
the instrumentality of the target language was of crucial importance in motivating students into learning it. In
other words, if learners regard the target language as a means of reaching far better objectives such as finding
a better job, they are more likely be motivated. The effectiveness of integrative and instrumental factors is also
studied by Gardner and McIntyre (1991) in a research project in which they examined the impact of these
factors on learning new words. The results of the study showed that those with integrative and instrumental
motivation were much faster in learning new items. It is also mentioned in the Hungarian study that the
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learners’ attitudes toward the speakers and community of the second language is also quite important in
creating motivation. In addition to the attitude toward speakers of L2, Wesely (2009) found out that the
relationship between the teacher and peers are also quite influential in motivating students.
The works of Vygotsky and his theories of SCT (Sociocultural Theory) and AT (Activity Theory) have also been
influential in shedding more light on the importance of the relationship between motivation, language learning
and identity. Kim (2009) was particularly interested in finding answers for two main questions in her case
study: “(1) To what degree can the internalisation of the ought-to L2 self contribute to L2 learning motivation
and learning behaviour? (2) How does the learning goal influence the above two selves?” (p. 278) From the
perspective of Vygotskian theories. Within her study, she interviewed two Korean ESL students living in
Toronto. Even though, they were both male, almost at the same age and had similar educational backgrounds
they had different motivating factors for learning English and also differed considerably in their ideal L2 selves
and ought-to L2 selves. One of the most important findings of this study was that instrumentality of the
language learnt can be regarded both within the ideal L2 self or the ought-to L2 self with internalisation being
the differentiating factor. In other words, the more the learner internalizes the L2, the instrumental role of
language becomes a part of ought-to L2 self, but if s/he fails to internalize it, the instrumental factors will exist
within ideal L2 self. Another notable finding was that in order to envisage a positive and instrumental L2 self
the learner needs to form a bridge between his/her ideal L2 self and “life experiences in a variety of
communities” (p. 291).
With regard to the above discussion, this study aims to explore the dynamic and context-based relationship
among motivation, learner identity and second language acquisition. In this sense, this exploration may help
teachers to have a better understanding on how individual dynamics and constructs, motivation and identity,
influences the language learning. By this way, teachers can address the individual learner needs better. Finally,
the study can be of great help for educators to design or improve language learning programs supporting the
developments of individuals in all manners targeted, while enhancing our understanding of learning as a
socially constructed activity (Anwaruddin, 2012).
METHODOLOGY
Research Questions
Given the discussion and studies presented above, it can be seen clearly that motivation and identity have a
crucial role in second language acquisition. For this reason, we aim to answer the following questions:
1. What is the relationship between motivation and learner identity?
2. Do different types of motivation have an influence on learner identity negotiation?
3. What is the relationship between learner identity and second language acquisition?
Research Setting
The University and English Preparatory Program
This study was conducted in an elementary-level EFL classroom in an English Preparatory Program. The
program is designed for providing the students of the university with foreign language education at
contemporary level. It is one of the biggest and well- known public universities in Turkey and is located in
central Anatolia. Almost 40.000 students are enrolled to the university for undergraduate and graduate studies.
The medium of the instruction is Turkish; however, students enrolled to certain departments are required to
pass a proficiency exam by attending to the classes offered in the School of Foreign Languages. On the other
hand, for some students, the program is selective and the proficiency exam is not compulsory, as long as they
attend the classes. The classes usually requires two semesters of study. If the students, who are required to
receive a successful grade, fail to attain a certain proficiency level, it is compulsory to repeat the program until
receiving a satisfactory grade.
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The School of Foreign Languages provides classes in English approximately to 2000 students each year. The
students take a “placement test” to be grouped according to their test results based on the Common European
1
Framework of References for Languages
The program has five achievement criteria; namely, first semester achievement score, second semester
achievement score, coursework achievement score, spring semester proficiency exam score in addition to the
year-end achievement score mentioned above. Progress tests, quizzes, oral exams, oral presentations, reading
presentations, portfolios and class reports are used to calculate the first and second semester achievement
scores.
The A2 (Elementary) Class
The class took part in this study was one of the A2 (elementary) level classes in the School of Foreign
Languages. The main goal of the class was to provide the students with general English education along with
the four main language skills. There were 24 students (13 female, 11 male) in the classroom, and only for two
of them the year-end achievement test was optional. The students met in the same classroom every day. The
technological devices such as a projector, a speaker and a laptop computer with internet connection were
available to integrate communicative activities for active use. The classroom activities were gathered around
individual and group projects, oral presentations and quizzes besides the lectures. Like each A2 level class, the
context class had a standard curriculum and a book with 24 hours of classroom meeting per week for two
semesters.
Two main teachers were assigned to the class for the second semester. The first main teacher instructed for 11
hours per week, while the second teacher, the researcher, taught for 13 hours. In this respect, knowing the
students personally and observing the participants engagement to the classes provided valuable insight to the
researchers in interpreting the qualitative data.
Participants
This case study conducted with 9 students (6 female-3 male). They were chosen in relation to the highest and
lowest scores in the survey given to 24 students, who shared certain characteristics in terms of age,
educational background and the type of language education they receive. The 9 participants were grouped
under the three main criteria; general motivation, instrumental motivation and integrative motivation, and
some of them were placed under more than one group due to their scores. The pseudonyms and the groups of
the participants are as follows:
Table 1: The participants of the study for each group.
The Highests Means
General Motivation
Instrumental Motivation
Integrative Motivation
H1
Aslı
Gamze
Aslı
H2
Gamze
Melike
Kevser
H3
Kevser
Kevser
Gamze
L1
Ali
Bengü
Salih
L2
Başak
Başak
Ali
L3
Alper
Alper
Alper
The Lowest Means
1
http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/resources/european-language-levels-cefr
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Table 2: Demographic information of the participants having the highest means from the survey
Pseudonyms
Age
Gender
Compulsory proficiency
test
Aslı
18
Female
Yes
Gamze
18
Female
Yes
Kevser
18
Female
Yes
Melike
18
Female
Yes
Table 3: Demographic information of the participants having the lowest means from the survey
Pseudonyms
Age
Gender
Compulsory proficiency
test
Ali
18
Male
Yes
Başak
18
Female
Yes
Alper
18
Male
Yes
Bengü
18
Female
No
Data Collection Tools
The data collection tools of this study included a survey adapted from Gardner’s (2004) Attitude/ Motivation
Battery Test and individual interviews with the 9 participants. Based on the highest and lowest means in the
test in relation to the 3 main criteria, the participants were chosen for the interview. The data was gathered
through a mixed-method within this study in order to benefit from the best of both paradigms, quantitative
and qualitative methods, as Dörnyei (2007) suggests. By this way the bias and constraints researchers face in
selecting participants in qualitative and longitudinal studies, and with qualitative data collection methods; such
as observations, reflections and diaries, were tried to be overcome (Dörnyei, 2007).
The Survey
In order to reach the interviewees needed, the researchers applied a questionnaire to 24 participants studying
in the preparatory English program, after piloting the adapted survey to 5 students from a different class
sharing similar backgrounds. The questionnaire survey was used in order to elicit demographic information and
to find out the current types of motivation participants have toward second language learning. The
questionnaire items were adapted from Gardner’s (2004) Attitude/Motivation Battery Test in accordance with
the needs of the study. The items were translated into Turkish in order to prevent participants' language
proficiency from having any influence on the results.
The Interviews
9 of the participants were interviewed in order to have an understanding about the relationship between their
current types of motivation toward language learning and the L2 identities they construct. The interview
questions were prepared by the researchers and additional questions were directed when it was necessary for
further information (See appendix 6.2). The semi-structured interviews were conducted individually and in the
participants’ native language, Turkish, to encourage them to express themselves comfortably. All of the
interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed before the analysis by the researchers to be able master
everything stated. Denaturalized method was used for the transcriptions, because the main purpose of the
188
researchers was to explore the participants’ feelings and perspectives towards motivation and L2 identity,
rather than a discourse analysis.
