Current Trends in Research in Language Education and Applied Linguistics

It is notoriously difficult to pick up new trends in language education and applied linguistics. It is a little bit like trying to distinguish a network of footpaths in misty conditions in order to find the one that leads to the mountain top. The view is always incomplete, the ones that seem to be pointing in the right direction might veer off behind the next boulder, and the largest path with most walkers might be interrupted by a landslide, forcing people to scatter and find alternative paths. There is inevitably a belief of researchers that the path they are on is trendy and original. Only years later will this belief be dis/confirmed when a tally can be made through citation indexes of the popularity of that particular path.

Assessing subjective university success with the Subjective Academic Achievement Scale (SAAS)

University achievement is a highly relevant educational outcome with implications for students' academic and professional futures. As the majority of students that drop out of university do so due to subjective reasons in contrast to a lack of capability to handle the workload, a measure of subjective university achievement (complementing grade point average) is helpful to enhance educational research on causes, correlates, and consequences of university success. This study aims to introduce a short scale for assessing subjective academic achievement – the SAAS – and provide first results on its psychometric properties. Based on two independent samples of university students, the internal consistency, factorial validity, and construct validity of the SAAS are corroborated, suggesting the measure's administration in educational research on university success and related issues.

Unpacking The Relation Between Spatial Abilities and Creativity in Geometry

This study aims to examine the relation between spatial ability and creativity in Geometry. Data was collected from 94 ninth graders. Three spatial abilities were investigated: spatial visualization, spatial relations and closure flexibility. As for students' creativity, it was examined through a multiple solution problem in Geometry focusing on three components of creativity: fluency, flexibility, and originality. The results revealed that spatial visualization predicted flexibility and originality while closure flexibility predicted all creativity components. Additionally, it was deduced that auxiliary constructions played an essential role in the problem-solution process. Finally, further study opportunities for the teaching and learning of Geometry are discussed.

A Comparative Analysis of Reading Self-Efficacy of Turkology Students

The Turkology Departments in countries other than Turkey fulfill two functions. First, they aim to equip their students with sufficient Turkish language proficiency. Second, they offer students a university degree from the Language, History and Literature program. Therefore, regarding the students who are studying in these departments, their competence in Turkish language skills on an academic level is significant. Thus, the aim of this study is to determine the reading skills self-efficacy of Turkology students studying in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Algeria. The study explored if the students’ reading self-accicay changed in line with any of the variables of country origin, gender, and student achievement level. The research data were collected by adopting the “Reading self-efficacy scale of those who learn Turkish as a foreign language” prepared by Güngör and Kan (2020), and the data obtained was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 25.0 package program. According to the results of the study, it was seen that the reading self-efficacy of Bosnia and Herzegovinian students was higher than the Algerians. Additionally, it was found out that as the achievement scores and language proficiency levels of the students increased their reading self-efficacy scores also increased. Next, the self-efficacy scores of the graduate students were found to be higher than those of the undergraduate students. In addition, there was no significant difference between the self-efficacy level of the students participating in the study according to their gender. Finally, based on the findings, suggestions were given to increase the reading self-efficacy of the students at the end of the study.

Turkish Adaptation and Psychometric Evaluation of the Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey (CLASS) in Physics

The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) is an instrument to measure student beliefs about physics and learning physics. In this research, Turkish adaptation and psychometric evaluation of the CLASS is discussed. In the first stage, the translation process, which included examination of six experts (four experts in physics education and two experts in English and Turkish languages) for content validity and 13 student interviews for face validity, was described. In the second stage, exploratory (EFA) and confirmatory (CFA) factor analysis results obtained from 1391 freshman students were discussed for construct validty. The EFA yielded three factors that consisted of 20 items, which explained 39.61 % of the total variance. These factors were named as: Problem Solving Effort, Conceptual Understanding, and Personal Interest and Real-World Connection. Based on the CFA results, the three-factor 20-item instrument showed acceptable fit statistics. Compared to the original CLASS, the proposed version with 20-item model was shorter, easier to administer and easier to score, valid and reliable survey, so feasible to use. The overlapping of the constructs (i.e., violation of the unidimensionality) in the original CLASS was a problem, while in the proposed model none of the items were included in more than one construct.

