Teaching the Sound Concept: A Review of Science and Physics Education Postgraduate Theses in Turkey

The purpose of this study is to review the postgraduate theses on science/physics education in Turkey to guide the teaching of the sound concept. Although the theses examined within the scope of this study belong to a certain region, the previous literature shows us that the learning difficulties/misconceptions are generally independent of culture. Thirty-three theses in the database of The Council of Higher Education Thesis Center were analyzed inductively in the semi-systematic review process. For this, the stages of content analyses were used: Elimination and coding, placing them in themes, ensuring reliability and validity were followed respectively. Unit of analyses was conclusions of the theses and suggestions of the theses. In conclusion, both conventional and contemporary approaches have a positive effect on achievement or conceptual change on the sound concept. On the other hand, students and teachers/ candidates, in general, cannot relate their knowledge of sound to daily life, their level of knowledge is inadequate, and they have misconceptions/errors and confusions. It is beneficial to consider this situation in education. The most important output of this study is the lists of possible misconceptions or confusion about the concept of sound. Teachers and researchers can use these lists in their lessons or research. Keywords: education, physics, science, sound, thesis

GENESIS OF THE KHOJAGON SECT (ABOUT YUSUF HAMADONI)

This article gives a brief overview of the life, manuscripts, and works of Yusuf Hamadoni, who contributed to the spread of the Khojaly sect. Through this information, we are exploring our history and cultural heritage, as well as promoting the teachings of Naqshbandi, the information given in these manuscripts is the most valuable information about the “Khojagon sect” and its pir today. At the same time, it is more important than ever that the books published today have a deeper content and a better style. This, in turn, leads to clear conclusions about changes in the manuscripts, eliminating errors and confusions in sentences and phrases. As a result, the quality and weight of research on manuscripts written in the last century will increase. Addressing these shortcomings has become one of the most pressing issues today. Issues such as the problem of the history of the text of written sources in the early days of the Khojagon sect and the definition of the scientific and theoretical basis of the text of these works are the features that determine its relevance today. In particular, it is necessary to acquaint our people, especially our youth, with the beliefs and views of Abdukhalik Gijduvani, Khoja Arif Revgari, Khoja Ali Romitani in these manuscript sources.

The Need for Negativity

Several of my recent Editorials have dealt with terminological/conceptual errors and confusions that have been all too prevalent among psi researchers. In this Editorial, I want to consider a related issue often raised about parapsychological concepts and explanation. Probably we’ve all heard the complaint that parapsychology’s core concepts have only been defined negatively, with respect to our present level of ignorance—for example, taking “telepathy” to be “the causal influence of one mind on another independently of the known senses.” Perhaps some of you have even expressed that complaint yourselves. Of course, the assumption underlying those complaints is that this definitional strategy is a problem. However, it seems like a perfectly reasonable procedure to me, and I can easily accept the possibility that we might eventually learn enough about phenomena so defined that we can later construct better, detailed, and more informative analytical definitions. But at least as far as psi research is concerned, I consider it presumptuous—at our present (and considerable) level of ignorance—to proceed any other way. We hardly have the barest hint, based on all the available data, as to what psi is doing in the world (i.e., both inside and outside the lab). In fact, formal, experimental evidence has been particularly unilluminating. It has barely succeeded, if it’s succeeded at all, in convincing parapsychological fence-sitters that there are any genuine paranormal phenomena to study (I’ve explored some reasons for this in Braude, 1997). And it certainly hasn’t shed light on how pervasive, extensive, and refined psi effects might be, or whether effects of radically different magnitudes would be the result of substantially different processes. At best, typical quantitative research examines only straitjacketed expressions of phenomena that non-laboratory evidence suggests occur more impressively (if not flamboyantly) “in the wild.” So it strikes me as appropriately modest and circumspect to define “PK” (for example) as “the effect of an organism on a region r of the physical world without any known sort of physical interaction between the organism's body and r.” (For additional specific parapsychological definitions, see Braude, 2002).