Data Analysis
Quantitative Data Analysis
After the administration of the survey, the data collected through questionnaires were coded in SPSS. Next, the
questionnaire items were reverse coded in SPSS so that a strongly agree would indicate high motivation for
each item. First of all, the answers by the participants of the study were analysed under the categories of
general motivation towards the target language (included all the items), instrumental motivation towards the
target language (included items only about instrumental motivation), and integrative motivation towards the
target language (included items only about instrumental integrative) by calculating the arithmetic means for
every item in each category. According to the results of mean comparison, three of the participants with the
highest mean and another three with the lowest mean for each category were grouped together. After the
exclusion of overlaps, nine participants were identified for the interview.
Qualitative Data Analysis
For the analysis of the interviews, general inductive approach for qualitative data analysis was adopted on the
basis of the grounded theory by Strauss and Corbin (1990). In this process, recurring themes was defined by
analyzing the data gathered via the interviews by open coding. Using the constant comparison, common and
different patterns were identified in the data by moving back and forth, to categorize them under the recurrent
themes formed. Finally, an overall analysis was held among the themes to explore the relationship between
motivation and learner identity.
Limitations
This study accommodates two limitations within its body. First of all, generalization of the findings may not be
possible for bigger groups or contexts, since they are highly context-dependent dynamics under constant
change. However, the main goal of this study was to explore and shed light on the relevant context, in this
respect, the design and findings can be adapted for different settings. The second limitation arises due to the
time constraints that the study could not adopt a longitudinal approach. Because this study was conducted as a
requirement for a graduate course it had some limitations in terms of adequate time to collect the data and
analyse the findings in a much more detailed way.
FINDINGS
Participants with the Highest Motivation Scores as a Case
Aslı, Gamze, Kevser and Melike were the participants having the highest means in the questionnaire survey in
terms of general motivation, instrumental motivation and integrative motivation. They all had similar
educational backgrounds. Starting the L2 education during the 4th grade of the elementary school and
attending English classes since then, their programs were designed around proficiency in grammar without any
focus on communicative skills. English was able to serve them only as an instrument to pass exams with good
grades rather than a channel connecting them to the global world until the preparatory English program
started. In this respect, although they expressed some similar ideas in terms of their feelings towards English,
ideal selves, ought-to selves and learner investments, Aslı, Gamze and Kevser approached the target language
as a field they enjoyed to be involved socially in addition to the L2’s instrumental benefits, while Melike was
likely to invest in English as an instrument to achieve her ideal and ought-to selves.
Attitudes towards English and Learning English
For Aslı, who held the highest means in general motivation and integrative motivation, learning new languages
other than Turkish was a pursuit she had in her life. Since she was a little child, she liked foreign languages
quite a lot and preferred to attend a number of English classes even during the summer holidays. She stated
the following to underline her feelings towards English:
189
“Dile ilgim çok fazla. Küçükken, 4 ya da 5. sınıftayken, ailem beni “Anadolu Ateşi” dans grubuna yazdırmışlar,
orada yetişeyim diye. Ben ne olursunuz beni alın, dil kursuna yazdırın diye yalvarmışım. Yani İngilizceyi çok
seviyorum. Fransızca’ya aşırı bir ilgim var. Dili çok çok çok seviyorum.”
Like Aslı, Gamze had a strong integrative motivation towards the language, since she believed that English is
the lingua franca of our age, and to be able to know about different cultures and be a part of the global culture,
she started investing in the L2. Similarly, Kevser believed that English should be an important part of her life to
improve herself socially and professionally. For her, English had integrative and instrumental purposes as well
to have a better quality of life. Having strong motivation and commitment to learn the target language was
important to her. To mention this point Kevser said the following:
“İngilizce her şey için gerekli. Sonuçta hayatın bir parçası. En basitinden yurt dışına gitmek istiyorsun, gezmek
istiyorsun görmek için ama dil olmadığı için yapamıyorsun. Mesela onun haricinde iş için gerekli. Artık İngilizce
olmadan hiç bir şey olmuyor. Kariyerin için.. Kendini geliştirmek için....İstersek olur, istemezsek öğrenemeyiz.
Çünkü bir süre sonra insan sıkılıyor istese de sıkılıyor, ama hani sonuna kadar gayret edersek öğreniriz. Biz de
bitiyor iş.”
However, Melike did not show such a personal interest in English as Aslı, Gamze and Kevser did, and she
employed an instrumental stand towards English. She agreed that learning English was a must to be a part of
this world, and for her English was more of a tool to benefit from to be the knowledgeable one in the society
and in her profession, rather than a part of her identity or a social connector to the English culture. In this
regard, Melike stated the following:
“İngilizceyi kesinlikle öğrenmem gereken bir dil gibi görüyorum, mesleğim açısından. Hatta İngilizce değil başka
diller de öğrenmek istiyorum ama, faaliyet yok. Pek heves yok........Dil öğrenmek farklı bir şeydir bence ama,
hani farklı dilden insanlarla, onların aksanlarıyla konuşmak çok farklı bir his uyandırır ama, şu an onu
yapamadığım için pek bir şey diyemeyeceğim.Ama mutlaka öğrenilmesi gereken bir dil olarak görüyorum. İşim
gereği ve insanlarla olan iletişi artırmak için İngilizce öğreniyorum. Kültürel açıdan değil de, işim için”
The Ideal Self and Ought-to Self
Aslı’s, Gamze’s and Kevser’s possible selves were in line with the types of motivation they have been
constructing. Integrative and instrumental motivations they possessed within their L2 selves were serving their
ideal and ought-to selves, respectively. In other words, Aslı, Gamze and Kevser were investing into the
language, because English would help them to be open-minded and sophisticated people as they ideally desire,
while helping them to be one of the best in their respected fields for their ought-to selves. Gamze’s statements
about the place of English in attaining her ideal “socially knowledgeable” self and her ought-to “professional”
self is the following:
“İngilizceyi çok akıcı konuşan insanları gördüğümde çok imreniyorum açıkcası. Oradan gelen bir heves var. Ben
de onlar gibi konuşabilsem, yapabilsem. Çünkü o insanlar bana çok çok farklı insanlarmış gibi geliyor. Sonuçta
aynı şeyi düşünsek de onlar daha farklı insanlarla bunu paylaşabiliyorlar.Ama ben paylaşamıyorum mesela. O
yüzden benim için çok çok önemli İngilizce.”
“Şu an ortak dil İngilizce ve diğer insanlarla en azından kendi alanımda iletişime geçebilmek için, yaptıkları
projeleri ve yahutta onlarla irtibatta olabilmek için öğrenmek zorundayım. Aslında hepsi gelecekteki planlarım
üzerine kurulu. Ama tabi bunun yanında arkadaş edinme olabilir, kendini geliştirme olabilir...En azından bir
ortama girdiğinde kendini birazcık daha rahat hisseder. En azından ben öyle düşünüyorum.”
Melike differed from Aslı, Gamze and Kevser in terms of her motivation type. She placed the instrumental
motivation in her ideal and ought-to selves, while the others combined integrative and instrumental motivation
within their possible selves. Although she expressed her desire to travel abroad and meet new people and
cultures, she did not refer to any particular integrative motivation. English was necessary to attain her goals in
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life and and carry out her possible selves which were built on being successful in professional terms. Melike
remarked this point by mentioning the following about her ideal self and ought-to self:
“Bir şirketin en vazgeçilmez işçisi olmak. Valgeçilmez yani. Her şey de bana sorulacak gibisinden. İngilizce’nin
büyük bir yeri var bence. Bana bakacak olursanız, ben işim için İngilizce öğrenmek istiyorum. Yoksa öğrensem
ne olur, öğrenmesem ne olur.”