Teachers’ Attitudes to Use of Advanced Technological Tools as Teaching and Learning Aids: From an Inter-Generational Perspective

This study examines the perceptions and attitudes of teachers towards tablets as pedagogical aids from an intergenerational perspective. It is based on sociological theories and definitions that emphasize the disparities and the uniqueness of each “generation” as well as customary teaching and learning methods. The study compares teachers from Generation Y and Generation X and it was carried out about one year from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, when all teachers regardless of “generation” were required to teach digitally. We focused on a common digital tool, the tablet, which enables diverse learning methods. A questionnaire was administered to teachers in the Israeli educational system (N = 154). The research findings showed that teachers from Generation Y (aged 26-42) have more positive general attitudes towards the use of tablets as an integral part of the study program and identify more advantages and less disadvantages than their Generation X colleagues (ages 43-65). The current research findings were compatible with research findings regarding the general attitudes of teachers towards innovative technologies and their integration in study programs in educational systems worldwide. The practical meaning of the study is that it is important to continue leading programs for integrating advanced technological appliances, and not only tablets, in the curriculum, as the generation of teachers who will be responsible for educating the younger generations and for leading these programs in particular is from the age group that has the most positive attitudes towards the subject.

The Academic Dropout Wheel Analyzing the Antecedents of Higher Education Dropout in Education Studies

Higher education dropout has been considered a major concern for several researchers in the field of education around the World. Although different studies were carried out to deal with the topic, they all faced common limitations. This paper explores the twofold research conducted to investigate higher education dropout in Education studies at two of the main Catalan public universities. First, a review of the different theoretical perspectives that tackled dropout was carried out to combine the direct and indirect dropout predictors. Second, some research was conducted in the faculties of Education in the selected two Catalan public universities to investigate the antecedents of higher education dropout. The utilized instrument discussed in this paper is the survey. In the first part, the predictors of higher education dropout were combined in a 5-layer model called the ¨Dimensions of Academic Dropout” wheel (Naaman, 2018). In the second part, the results of the survey analyzed quantitively revealed that dissatisfaction from the program and academic failure are the most important antecedents of higher education dropout in education studies in Catalonia.

Students’ Difficulties in Applying the Law of Conservation of Mechanical Energy: Results of a Survey Research

The purpose of this study was to explore the effectiveness of the conventional high school instruction about conservation of mechanical energy in Canton Sarajevo. To that end we tested 441 high school students from six different schools in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) for their competence to apply the law of conservation of mechanical energy. Concretely, students were expected to solve 5 open-ended tasks that covered conceptually different situations. In each task we asked a set of sub-questions to check whether the students possess all the prerequisite sub-competencies for systematic reasoning about conservation of mechanical energy. In addition, we investigated how students’ ideas about conservation of mechanical energy were affected by the choice of the physical system, as well as by the choice of the observed time interval. Data analysis was performed on the level of individual tasks. The students’ written answers were analyzed and the frequencies of most prominent student responses were reported. Generally, it has been shown that most high school students from Sarajevo fail to identify and distinguish internal, external, conservative and non-conservative forces. Also, many students think that applicability of the conservation law does not depend on the chosen physical system and its evolution over time. We could conclude that high school students’ use of the conservation law is mostly based on remembering similar problem solving experiences, rather than on relevant strategic knowledge.

Levels of Ethnocentricism Among Teachers of Turkish as a Foreign Language

In this study, in which the levels of ethnocentrism of those who teach Turkish as a foreign language were examined in line with various variables, the general survey model within the scope of descriptive research was implemented. The research was carried out with 185 instructors who teach Turkish as a foreign language in various state or private institutions in the 2020-2021 academic year. In order to assess the ethnocentrism level of teachers, a 5-item Likert-type Ethnocentrism Scale, comprised of 20 questions, developed by Neuliep and McCroskey (1997) and which was later adapted to Turkish by Üstün (2011) was used. In the study, it was found that the levels of ethnocentrism of those who teach Turkish as a foreign language differ significantly according to such variables as gender, age, their holding a Turkish teaching certificate for foreigners and to the MA program they graduated from, yet it was also concluded that there was no significant difference according to the other variables as the institution they work for, the department they studied in, whether they know a foreign language, where they teach Turkish, and their intercultural communication competence.

Future jobs: Indonesian Primary Students’ Aspirations and Teachers’ predictions

The transformation of occupations in Indonesia due to digital technologies, especially in Artificial Intelligence, becomes a challenge for current educators to prepare their students for future work skills. This research study seeks to understand what students' career aspirations are and their teachers' predictions about their students' future careers. There were 125 Indonesian primary school students and 141 teachers in Central Java province involved in this research. Students were asked to draw the aspiration of their future jobs when they grow up in the next 15-20 years, and teachers were asked to draw their predictions of their students' future careers. The results show some similarities and differences between students' aspirations and teachers' predictions. Both students and teachers have the same idea about the importance of jobs that emphasizing the use of creativity. However, students had a tendency to select their future careers related to creative and performing arts, whereas teachers predicted their students' future jobs as teachers and lecturers. The data also shows that students incline to draw the use of high-technology tools in their future jobs, whereas teachers tend to describe the use of conventional tools in their students' future careers. Further results are discussed in relation to the International Standard Classification of Occupations skill levels jobs.