When Turkey's mathematical literacy performance in PISA 2003 and 2012 is examined, it is seen that it has an increase of approximately 25 points between the two assessments. Despite this increase, the fact that the mathematics performance is below the OECD average leads to the need to determine what factors affect the mathematics performance of Turkish students. This study is aimed to investigate the factors affecting mathematics performance of Turkish students at school and school level. Initially Turkish sample consisted a total of 4848 students from 170 schools. As a result of examining the assumptions of the two-level hierarchical linear model; the data of 4236 students from 128 schools were included in the analysis. The results indicate that 64 % of the variability in mathematics achievement was found between schools. Variables associated with attitudes towards mathematics have significant effects on mathematics achievement. Mathematics self-efficacy has the most significant impacts on mathematics achievement after controlling remaining variables. For the school-level variables, proportion of mathematics teachers was found to be a strong predictor of a school's average mathematics achievement. However, it's been found that student-teacher ratio was the only negative predictor of mathematics achievement at school-level. School-level variables explained 44.1% of the variance in the between school difference in mean mathematics achievement.

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This study aims to analyse prospective teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, teaching motivation, and attitudes towards teaching from the aspect of a number of variables. The research data were collected through “Teachers’ Sense of Self-efficacy Scale”, “Motivation to Teach Scale”, “Attitude Scale of Teaching Profession”. The study group was composed of 543 undergraduate students and taking teaching formation courses. Consequently, it was found that the prospective teachers who had chosen the department of study or graduation voluntarily had higher self-efficacy, motivation and attitudes than those who had not chosen the department voluntarily. The difference was found significant for both independent variables, but the interaction effect of the independent variables was not found significant for the dependent variables considered in this study. In addition to that, on examining the correlations between variables, it was found that the highest correlation was between intrinsic motivation and attitudes whereas the lowest correlation was between self-efficacy and motivation. The regression analysis performed indicated that attitudes had significant effects on self-efficacy and motivation. The findings suggested that such factors as attitudes, self-efficacy, and motivation should be taken into consideration in teacher training, and that other variables thought to have significant effects on teaching profession should also be analysed in studies to be conducted in the future.

This simulation study compared the performances (Type I error and power) of Mantel-Haenszel (MH), SIBTEST, and item response theory-likelihood ratio (IRT-LR) methods under certain conditions. Manipulated factors were sample size, ability differences between groups, test length, the percentage of differential item functioning (DIF), and underlying model used to generate data. Results suggest that SIBTEST had the highest Type I error in the detection of uniform DIF, but MH had the highest power under all conditions. In addition, the percentage of DIF and the underlying model appear to have influenced the Type I error rate of IRT-LR. Ability differences between groups, test length, the percentage of DIF, model, and the interactions between ability differences*percentage of DIF, ability differences*test length, test length*percentage of DIF, test length*model affected the SIBTEST methods' Type I error rate. In the MH procedure, effective factors for Type I error rate were: sample size, test length, the percentage of DIF, ability differences*percentage of DIF, ability differences*model, and ability differences*percentage of DIF*model. No factors were effective on the power of SIBTEST and MH, but the underlying model had a significant effect on the IRT-LR power rate.

Öz Bu araştırmada Uluslararası Öğrenci Değerlendirme Programı (PISA) 2009 kapsamında uygulanan öğrenci anketinin kültürlere göre değişen madde fonksiyonu (DMF) gösterip göstermediği Türkiye-Finlandiya, Türkiye-Rusya, Singapur-Yeni Zelanda ve Avustralya-Yeni Zelanda örneklemleri kullanılarak incelenmiştir. Araştırmada PISA'da yer alan 11 maddelik okumaya yönelik tutum maddeleri kullanılmıştır.Araştırmaya bu ülkelerin dâhil edilmesinde ülkelerin başarı sıralaması, dil ve kültür özellikleri dikkate alınmıştır. İlk olarak öğrenci anketinin faktör yapısı açımlayıcı faktör analizi ile incelenmiştir. Daha sonra DMF analizleri poly-SIBTEST, ordinal lojistik regresyon ve madde tepki kuramı olabilirlik oranı yöntemleri ile yapılmıştır. Farklı dil ve farklı kültüre sahip ülkelerde maddelerin %91'i DMF gösterirken, bu oran farklı kültür ve aynı dilde %82'ye, aynı kültür ve aynı dilde %37'ye düşmüştür. Bu çalışmada ortaya çıkan sonuç, dil fakından ziyade kültür farklılıklarının maddelerin DMF göstermesinde etkili olduğudur.