“Toplum içinde iyi bir yer edinmiş ve saygınlık kazanmış kişi olmak. Ailem için özellikle. Öğrenmemi zaten çok
istiyorlar. Saygın bir kişi olmak toplumda. Bunda İngilizcenin yeri büyük, çünkü saygın olabilmem için bir şirkette
güzel işler yapabilmem lazım, ki bu da İngilizce öğrenmeden olmaz.”
Learner Investment
Parallel to the motivation types the participants integrate into their possible selves, their efforts, “the
investment”, they put in learning the language and culture changed. The participants having integrative
motivation together with the instrumental motivation, Aslı, Gamze and Kevser, expressed that they studied
English regularly, even when it was not a part of the school work. Upon finishing the assignments or projects
given, those participants were encouraged to read stories in English, watch movies, listen to songs, translate
online newspapers and try to make friends that they can practice the language. Aslı gave the following points
as an example:
“Listening çok yapıyorum evde. Çünkü dinlemede çok hatam çıkıyor. Ve hocamıza çok alıştığım için onun
söyledikleri çok anlaşılır geliyor artık bana. Ama başkasından dinlediğimde, başkası konuştuğunda anlamıyorum
hiç bir şey, hiç bir şekilde. Bol bol dinleme yapmaya çalışıyorum. Onun dışında makale ya da gazete açıyorum
internetten. Onları çevirmeye çalışıyorum, hani kendim okuduğumda ne kadar anlayabiliyorum, çevirdiğimde
ne kadar doğru çevirebiliyorum diye. Onun dışında (gives a name of a book)’dan çeviri yapıyorum günde bir ya
da iki tane. Onun dışında da (gives a name of a university) web sitesine giriyorum, online çalışmak için. Onların
geçmiş yıllarının sınavlarına bakıyorum.”
In a similar manner, Gamze expressed that:
“Dile hakim olmak için genelde yabancı dizi ya da sinemalar, yani elimde olduğunca izlemeye çalışıyorum. En
azından İngilizce alt yazılı ve yahutta eğer gerçekten çok önceden beri izlediğim bir diziyse..Şu an mesela Türkçe
alt yazılı bir de İngilizce alt yazılı. Aslında karşılaştırma yaptığım da oluyor, hani nerede kaçırmışım, nerede
duymuşum. Ve yahutta hikaye kitapları, onları çevirmeye çalışıyorum.
Compared to Aslı, Gamze and Kevser, although getting one of the highest means in the motivation survey
under the instrumental motivation category, Melike said that she did not put any extra effort other in acquiring
the language and her inadequate vocabulary knowledge was the main reason behind this problem. About this
issue Melike mentioned the following:
“İngilizce öğrenmek için bir kaç kitap aldım ama, sadece aldım yani. Hiç bir şey yapmıyorum da denebilir. Ama
dersleri dinliyorum sadece. Sıkılıyorum işte, sözlüğe bakma sıkıntısı. Ve bir çok bilmediğim kelime olduğu için
artık sözlüğe bakmak beni yoruyor.”
Participants with the Lowest Motivation Scores as a Case
Salih, Bengü, Ali, Başak and Alper were the participants getting the lowest means from the questionnaire
survey in relation to the general, integrative and instrumental motivation criteria. Like the other participants of
the study, they started studying English starting from the 4th grade of elementary school and received an
education based on grammar. They never had the chance to practice the language neither with the native
speakers of English, nor with non-native speakers of English. For this reason, English was perceived as another
class they need to pass with good grades rather than an opportunity helping them to meet new cultures or
people. In this regard, especially for Başak and Alper who were quite unmotivated to learn English, it was
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nothing but a tool they have to possess to survive in the global world, while Bengü was the only one having
both instrumental and integrative motives in her perception.
Attitudes towards English and Learning English
Salih and Ali presented a similar attitude towards English with Melike, who was the only participant with the
instrumental motivation-only among the the highest-scored participants. English was crucial to them in terms
of its usefulness in finding a good job and being aware of the current dynamics of the world. They did not
express any personal interest towards the target culture or to the language itself. Salih said the following while
talking about his feelings and perception of English:
“Ülke sınırları dışına çıkacağım zaman beni Dünya’ya bağlayacak olan bir araç İngilizce. İngilizce öğrenmek ve
İngilizce konuşmak dünyaya açılan bir kapı. Ve benim için, ilerisi için, yani mezuniyet sonrası için, meslek ve
mesleğin ötesine kendimi yükseltebilmem için, bir yerlere gelebilmek için bir basamak olarak görüyorum.
Konuşurken şu an sıkılıyorum, ama bunun, hani, Türkiye’ye gelen yabancılardan gördüğüm kadarıyla, onlar
Türkçe’yi bu kadar hızlı öğrenebiliyor ve konuşabiliyorsa, dışarı çıktığımda da ben de sıkılmadan
konuşabileceğimi düşünüyorum.”
Likewise, Ali thought that he needed English just for finding a job but nothing else. However, when Başak and
Alper were talking about the matter, they underlined the fact that they were quite indifferent to English, to the
culture and learning the target language as well. Başak said that she felt “nothing” about English since she
started learning it and, currently, because she still had four more years until she graduated, she neither
thought nor cared about learning it. Like Başak, for Alper, the problem was not only his feelings about English,
but also his beliefs about the instrumentality of English for his profession.
Alper emphasized his thoughts about the issue as the following:
“Sevmedim İngilizce’yi hiç bir zaman. Çok yakın gelmedi, güzel de gelmedi. Grameri de güzel gelmedi,
ezberlemesi de zor geldi. Ezberi hiç bir zaman sevmedim, ben sevmediğim şeyi hiç bir zaman öğrenemedim.
Benim bir şeyi ilk başta sevmem gerek. Çok fazla kural var, anlatma şekilleri çok ezberci. Sırf gramere dayalı
yıllarca eğitim aldık. Hiç bir pratik yapma şansımız, olanağımız olmadı. Sadece işte haftada 10 saat gibi böyle
fazla saatli ders aldık o kadar. Yani İngilizce öğrenmek bu devirde gerekli olabilir ama yani Dünya çapında bize
çok da fazla bir şey kazandıracak diye de düşünmüyorum. Çünkü Dünya’da bir ön yargı var, hani nasıl
diyeyim...Eğer gazeteciyseniz, yurt dışındaki gazetelerde çalışma şansınız, istediğiniz kadar İngilizce bilginiz
olsun, çok fazla olduğunu düşünmüyorum. Çünkü hiç bir Türk gazeteci New York Times’da yazmıyor. Çünkü
Dünya’da belirli ön yargılar var. Eğer Müslümansanız, Müslüman bir ülkede yaşıyorsanız, size en başta herkes
terörist gözüyle bakıyor. Bu böyle olduğu içinde bizim çalışma olanaklarımızın çok fazla olduğunu
düşünmüyorum. Kitlemizin de zaten İngilizce bilen bir kitle, piyasa olduğunu düşünmüyorum. Bu yüzden, evet,
gazeteciliğin temellerini öğrenme konusunda İngilizce’nin gerekli olduğunu düşünüyorum, çünkü çoğu kitabın
çevirisi çok daha sonra geliyor Türkiye’ye, ama bu da biraz sistemin yanlışı.”
Compared to the other participants in this group, Bengü was the only one having a more integrative stand
towards the language. She liked learning the language because she wanted to go abroad and wanted to
communicate people from different countries. However, she stated that no matter how much she tried, she
was not able to master English fully.
