The Ministry of Education in Turkey has been launching education programs based on constructivist learning since 2005 and this approach has led to innovation and renewal in education and teaching environments. This shift in education applications may have caused some changes in the education process, in educational tools and materials, in the design of learning environments and in testing and assessment. With a constructivist approach, multiple assessments for multiple learning applications are required to evaluate the extent to which the goals of an education program are being realized. However, assessment practices and purposes are mostly affected by teachers' beliefs and attitudes about assessment. In this sense, the aim of this school survey is to investigate the assessment practices and habits of Turkish teachers of the English language. Further, this study investigates the teachers' preferences, views, thoughts and feelings about assessment. This study was conducted with the participation of 95 Turkish EFL teachers working at primary and secondary schools in different districts of a city in Turkey. The data was collected through a questionnaire. The descriptive results showed that the teachers give less importance to listening and writing skills and also that speaking is perceived as the most challenging skill to assess. Furthermore, ISSN 2162-6952 2014 www.macrothink.org/jse 78 the inferential statistical results showed that male and female teachers have similar assessment preferences in their teaching process. Class size impacts upon the teachers' assessment preferences significantly. Further, the teachers do not change their assessment preferences even if they receive assessment training during or before service and they frequently rely upon their personal assessment preferences. Finally, teaching hours and the number of quizzes did not affect their assessment preferences. The implications for education policy and practices are highlighted. Journal of Studies in Education

The main purpose of this study is to investigate prospective teachers' critical thinking and metacognition levels. The study is descriptive in nature and based on relational screening model. The participants were selected using stratified sampling method which is one of the random sampling methods, and 293 teachers became the participants of the study. The data collected via "California Critical Thinking Scale" and "Metacognition Scale" were analyzed using independent groups t-test, one-way variance analysis, correlation analysis as well as the descriptive statistics. Results show that although the participants' metacognition perceptions differed according to gender in the evaluation and organization dimensions, no significant differences were found in the other dimensions. The participants' perceived critical thinking levels did not show significant differences according to the departments they attend in the seeking truth, open-mindedness, analyticalness, systematicity, curiousness and total dimensions. Critical thinking total scores were found to display a negative relationship with evaluation, organization, and metacognition total scores while they showed a positive relationship with seeking the truth, open-mindedness, analyticalness, systematicity, self-confidence, and curiousness scores.

This study aims to investigate 6th grade students' conceptual structures about the cell concept in science education. For this purpose, drawing method, open-ended questions and word association test were applied to 65 middle school students. Descriptive analysis and content analysis were used to analyze the data. It was found that there were a wide range of alternative conceptions in students' drawings and definitions of the cell. They mostly designated the nucleus, cell membrane and the mitochondria as the most important parts or organelles. The participants association of the cell concept with daily life was mostly categorized as 'awareness generated by knowledge', 'health' and 'finding it necessary for the future'. Also, the data collected through the word association test was categorized under 5 categories and 'defining the cell', 'parts and the organelles of the cell' and 'giving examples to the cell' were the mostly persisting ones. We conclude that the 6th grade students who met for the first time with the cell concept at school had insufficient conceptions about that concept.

ÖzetÇağın gereklerine uygun ve nitelikli insan gücünün temellerini atan öğretmenlerin yetiştirilmesi sürecinde hazırlanan donanımlı öğrenme ortamlarında öğretim elamanlarının öğretmen adaylarına karşı tutumları arzu edilen öğretmen özelliklerinin oluşmasını sağlayabilir. Davies (1999) demokratik bir yaşam anlayışının oluşabilmesi, eğitim sistemlerinin ve ortamlarının demokratik oluşuna bağlamaktadır.Öğrenme ortamının fiziki, sosyal, psikolojik, teknik özellikleri istendik davranışların oluşmasında büyük bir role sahip olduğu açıktır. Günümüz öğretmen eğitiminde amaç; özgür düşünebilen, öğrenme sorumlulukları alabilen, öğrenme ortamlarında katılımcı rol üstlenen, eleştiriler yapabilen ve eleştirilere açık olabilen, öğrendikleri arasında neden-sonuç ilişkisi kurabilen ve öğrendiklerini sorgulayabilen, bilgiyi yaratıcı biçimde kullanabilen, öğrendiklerini yansıtabilen, öğrendikleriyle problem çözebilen, demokratik tutum ve davranışları kazanmış iyi donanımlı öğretmen adayları yetiştirmektir. Eğitim fakültelerinde özellikle işi "öğretmen yetiştirmek" olan öğretim elemanlarının da öncelikle öğretmen adaylarına kazandıracakları bu özelikleri kendilerinde bulundurmaları gerekmektedir (Şen ve Erişen, 2002).Bu noktadan hareketle araştırmada, öğretim elemanlarının demokratik tutumlarına ilişkin öğretmen adaylarının algıları tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır.Bu araştırmanın amacı ise öğretmen eğitiminde oluşturulan öğrenme ortamlarında öğretim elemanlarının demokratik tutumlarının tespitini yaparak çeşitli değişkenler açısından farklılaşıp farklılaşmadığını belirlemektir.