Kripke on Epistemic and Metaphysical Possibility

This chapter discusses Saul Kripke’s treatment of the necessary a posteriori and concomitant distinction between epistemic and metaphysical possibility. It extracts the enduring lessons of his treatment of these matters and disentangles them from errors and confusions that mar some of his most important discussions. It argues that there are two Kripkean routes to the necessary a posteriori—one correct and philosophically far-reaching; the other incorrect, philosophically misleading, and the source of damaging errors that persist to this day. It connects two false principles involved in the second, unsuccessful, route to the necessary a posteriori with the plausible and potentially correct idea that believing a singular proposition that o is F always involves also believing a richer more descriptively informative proposition in which some further property plays a role in the agent’s thoughts about o. It explains why this idea will not save the failed second route to the necessary a posteriori and suggests that it may help reconcile Kripke’s insights with the lessons of Frege’s puzzle.

On the Merits of Using Multiple Indices in Evaluating Small Graphical Symbols

This paper summarizes an international study that aimed to evaluate candidate telecommunication graphical symbols (icons and pictograms) developed in the west across different cultural groups by means of tests producing multiple indices or parameters of performance. Prospective users from eastern (Asian) and western countries were used as subjects. Several tests were performed utilizing videophone symbols based on studies done by the Human Factors Technical Committee (HFTC) of the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI). The ETSI-recommended symbols for 7 videophone functions or referents were tested using more than 300 subjects from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Finland, Sweden and the USA. Two other sets of 7 symbols each from the ETSI study were also tested. The tests used were spontaneous identification, the cued response, and the preference tests. Confidence judgement (subjective certainty ratings) complemented the subjects' answers for the first tests. Semantic differential scaling tests (SDT) were also done as added evaluatory tool. Results from spontaneous identification tests revealed very poor identification of most of the symbols in contrast to the cued response test results. Barely recognizing what the symbols meant strongly suggested the need to either redesign the symbols or to ensure adequate opportunities for familiarizing and educating the prospective users with the new symbols. The subjective certainty scores helped in studying the level of confidence of the answers by the subjects. Furthermore, the studies revealed that symbols could be easily recognized (high hit rates) but also confused as representing another (wrong) function at the same time. The “missing values” were also important since they indicated situations when respondents either did not know the answer or thought that none among the symbols were comprehensible or representative of a desired function. The preference tests pertained to aesthetics of the symbols individually and as a set. In turn, the SDT scores revealed that symbols could have different connotative meanings in relation to the functions they were intended to represent. Overall, Asian subjects performed comparably well with the European and American subjects, preferring the same set of videophone symbols, but usually at the expense of more errors and confusions. Thus, the studies showed that using multiple indices helped reveal subtle but potentially important differences in the results between different cultural groups.

The Tomb od a Prelate from the Crusader Period in Jaffa and Five Fragments of an Ophistographic Marble Slab in the Ustinow Collection in Oslo

This paper throws light on one of the important invisibilia in the Ustinow collection in Oslo: a marble fragment of a prelate’s tombstone from Jaffa with incised pictorial decoration, dated to 1258 by the Gothic inscription in Latin, and a Cufic dedication table for a mosque on the rear side of the slab. In modern literature the Crusader tombstone is always discussed referring to 19th-century publications without photographic documentation. Consequently, the monument and related items from the Ustinow collection are never mentioned in the University Museum of Cultural Heritage in Oslo, which is the present owner. Moreover, many allusions in the literature contain erroneous, contradictory or incomplete information. In 1999 three new pieces of the tombstone were detected in the museum storage. Except for a small and insignificant fragment, the marble slab is now almost identical with the casual find in 1873, as it is shown in M. Lecomte’s contemporary drawing. This rediscovery gives us a new chance of studying the original slab in detail and correcting errors and confusions in earlier publications. Even the high artistic quality of the pictorial decoration can for the first time be fully recognized since Clermont-Ganneau’s early publications, and a new attempt will be made to find the relevant iconographic, art historical and historical contexts for the monument. There are many convincing indications that the Crusaders tombstone has to be connected to the French king Saint Louis IX’s Crusade and stay in Jaffa in 1252-1253. To answer the question of exact provenance a specialist in Cufic inscriptions has to re-examine the problems concerning the dedication of a mosque incised on the rear of the slab and the date of it.