The Ideal Self and Ought-to Self
Participants’ ideal and ought-to selves, except for Alper’s, directed them to the same point: finding a well-paid
job and having a comfortable life allowing them to attain their desires. In doing so, Ali confirmed his stand one
more time emphasizing that English was another step for him to take. The instrumentality of English was
obvious for him. Even though Başak agreed that she desired a wealthy life and knowing English would help her
to reach this goal, she put forward her apathetic character and stated that she was not sure about her ideals in
life, her “ideal self” and “ought-to self”.
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For Bengü, integrative motivation along with instrumental motivation came forward. In addition to getting a
good job, being financially independent and having an important position in her profession, Bengü was
encouraged to be culturally and socially knowledgeable. She mentioned that she wanted to meet new people
and know about their cultures which she found quite appealing. Salih’s motivation, on the other hand, for
travelling abroad and learning about cultures was different from Bengü’s. Although it seemed like he had an
integrative stand at this point, it was not a desire for him to be a part of the target culture, but to decide which
culture had better qualities, the Turkish culture or “the others”. In this regard, again, English was an instrument
for him to be able to judge the life styles of “the other”. He stated the following to explain his perspective as
the following:
“Eğer imkanım olsaydı, farklı ülkeleri görmek isterdim. Farklı insanlarla tanışmak isterdim. Çevremdeki yakın
insanları, Türkiye’deki insanları zaten biliyoruz, kültürlerini zaten biliyoruz. Onun dışında insanlar nasıl
düşünüyor. Biz mi doğru düşünüyoruz, yoksa dışarı mı, bizim garipsediğimiz insanlar mı doğru düşünüyor bir
araştırmak isterdim................Dediğim gibi insanları tanıyabilmek adına İngilizce bir basamak”
Alper differed from the other participants at this point. Alper questioned instrumental benefits of knowing
English in his profession and concluded that he could still be successful in his field. He explained his point as the
following:
“Ulusal anlamda bence çok da bir önemi yok. Eğer bir insan bilgiliyse ve Dünya’yı takip ediyorsa, evet
İngilizce’nin muhakkak ki büyük artıları olur, ama hiç takip etmeyen bir insana göre sadece Türkçe’yle de çok iyi
yerlere gelebilirsiniz........... Günümüz sosyo-ekonomik gerçekleri açısından benim İngilizce bilmem gerektiği
gerçeği var. Ama bunun çok uğraşılırsa aşılabilir olduğunu düşünüyorum. Gelmek istediğim yerlerde, benden
kaynaklı değil, sektörden kaynaklı olarak İngilizce’nin öneminin fazla olduğunu düşünüyorum.”
Learner Investment
The participants’ investment into the target language was in line with the motivation types they possessed
towards English and learning English along with their possible selves. Similar to the findings of the first case, in
the second case the participant motivated to learn the language with instrumental and integrative motives due
to their ideal and ought-to selves, such as Bengü, were investing into the language relatively more compared to
the participants having only instrumental motivation, such as Ali, Başak, Salih and Alper. Because Bengü was
willing to be a part of the target culture and global culture, she stated that she tried to make friends on campus
coming abroad in addition to the time she spent on studying for the proficiency exam. On the other hand, Ali,
Başak, Salih and Alper mentioned that they have been studying English, mostly grammar, to be successful in
the coming exam.
DISCUSSION
The purpose of this study was to explore the dynamic context-based relationship between motivation, L2
identity and second language acquisition with the participants chosen from an EFL classroom. The following
research questions were explored:
1. What is the relationship between motivation and learner identity?
2. Do different types of motivation have an influence on learner identity negotiation?
3. What is the relationship between learner identity and second language acquisition?
In this chapter of the study, summary of the findings, discussion of the findings, implications and suggestions
for future research are provided.
Summary of the Findings
A questionnaire survey adapted from Gardner’s (2004) Attitude/ Motivation Battery Test was given to the
subject EFL class in order to determine the motivation types of the participants. The participants receiving the
highest and lowest means from the survey were grouped under 3 main categories: general motivation,
instrumental motivation and integrative motivation. Based on these groups, 9 participants were interviewed by
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the researchers to have further understanding about the relationship between the participants’ possible selves,
ideal self and ought-to self, motivation types and their investments into the language.
As it was presented, the motivation types of the students and their possible selves were closely
interdependent. In case one, the participants with the highest motivation means, Aslı, Gamze and Kevser,
showed the clues of integrative and instrumental motivation in combination. These motivations served to their
ideal and ought-to selves. They were not only interested in receiving good grades and being successful in their
respected fields, but also they were highly encouraged to be a part of the global culture by mastering English.
For this reason, they were investing their time and energy to learn the L2 on a regular base. Melike, on the
other hand, did not demonstrate such a personal interest to English and to the culture; therefore, her
instrumental motivation and possible selves needed to use the language as a tool. In this regard, she did not do
the necessary investment into learning them, although she had one of the highest means in the Motivation
Battery Test (Gardner, 2004).
Similarly, in case two, the participants with the lowest means, Ali, Başak, Salih and Alper demonstrated
instrumental motivation towards the target language. For them, English was a must to be carried out to
achieve their possible selves. They were not enthusiastic about learning or being a part of the target culture.
Accordingly, they did not feel the need to spend time on English to acquire it. Only Bengü, who had
instrumental and integrative motivations together invested into the language socially other than class
requirements. However, when compared to the participants from the case one, her investment was not regular
or exemplified by concrete instances.
Overall, the findings were parallel with the literature discussed. As Dörnyei & Ushioda (2009) suggested, the
participants accommodating the idea of being proficient in the target language in their ideal and ought-to self
were more motivated towards the target language. Once they had integrative orientations, defined by Gardner
& Lambert (1972) as “reflecting a sincere and personal interest in the people and culture represented by the
other group.” (p.132), they were investing into the language more in comparison with the participants having
instrumental orientations. For this reason, as Norton (2000) claims, those learners had more access to learning
opportunities to construct cultural concepts and L2 identity, which facilitated their second language acquisition
process.
Practical Implications
The findings of this study indicated that the learners embodying instrumental and integrative motivations in
direction of their possible selves invested into the language more than the learners with only instrumental
motivation or the ones who had a critical eye towards the instrumentality of L2. The more a learner invests in a
foreign language, the more opportunities s/he will have to acquire the targeted language and be involved with
the targeted culture. All in all, the findings indicated if the concept of learning a second language is a part of
learner identity, students will be more motivated to learn it. It was also understood that higher motivation will
make students invest more into learning the language, and more investment is quite likely to bring higher
levels of success. Therefore, in addition to teaching grammatical facts and developing language skills, language
teachers should also try very hard to make sure that their students’ will be fully aware of why they are learning
a foreign language and what advantages they may reach if they happen to acquire one.
Suggestions for Future Research
The findings of this study enhance our understanding of the relationship between motivation and L2 identity.
However, possible future studies are needed to explore the relationship further, since this it is highly contextbased and the findings cannot be generalize to bigger contexts. Moreover, designing a longitudinal study would
be of great help in exploring these changing dynamics in a more detailed way. Finally, studies concentrating on
the strategies to increase students’ motivation in terms of integrative orientations can raise teacher awareness
on the issue. By this way, motivation and L2 identity can be used as a facilitator in language classrooms in
second language acquisition process.
194
Hakan TARHAN is an EFL instructor at TOBB University of Economics and Technology and a
post-graduate student in the department of English Language Teaching at Middle East
Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. After receiving his B.A. in Foreign Language
Education, Mr TARHAN taught in Finland between 2011 and 2012, under a grant awarded
by the European Commission’s Life Long Learning programme. His research interests
include identity in language learning, multilingualism, computer assisted language learning,
and sociology of education.