Introduction. The nations which have the aim to create democratic societies should also real-

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This study aims to investigate regular and vocational high school students' perceptions of school quality of life. In line with this purpose, the questions that guided the study are "Are there any significant relationships between the sub-dimensions of school quality of life perceptions (teachers, positive feelings about school, status, school authorities, negative feelings about school, students and social activities)?", "Do the perceptions of students about school quality life differ depending on the factors such as school type, gender, grade level, and parents' education level?", and "Are there any significant relationships among sub-dimensions of school quality of life perceptions (teachers, positive feelings about school, status, school authorities, negative feelings about school, students, and social activities) of 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students?". The study was conducted as a descriptive study making use of survey method. The participants are 358 randomly selected students from three schools randomly selected among regular, vocational, and Science and Anatolian high schools located in Kars city centre. The participants' perceptions of school quality of life were identified through Scale for Measuring Quality of Life in High Schools (LISEYKO) which was revised by Sarı (2011). Cronbach-Alpha internal consistency coefficient of the original scale is .86 while that of used in the present study was found .70. The data were analysed using factor analysis, numbers, percentages, arithmetic mean scores, t-test for independent groups, one-way analysis of variance, and correlation analysis.The results indicate that there is not any significant relationship between gender and the sub-dimensions of the school quality of life scale, and between the type of high school and positive feelings about school, status, negative feelings about school, students, social activities, and total sub-dimension scores. There is a significant difference between the grade levels and the sub-dimensions of quality of school life scale in relation to teachers, positive feelings about school, negative feelings about school and total scores in favor of the 12th graders. While mothers' education level reveals significant difference in terms of teachers, school authorities, social activities, and total scores the other subdimensions indicate no difference. Similarly, fathers' education level demonstrates significant difference in teachers and students sub-dimensions, but not in the other subdimensions. There is not any statistical difference between the teacher sub-dimension and school authorities, status and between the student sub-dimension and negative feelings towards school and total scores. However, there are statistically significant relationships in the other sub-dimensions of the scale.

Metacognition, thinking, and learning are a continuous transformation in case of different aspects of the same event. In turn, metacognition is an inseparable part of the process of thinking to think. Recently, the definition of metacognition has been elaborated. And as defined in the past, it has only consisted of "thinking on think", but now it covers of awareness of one's own knowledge, cognitive steps, cognitive and effective situations, intentional and awareness monitoring ability, and regulating his/herself knowledge, as well. In such a process, social awareness and social dimensions of development thinking in the participants' individual learning and language are an inevitable necessity and the key to thinking rather than effective think. In this line, individuals are also supposed to effectively use the cognitive processes and skills. Herewith, metacognition could be accepted as a large structure consisting of the community service activities. As research findings also revealed, the teachers' participation in community service activities is being effective for the development of cognitive skills and higher-level thinking processes; in this regard, as it contribute the teachers' development of the responsibility for their own learning, it has positively contributed that the more their necessary skills increased, the more positive attitude toward student the teachers have. To determine the prospective teachers' personal traits, the perception on Community Service Activities, and to measure the cognitive skills respectively in this research, it was used "Personal Information Form"; "Community Service Activities Scale", and "Cognitive Awareness Scale". Las but not least, the overall aim of this study is to uncover what extent the prospective teacher's cognitive skills is predicted in terms of the variables of Community Service Activities Perception Scale.