Nurdan Kalayci

Perceptions of quality in higher education: a comparative study of Turkish and Australian business academics

Finding a common definition of ‘quality’ in studies of quality and quality improvement in higher education institutions is very important. This study identifies the views of a key stakeholder group, academics, with reference to their beliefs (what is currently occurring) and their attitudes (what ought to be occurring) in relation to quality in their departments. The focus of this paper is on the collection of data from 64 business administration academics in Turkish universities. Face-to-face interviews were conducted using an instrument titled ‘Quality in Accounting Education Survey’. The questionnaire was developed by Watty and is based on the conceptions of quality framework, developed by Harvey and Green. The results are compared with the beliefs and attitudes of Australian accounting academics as reported in an earlier paper by Watty. The findings show that academics from Turkey adopt the perspective of quality as excellent or élitist, both in their beliefs (current situation perception) and in their attitudes (desired situation perception). This compares with the findings that Australian academics’ attitudes reflect a quality perspective as fitness for purpose in the current situation and beliefs that reflect a transformational quality perspective as the desired situation (what ought to be).

A novel hybrid method for better evaluation: Evaluating university instructors teaching performance by combining conventional content analysis with fuzzy rule based systems

Even though engineering and applied sciences deal with numerical data, they have successfully implemented fuzzy logic by using fuzzy rule based (FRB) systems by verbalizing data. On the other hand, social sciences such as sociology, education and physiology transform verbal type data into numerical values by using Likert type scale. Despite the fact that fuzzy set theory deals with verbal data very powerfully, social science fields in general have avoided to implement it to their verbal data up until now. One of the most active research areas in education field which generates verbal data is student evaluation of teaching (SET) questionnaires which are related to Total Quality Management applications in most of the competitive universities in the world. In this paper, we propose a novel hybrid method, which combines conventional content analysis (CCA) method and FRB systems and this new hybrid method is more suitable for the verbal data obtained from SET questionnaires. This novel CCA-FRB (conventional content analysis based fuzzy rule based systems) method uses a sample of 138 junior students from Gazi University in Turkey to implement the proposed method.

A Combined Approach Using Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Log-linear Models for Student Perception in Quality in Higher Education☆

Abstract Quality in higher education is one of the most important issues in higher education institutes around the world. Several attempts have been made in order to improve quality in higher education in last three decades with several ideas related to quality concept stemming from industry are emulated. The focus groups of some of these attempts are students, academicians, course materials or combination of them in general for understanding what the focus groups expect from quality concept and its implementation into higher education. However, this side of the “quality” research field is slightly new and deprives of in-depth discussions. For this purpose, a questionnaire is designed to measure the quality perception of 493 freshman and senior students majoring in eight different departments at Faculty of Education in Gazi University in Turkey. The questionnaire was containing three parts, which were personal information, likert-type questions and open-ended questions, respectively. Students’ answers were classified and “evaluated by Conventional Content Analysis based on the “Quality” concept with dimensions of “Exception”, “Perfection”, “Fitness for Purpose”, and “Money for Value”, and “Transformation” for data preparatory tool for further analysis which was Multiple Correspondence Analyses. Then, Multiple Correspondence Analyses and Log-Linear Model were run for locating the perception of students with respect to some variables on graph for determining which factors and interactions are significant. Some of the foremost results are such that science students are more aware of “quality” and its implementations than do other students from social science and talent groups and also senior students and female students are more interested in the concept of “quality” than do freshmen students and male students. Furthermore, “Fitness to Purpose” and “Money for Value” dimensions are the most mentioned ones among students.

A Comparative Analysis of General Culture Courses within the Scope of Knowledge Categories in Undergraduate Teacher Education Programs "Turkey and the USA".

In this study, general culture and general education courses within the scope of knowledge categories in undergraduate teacher education programs in Turkey and the USA are comparatively analyzed. The study is a comparative education study and uses a descriptive model. In the study, the general culture - general education courses taught in the elementary teacher education curriculum at the education faculties of Gazi, Ankara, Hacettepe, Anadolu and Marmara Universities in Turkey and Central Florida, Delaware, Utah State and Indiana Universities in the USA were examined. In the study, the document review method was used and the data were analyzed through the document analysis technique. The results of the study reveal that the general culture courses that are compulsory in Turkey were determined by The Council of Higher Education (YOK) and they are applied in all of the undergraduate programs at education faculties. Yet, there are no explanations about what criteria are taken into consideration while determining these nine compulsory general culture courses. While YOK puts emphasis on a teacher candidate being trained in a sophisticated manner, the results of the study ascertain that these compulsory courses within undergraduate teacher education programs are not diverse enough to serve the intended purposes. On the other hand, some universities suggest some elective general culture courses within knowledge categories; however, some of these are professional teaching knowledge and major courses. The compulsory courses within the category of general education in the USA are determined by the universities themselves whereas this is done centrally by The Council of Higher Education (YOK) in Turkey, and the compulsory courses of each university vary in terms of content and number. However, the elective courses are grouped under certain themes and these themes are related to certain disciplines. It is compulsory for students to elect certain amounts of courses within each theme. This blocks electing similar courses under the same themes and directs the students to elect different courses. Key words: Higher education, teacher education programs, elementary teacher education curriculum, general culture, general culture courses, general education, general education models.

Yükseköğretimde Öğretimi Değerlendirme Anketlerinde Öğrenci Algılarındaki Farklılıkların Puanlamaya Etkileri

This research aims at identifying the situations influential over the ratings given by students to the items on questionnaires employed to evaluate instructors and teaching in higher education institutions as well as reasons for giving the ratings, the process of initial comments of the items on first reading and choosing the appropri-ate rate, and the current research also aims at analyzing the relations between the reasons. The research sample was composed of the junior students of Elementary Education Class Teaching, Pre-School Education and Social Sciences Teacher Education branches of Primary School Teaching Department of Gazi Teacher Training College of Gazi University. Research data were gathered in two successive semesters in the same academic year. The same tool of data collection was em-ployed in both of these two semesters, and the content analysis of the data was conducted. Following a content analysis of the reasons for attributing rates, findings were obtained, and a matrix for each item was formed. The fact that reasons for rating were various and too many, that students gave rates even when they were not sure, that overlapping items caused indecisiveness in rating, that they gave rates even to those items of which they had no knowledge, that they rated higher to those instructors who gave them the marks they had expected, that there were contrasts among the reasons for the items which are clearly agreed upon, and that a different halo effect emerged in this research was of importance in this research.

İlköğretim Okulu Öğrencileri Okullarında Hangi Durumları Problem Olarak Algılamaktadır

Bu calismada, ilkogretim okulu ogrencilerinin okul ve siniflarinda hangi durumlari problem olarak algiladiklari saptanmistir. Ogrencilerin okul ve sinif ortami ile ilgili problemlerin saptanmasi, egitim programlarinin gelistirilmesine katki saglayacaktir. Calisma betimsel ve nitel ozellik tasimaktadir. Uc farkli ilkogretim okulunun besinci siniflarindaki 180 ogrenciden veri toplanmistir. Metin halinde toplanan veriler, okul ve sinif ortamindan kaynaklanan problemler olarak iki ana baslik ve on alt baslikta toplanmistir. Calismanin bulgularina gore, tum ogrenciler, “ogrenci- ogrenci arasindaki iletisimsizligi” birinci en onemli problem, “sinif–ici kurallara uyulmamasini da” ikinci en onemli problem olarak belirtmislerdir.