Hakan TARHAN
TOBB University of Economics
And Technology, Ankara, TURKEY
Sena BALBAN is an English Instructor at Ankara University, Turkey. Between August 2011
and May 2012, she served as the Fulbright Turkish Teaching Assistant at the University of
Texas at Austin, after she graduated from Middle East Technical University. She is having
her graduate degree in English Language Teaching at the Middle East Technical University,
Turkey. Her research interest is learner identity in EFL classrooms; motivation and second
language acquisition; professional teacher identity; mentoring for novice teachers; and
instructional technology.
Sena BALBAN
Ankara Üniversitesi, Gölbaşı,
Ankara, TURKEY
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GEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS’ PLACE
AND IMPORTANCE IN SOCIAL STUDIES LESSONS
Dr. Aslı AYTAÇ
Hasan Ali Yücel Education Faculty
Social Sciences Education Dept.
Vefa, Fatih/İstanbul, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
In the general objectives of the social studies curriculum, in the seventh item “information is used , organized
and improved in appropriate formats and various forms(by map, graphic, table, sphere, diagram, time band
etc.)” and in the eleventh item “information and communication technologies are used and the process of
development of science and technology and its effects on social life are understood” are included. Based on
these statements, technologies and modern applications should be used in social studies lessons. Teacher
provides the information. Teacher candidates and teachers have to know the new applications to facilitate the
understanding of the lesson. They have to follow constantly renewed technology and should use it on their
area of expertise. In this study, geographical information systems will be introduced and some of the topics of
units’ visual applications in primary education at the sixth and seventh grades will be explained by means of
ArcGIS 9.2 software program. Thus, the importance of geographical information systems about the geography
applications in social studies lessons will be emphasized.
Key Words: Geographical information systems, social studies, technology usage, to do visual, ArcGIS 9.2
INTRODUCTION
Today, the technology must be used to benefit from knowledge effectively. Informations (data) should be
stored in a system and used for the aim. Especially it is important that related to the forming map applications.
Geographical information systems a technological vehicle to apply these targets. In Turkey, in the objectives of
social studies curriculum it is mentioned that the information is used visually(map, graphic, table, sphere,
diagram, time band etc.) and is developed( the seventh item), in the other one to utilize from the information
and communication technologies(the eleventh item)(Principle National Education Law, 2004, number:1739,
Bilgili, 2010 ). In this situation, to be employed the information technology as GIS(Geographical Information
Systems) in social science lessons in schools is necessary and important to reach its objectives of the
curriculum. To do social studies particularly the geography topics should be done more visually by means of
GIS. The applications which are done with geographical information technology(GIS) will obtain visuality during
the lessons and the subjects will be taught to the students permanently. Geography is a scientific branch which
examines the place. The map is rather important in geography science and the results of the geographical
researches are explained on the maps. Geographical informations are located on the maps and these are
interpreted. Geography investigates the relationships between different locations. Because of it, geographical
information technology is one of the important and useful tools while the geographical subjects are examined
and interpreted. The teacher who knows , applies the geographical information technology can run and record
data that is prepared by him/her by means of GIS software programs for the lesson unit. In consequence the
teacher can present knowledges to the students visually.
In this study geographical information system was introduced. The purpose of the study is to call attention to
geographical information systems which is useful especially for the geography lessons’ learnings and teachings
in social studies lessons and to the applications which are prepared by means of GIS technology, so the
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students can learn easily the geographical topics in social studies lessons. To render conscious to the social
science teacher candidates and teachers about geographical information systems and to inform them of
applications about GIS were aimed.
What is Geographical Information Systems?
There are a lot of definitations had been made about GIS. Some of them are in below:
“It is a geography applications that it covers the gathering information, storage and analyze about the natural
environment and human, time properties and relationships and it has methodology and has computer
setting(Turoğlu, 2000, p.228).
“GIS is an computer system that can collect, store in computer environment, modernize, control, analyze and
do visualization of the earth knowledges for the special target”(Tecim, 2008, p.51).
“GIS is an vehicle that it stores and analyze the geographical informations in computer setting”(ESRI, 1987).
In general GIS is the preparation of a study which is about the earth properties in computer environment, in
the other words a computer system that can transfer and analyze the geographical informations.
The geographical information systems is a general name that provides to collect, storage, update, process of
the geographical information and it keeps hardware, software and personnel (Uyguçgil, 2011, p.134).
Geographical information is a concept which specifies that the location of the object on the earth or what kind
of things there are. For example, where am I?, who are our country’s neigbours?(Uyguçgil, 2011, p.133).
Yomralıoğlu and Çelik (1994) mentioned that to obtain the information, a way in the other words a system is
needed. According to them the system is a methods sheme to get results and there should be a system for
gathering and processing the information. The system that is used for this purpose is called “information
systems”.
The stages of Geographical Information Systems
1-Collection data
2-Retention data
3-Processing data
4-Presentation
Geographical information systems is formed as five master components(Uyguçgil, 2011):
-Human(user)
-Method(the procedures about reaching data, collection, storage, presentation)
-Hardware(computer systems, for example computer, scanner, digitizer)
-Software(GIS software packages)
-Data
Turoğlu (2000) implied that data structures are divided into two groups as spatial data (graphic data) and non
spatial data (text data). Spatial data cover digital data for the view. All of the science branches and occupational
groups that the subject of the study about place, human, time can benefit from geographical information
systems (Turoğlu, 2000).
How does GIS Works?
Geographical information systems works by layer logic. Data about worked case are run into computer,
analyzed by GIS software programs, the results are projected as map, graphic, table or aore shown as printout.
According to geographical information systems’ working logic, data are very important and according to the
aim of the matter, data are processed into the system and are displayed in GIS.
GIS is a system technology that provides to transfer the information to the computer program and does it by
means of software programs. Today some of the main software programs which are used are in below:
ERDAS
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ARC/INFO
Arc/GIS
Arc/View
MapInfo
IDRISI
NETCAD…etc.
METHOD
In this study, some of the topics of units which are teached in primary education at the sixth and seventh
grades will be done visual by using ArcGIS 9.2 program which is a GIS software program with some model
applications.
Lesson Applications
In below there are some model applications about the sixth and seventh grades social studies lessons. This
model applications are formed by ArcGIS 9.2 software. Layer maps obtained from ESRI Education Applications
in Demirci(2008) ‘s book and the ArcGIS 9.2 CD is found in it.
This is a course application about the sixth grade social studies lesson.
Unit: Life on the Earth
Topic: Understanding the maps.
Map’s scale changes for using aim. While the scale denominator is decreasing, in other words scale is
increasing, the detail of the map increases.
To display it:
It is open in ArcMap “Countries Layer” in ESRI Applications in ArcGIS 9.2 CD (Figure 1). Then follow the steps.
Step 1:
Open
C/ESRI/Education_Applications_1(Figure 1).
Step 2:
It is open a world map in Education Application 1. You can see the scale on standart tool bar as
1/146.000.000(Figure 2).
Step 3:
The scale can be changed as 1/10.000.000(Figure 3).
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Figure 1: Step 1 is ArcMap application page about topic “understanding the maps” in the sixth grade social
studies lesson(Esri licenced CD in Demirci, 2008).
201
The other course application about the sixth grade social studies lesson.
Unit: Life on the Earth
Topic: World of coordinates.
It is open in ArcMap “Countries Layer” in ESRI Applications in ArcGIS 9.2 CD (Figure 4). Then follow the steps.
Step 4:
Open
C/ESRI/Education_Applications_3(Figure 4).
Step 5:
It is open a World map in Education Application 3. You can see the World map(Figure 5).
Step 6:
On tool bar “go to xy” icon is found. When you click with mouse, a “ go to xy”window is opened. Then you can
write the longitute and latitute values and click to enter. On the map, the point is showed(Figure 6).
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Figure 4: Step 4 is ArcMap application page about topic “World of coordinates” in the sixth grade social studies
lesson (Esri licenced CD in Demirci, 2008).
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Another course application about the seventh grade social studies lesson.
Unit: Population in our country
Topic: Life in places.
It is open in ArcMap “Türkiye Layer” in ESRI Applications in ArcGIS 9.2 CD (Figure 7). Then follow the steps.
Step 7:
Open
C/ESRI/Education_Applications_2.
Step 8:
To add some picture files, press by mouse the i(identify) icon on tool bar and go to the place of city on the map.
The window is open that its name “ i( identify)”(Figure 7).
Step 9:
Go to the city’s name and click by mouse as right touch, then click to add Hiperlink icon(Figure 8).
Step 10:
When the window open, add the picture file and click to “hyperlink” icon on the tool bar(Figure 9).
Step 11:
Click to the city’s place on the map with mouse, the picture file is displayed(Figure 10).
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Figure 7: Step 8 is ArcMap application page about topic “Life in places” in the seventh grade social studies
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lesson (www.vikimapia.org).
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
GIS-oriented applications have not been found in the lesson aquisitions in social studies curriculum. However in
secondary education lesson aquisitions the applications about GIS are existing. Taş et al. (2007) said that in
Turkey the first formal beginning about the using of GIS in high schools has been done in 2005. According to it,
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in 2005 GIS has been located in new geography curriculum of nineth grade. Taş et al., 2007 mentioned that a
survey had been applied to a hundred geography teachers in Turkey. According to the results eleven percent of
geography teachers know software programs as ArcGIS and MapInfo, twenty two percent of them know and do
not use, sixty seven percent of them do not know GIS software programs. About the advantages of GIS Wanner
and Kersler (1999) said that “GIS accelerates the geographical interrogation in classroom environment”.
Bednarz and Van der Schee (2006) explained that “it encourages geography learning and teaching”(Demirci,
2008, p.67). GIS should take part in social studies curriculum as assistant compenent to teach lessons especially
related to geography. That social studies teacher candidates and teachers should be conscious of geographical
information systems and that they should be educated about GIS are very important. In conclusion, teaching of
the topics especially related to geography in social studies lessons can be improved by using GIS technology.
Thus, the courses will be transferred to the students visually and permanently.
Aslı AYTAC is a geographer and has bachelor’s degree, master’s and doctorate degrees
from Istanbul University Geography Department. Her areas of interest are geography
(geomorphology, coastal geomorphology), geographical information systems and its
applications in geography and social science education. She has a lot of national and
international fieldwork experiences and studies. She is currently working in Social Science
Education Department in Istanbul University, Hasan Ali Yücel Education Faculty.
Dr. Aslı AYTAC
Istanbul University
Hasan Ali Yücel Education Faculty
Müşküle Street No.1 Vefa, Fatih/İstanbul, TURKEY
REFERENCES
Bednarz, S. V., & Van der Schee, J. (2006). Europe and United States: The implementation of geographic
information systems in secondary education in two contexts. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 15(2), 191205.
Bilgili, A.S. (Ed.) . (2010). Sosyal Bilgilerin Temelleri. Ankara: Pegem Akademi.
Demirci, A. (2008). CBS. İstanbul: Fatih Üniversitesi.
ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute). (1987). Arc/Info programmers manual. Redlands: California.
Taş, H.İ., Özel, A., & Demirci, A. (2007). Coğrafya öğretmenlerinin teknolojiye bakış açıları ve teknolojiden
yararlanma seviyeleri. Dumlupınar Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 19, 31-51.
Tecim, V. (2008). Coğrafi bilgi sistemleri. Ankara: Renk Form Matbaacılık.
Turoğlu, H. (2000). Coğrafi bilgi sistemlerinin temel esasları. İstanbul: Acar Matbaacılık.
Uyguçgil, H. (2011). Coğrafi bilgi sistemlerine ilişkin temel kavramlar. In A.Çabuk (Ed.), Coğrafi bilgi sistemlerine
giriş (pp. 132-145). Eskişehir: Anadolu Üniversitesi.
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Wanner, S. & Kerski, J. (1999). The effectiveness of GIS in high school education. Proceedings of the 1999 ESRI
User Conference.
Yomralıoğlu, T., & Çelik, K. (1994). GIS?. I.Ulusal Coğrafi Bilgi Sistemleri Sempozyumu. Karadeniz Teknik
Üniversitesi, 21-32.
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MY OWN PAST: AN EXAMPLE OF FAMILY INVOLVEMENT PROJECT APPLIED
TO IMPROVE 48 – 54 MONTHS OLD CHILDREN’S PERCEPTION OF THE PAST
Prof. Dr. Rengin ZEMBAT
İstanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Fatma Özge ÜNSAL
İstanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Fatih YAZICI
Department of Social Science Education
İstanbul, TURKEY
Inst. Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU
İstanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ
İstanbul, TURKEY
Res. Assist. Hilal İlknur TUNÇELI
İstanbul, TURKEY
ABSTRACT
Preschool period is highly important in the sense that children generate their individual identity and
perceptions related to their own past. In addition, based on the principle that learning experiences start from
children’s close environment to far; considering “proofs” such as daily objects, clothes, photo album and verbal
witnessing students have an opportunity to create their own past and constitute a historical narration. Built
upon this theoretical framework, the study makes use of pretest – posttest without control group model.
Teacher Observation Form was adopted as a pretest in order to determine 48 – 54 months old thirteen
children’s the perception of the past, who constituted the research group of Prof. Dr. Ayla Oktay’s Application
Unit at Atatürk Education Faculty at Marmara University during 2012 – 2013 Academic Year. As for the
application of the study; within an hour allocated for them in the company of their families, students made
presentations in front of their friends regarding their own past using things, clothes, photos, etc. from their
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infancy. Posttest which was based on Teacher Observation Form showed that consisting family involvement
and project based application process resulted in significant changes in terms of students’ perception of the
past.
Key Words: Preschool, Perception of the Past, Historian Skills, Project Based Learning, Family Involvement
INTRODUCTION
Preschool education is of utmost importance for child development. During this period the child develops
socially, emotionally, physically and mentally. The child who shows a great development process after birth is
integrated into society as a successful individual when proper education is provided. Preschool education
which constitutes the beginning of education process is described as the process of reinforcıng child’s
development, providing children with educational opportunities their families are unable to bring in, and
supporting and acquainting families with pedagogic knowledge (Oktay, 2007).
Preschool period is an important period during which several concepts that the child will need in her future life
are actively acquired. These concepts are products of an individual’s personal experiences. An individual
constantly interacts with his environment and as a result of this, has experiences with the entities, events and
situations around him and tries to make sense of them in their own right. The individual finds similarities
between his/her experiences and categorizes them. After that, he/she names these categories. The cognitive
structure that an individual attains by such abstraction is a concept. In the process of socialization, an individual
generates, arranges or changes his/her concepts according to the society (Özçelik, 1989; Akt. Kol, 2012).
Several researches have proven that for children, abstract concepts are relatively difficult to learn (Piaget,
1969; Block, 1989; Zakay, 1989; Akt. Kol, 2012). Time concept is one of the concepts that preschool child have
great difficulty in learning. On the one hand time concept is abstract, the child has difficulties to make the right
connection between past, present and future that are necessary to understand time concept. Time concept
needs to be learned because like speech, it is a skill that the child is born with and that he/she needs to develop
through social interaction. However, children have difficulties in understanding and comprehending time
concept quickly since time by its nature is abstract (Naylor and Diem, 1987).
For a child to understand time concept, it is essential to concretize the concept. The idea of teaching by
personalizing and visualizing the time concept in other words concretizing is an important phase (Şen, 2004).
For a child who uses concept of moment in her daily life easily, past and future concepts are more difficult to
acquire and perceive. According to the Turkish Language Association (2013), the level of child’s memory,
attention, perception and language development plays an important role in acquiring past concept which is
described as the time that stays behind compared to concept of moment. In order to develop the perception of
the past, a child needs to remember what happened in the past, to pay attention to specific details, and to
express those verbally which is merely possible with the stimuli from his/her parents and teachers.
Whilst performing activities related to perception of the past, it is necessary to start from children’s close
environment to far. Therefore, it is indispensable to work on children’s perception of their own past first since
all children have memories related to their own personal experiences and most of them are willing to recount
those memories to listeners who are eager to give an ear (Reese and et al., 1993).
Parents or adults are mostly listeners and as well as listening, they should support children regarding the
consistency of the stories. Whilst talking about a child’s memories related to the past, filling out missing
fragments or correcting wrongly remembered parts by an adult who witnessed or knows the event will
gradually enable the child to recount his/her memory more elaborately and more consistently (Fivush, 1994).
Children realize that their ideas and their parents’ ideas are unalike when they wonder why and how things
happen. The situation is confusing as much as thrilling. As a result, some children stop wondering and believe in
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their own ideas while others stop wondering to believe in their parents’ ideas, and some others keep on
wondering and try to gain new experiences about whys and hows. Many families would like their children to be
creative thinking individuals. In addition, they want their youngsters to wonder and show interest to the past as
well as the present. Provided that children’s perception of the past is reinforced by their families, children get
more consistent in terms of the past (Wahler and Rowinski, 2009). By means of performing activities related to
past, children become interested in changes in their lives and hold a view about concepts of change, reform
and development. In this way, they can have a better understanding of the order of the events (Zembat and et
al., 2013).
In addition, preschool period is an important period in the sense that children step into history and develop
historian skills in this period. Before answering the question “Who are we?” that history seeks to answer as a
social science, children need to come up with an answer to the question “Who am I?”. So as to give an answer
to the question “Who am I?”, students are supposed to constitute a narration. Narration, which appeared
orally or in writing in the form of epics and chronicles during traditional level, is defined as “the most successful
and effective way of re-creating the past” (Safran and Şimşek, 2011). Several proponents of postmodern theory
of history approach history only as a way of narration. For this reason, skills that students gain while
transforming their past into a narration are crucial in the sense that they become acquainted with the concepts
of history and/or historiography and have their primary experiences in this regard. Additionally, whilst creating
narrations related to their past, pupils benefit from concepts related to past and concepts that describe past,
and they establish a former-latter (chronological) relationship between events. This process constitutes a
significant factor in developing history skills. Students make use of concrete objects from daily life while
creating narrations related to their past which in turn contribute to their first experiences to work on proofs – a
skill they are going to use in their history classes in the ensuing years of education.
Past time and historical time are two different concepts. Also, there are some who consider historical time as
“a thing of the past, an element of past time which is used to describe the events that affected a society deeply
and left a mark on it” (Safran and Şimşek, 2009). Nevertheless, postmodern theory of history shows us that
besides macro narrations that deal with universal history, micro narrations that deal with daily lives of ordinary
people have become a subject of history. In this context, students’ personal narrations about their own past
gain meaning.
When analyzed in terms of early childhood education, it should be noted that education at home or school is
not sufficient to provide sustainability in education. Including children’s families into education at school is of
utmost importance in the sense that it yields sustainability and retention in education (Temel and et al, 2010;
Çağdaş & Şahin Seçer, 2011; Cömert& Erdem, 2011). In the view of such information, the purpose of this study
is to help 48-54 months children develop “perception of the past” with a family involvement project named
“my own past”.
METHOD
Research Design
The design of this research will be experimental in nature. Experimental model is a study area in which the
researcher generates necessary data to be observed in order to discover cause – effect relationship between
the variables (Büyüköztürk, 2000; Karasar, 2005; Sencer, 1978). In this study, one group pretest – posttest
model from pre-experimental models has been used.
Research Group
The research group of the study consists of 13 children; 5 of which (38,46 %) are girls, 8 of which (61,54 %) are
boys who attended Prof. Dr. Ayla Oktay’s Application Unit at Marmara University in Kadikoy, Istanbul during
the Fall Term of 2012 – 2013 Academic Year. Mothers of 11 (84,61) and fathers of 13 children have a profession
and work somewhere. At least a parent of 9 children is a personnel at Marmara University.
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Data Collecting Method
A list of 24 questions which was prepared by the researchers was adopted in order to determine what the
children knew about their past. The questions were intended to evaluate the information children provide
about themselves (name, surname, age, birthday, date of birth as moth-season-year, parents’ names), what
they remember related to their past and time expressions used to convey those pieces of information.
Application
The study is designed to improve 48 – 54 months children’s “perception of the past” with a family involvement
project named “my own past”. In order to achieve that purpose, a 15 week project process was planned. Prior
to the beginning of the project, a parents’ meeting was organized and parents were informed about the project
and an application calendar was formed taking parents’ preferences into account. All of the parents received a
written project application calendar. Besides the work calendar, families were enlightened about the
application process. Families were asked to make a presentation along with their child on the date specified for
them. The content of the presentation was comprised of; posters or PowerPoint presentations showing the
child’s photos taken from the day the child was born to the day of presentation, video clips, their toys from
different periods of time, and albums introducing the family members. Families were requested to make a
presentation with the materials and objects they chose and prepare to share it in the classroom with their
child. Families were provided with guidance during their preparation process. Following the first presentation,
the children were administrated My Own Past Questionnaire and data of the pretest were gathered. In the first
week, the class teacher carried out the presentation. In the following 13 weeks, presentations the children had
prepared were made in the company of their families and My Own Past Corner was created in the class with
th
the posters, belongings and photos they had brought. In the 15 week, a conclusion meeting was held and the
project was completed with short presentations the children made with a photo they chose. At the end of
project application process, posttest was administrated.
FINDINGS
Before and after the application of the project, pretest and posttest were executed. The number of correct
answers, arithmetic average, and standard deviation values were provided in Table 1 and Table 2.
According to table 1, all children answered their names and their mothers’ names correctly; 12 of them
provided their surnames and their fathers’ names straightly. 11 kids told their age; 7 children told the name of
their favorite toy/book/thing. 6 students were able to tell 3 physical differences between then and their
infancy; to construct regular sentences; and to expresses themselves in a group. 5 children told names of 3
close family members; told/explained things/behaviors/situation they could not carry out as a baby but then
they could; and expressed themselves in various ways. Only 4 kids were able to tell an anecdote they
remembered about their past; told 3 objects they used during infancy; and told their story about the past using
their photographs. 3 of the children were able to tell/explain things/behaviors/situation they could not carry
out at that time but later he/she might be able to; to use past expressions while speaking; and to use indicative
past tense for events he/she personally remembered. 2 kids were capable of telling the month they were born
and 1 child was able to tell the season he/she was born. None of the children was capable of telling the year
they were born and using inferential past tense correctly for events they personally did not remember.
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Table 1: The correct answers given to Pretest questions
N
Number of correct
answers
Tells his/her name
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells his/her surname
13
12
,92 ,28
Tells her age
13
11
,85 ,38
Tells the day he/she was born
13
2
,15 ,38
Tells the month he/she was born
13
2
,15 ,38
Tells the year he/she was born
13
0
,00 ,00
Tells the season he/she was born
13
1
,08 ,28
Tells his/her mother’s name
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells his/her father’s name
13
12
,92 ,28
Tells names of 3 close family members
13
5
,39 ,51
Tells an anecdote he/she remembers about his/her past
13
4
,31 ,48
Uses indicative past tense for events he/she personally remembers
13
3
,23 ,44
Uses inferential past tense for events he/she personally does not
remember
13
0
,00 ,00
Tells/explains things/behaviors/situation he/she could not carry out as a
baby but now he/she can
13
5
,39 ,51
Tells/explains things/behaviors/situation he/she cannot carry out at that
time but later he/she may be able to
13
3
,23 ,44
Tells 3 physical differences between then and his/her infancy (teeth, hair,
height)
13
6
,46 ,52
Tells 3 objects he/she used during infancy
13
4
,31 ,48
Tells what he/she uses now instead of those 3 objects
13
1
,08 ,28
Tells the name of his/her favorite toy/book/thing
13
7
,54 ,52
Uses past expressions while speaking
13
3
,23 ,44
Constructs regular sentences
13
6
,46 ,52
Expresses himself/herself in various ways
13
5
,39 ,51
Tells his/her story about the past using his/her photographs
13
4
,31 ,48
Expresses himself/herself in a group
13
6
,46 ,52
Answers expected to be given to pretest questions
X
sd
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Table 2: The correct answers given to Posttest questions
N
Number of
correct answers
Tells his/her name
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells his/her surname
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells her age
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells the day he/she was born
13
4
,31
,48
Tells the month he/she was born
13
5
,39
,51
Tells the year he/she was born
13
0
,00
,00
Tells the season he/she was born
13
3
,23
,44
Tells his/her mother’s name
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells his/her father’s name
13
13
1,00 ,00
Tells names of 3 close family members
13
7
,54
,52
Tells an anecdote he/she remembers about his/her past
13
6
,46
,52
Uses indicative past tense for events he/she personally remembers
13
6
,46
,52
Uses inferential past tense for events he/she personally does not
remember
13
3
,23
,44
Tells/explains things/behaviors/situation he/she could not carry out as a
baby but now he/she can
13
7
,54
,52
Tells/explains things/behaviors/situation he/she cannot carry out at that
time but later he/she may be able to
13
5
,39
,51
Tells 3 physical differences between then and his/her infancy (teeth, hair,
height)
13
8
,62
,51
Tells 3 objects he/she used during infancy
13
8
,62
,51
Tells what he/she uses now instead of those 3 objects
13
4
,31
,48
Tells the name of his/her favorite toy/book/thing
13
11
,85
,38
Uses past expressions while speaking
13
5
,39
,51
Constructs regular sentences
13
7
,54
,52
Expresses himself/herself in various ways
13
6
,46
,52
Tells his/her story about the past using his/her photographs
13
6
,46
,52
Expresses himself/herself in a group
13
8
,62
,51
Answers expected to be given to posttest questions
X
sd
According to posttest results, after the application of the programme all of the children were able to correctly
say their name, age, and their parents’ names. 11 of them told the name of their favorite toy/book/thing. 8 kids
were able to tell 3 physical differences between then and his/her infancy; to tell 3 objects he/she used during
infancy; and to express themselves in a group. 7 students were capable of telling the names of 3 close family
members; telling/explaining things/behaviors/situation they could not carry out as a baby but then they could;
and constructing regular sentences. 6 of the children were able to tell an anecdote they remembered about
their past; to use indicative past tense for events they personally remembered; and to tell their story about the
past using their photographs. 5 children told the month they were born correctly and used right past time
expressions while speaking. 4 kids told the day they were born and 3 children told the season they were born
correctly. However, none of the children was capable of telling the year they were born correctly.
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Table 3: Wilcoxon signed-rank test results for My Own Past Questionnaire pretest – posttest results
Pretest – Posttest
N
Rank Average
Rank Total
z
p
Negative rank
0
,00
,00
Positive rank
13
7,00
91,00
Equal
0
Total
13
*
-3,201
,001
* Results were organized based on negative ranks.
According to the obtained results, a significant difference was found between the scores of pretest and
posttest for the children of the research group (z=-3,201; p< ,01). Considering all the scores and the rank
average of difference scores, it is understood that the difference observed here is for the benefit of positive
ranks, namely posttest. In relation to these findings, it may be announced that the programme applied proved
to be effective.
CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
According to the present study, it has been concluded that using activities inclusive of family education that
aims at development of perception of the past regarding their own past among children in preschool period is
beneficial for the child with regards to identification of differences between past, present, and future and
improvement of perception of the past. It has been observed that in accordance with the findings above; 48-54
months children in preschool period were able to concretize the abstract past by recounting their own past and
capable of successfully using concepts in daily life which are related to past.
As Zembat and et al. (2010) mention in their study on perception of the past, introduction of history education
among preschool children is considered to make a great contribution to develop a sense of history in older
ages. Likewise, it has been concluded that implementing suitable preschool activities in accordance with
children’s age, development level, and interest under proper conditions in order to introduce and improve
perception of the past among 48-54 months children in preschool period is beneficial in developing targeted
concepts.
In accordance with studies carried out in national and international literature, it has been found that further
research is indispensable within the field and researchers need to direct their attention towards the study area.
In line with the literature review and experimental results, the following ideas have been offered.
• Increasing the number of history education studies with various age group children in preschool education
period,
• Development and categorization of implicit learning and functions which are devoted to history education
within the preschool education curriculum adopted in Turkey under the title of history education,
• Planning and implementing various kinds of activities in order to improve children’s perception of the past,
• Developing studies with various age groups in the field,
• Increasing the number of field trips and museum tours which can concretize abstract past and familiarize
the cultural heritage that are oriented to acquisition of concept of time in preschool period.
215
Rengin ZEMBAT has been working as a professor in Department of Primary Education,
Pre-school Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University. She
completed her master education in Department of Child Development and Education
and doctorate education in Department of Pre-school Teaching. She specifically focuses
on leadership in early childhood education, different approaches on early childhood
education, special teaching methods in early childhood education.
Prof. Dr. Rengin ZEMBAT
Department of Elementary School
İstanbul, TURKEY
Fatma Özge ÜNSAL has been working as a research assistant in Department of Primary
University. She completed her undergraduate and master education in Department of Preschool Teaching and still registered to doctorate program therein. She specifically focuses
on social-emotional development, behavioral problems, urban awareness and past
percetion in early childhood.
Res.Assist. Fatma Özge ÜNSAL
İstanbul, TURKEY
Fatih YAZICI has been working as a research assistant in Department of Social Science
Education, History Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University.
He completed his undergraduate in history department and master education in
Department of Social Studies Education and doctorate education in department of history
education. He specifically focuses on multicultural education, citizenship education in
history education.
Res.Assist. Fatih YAZICI
Department of Social Science Education
İstanbul, TURKEY
216
Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU is a instructor in the Department of Primary Education, Preschool Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara University. She is in
carge of managing the Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Unit. She completed her
undergraduate and master education in Department of Pre-school Teaching and still
registered to doctorate program therein. Her researh interest include early childhood
education programme, visual and auditorial perception children, teaching tecnologies and
material design in pre-school education.
Ins. Elif KURTULUŞ KÜÇÜKOĞLU
Istanbul, TURKEY
Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ has been working as a research assistant in the Department of
Primary Education, Pre-school Teaching Department at Atatürk Education Faculty, Marmara
University. She is in carge of teaching the Prof.Dr. Ayla Oktay Preschool Education Unit. She
specially focused on early childhood education programme and family involvement in early
childhood.
Res.Assist. Tuba ÖZKABAK YILDIZ
İstanbul, TURKEY
Hilal İlknur TUNÇELİ has been working as a research assistant in Department of Primary
University. She completed her undergraduate and master education in Department of Preschool Teaching and still registered to doctorate program therein. She specifically focuses on
school readiness, concept development and cognitive development in early childhood.
Res.Assist. Hilal İlknur TUNÇELİ
İstanbul, TURKEY
REFERENCES
Cömert D. & Erdem E. (2011). Aile Katılım Etkinlikleri. Ankara: Eğiten Kitap.
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