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Academic integrity is a vital pedagogical responsibility that educational institutions should explicitly address. One of the best ways to uphold academic integrity is to create a culture of academic integrity throughout the school. This is especially imperative at high schools where students develop their moral identity because students who act dishonestly at high school will likely behave accordingly in post-secondary education and ultimately be dishonest in familial and professional settings. Creating a culture of academic integrity is a challenging, long and multifaceted journey. In this respect, this exploratory case study set out to create a culture of academic integrity at a high school in Türkiye and explore what facilitates and impedes the process. We followed Stephens' (2016) Multilevel Intervention Model and implemented a School-Wide Education program to guide us through the process. We conducted various activities throughout one academic year, from seminars to competitions. At the end of the term, we conducted individual and focus group interviews with the members of the school community and analyzed the interview data to identify facilitators and barriers of the process. The analysis yielded five facilitators (1) creating buy-in, (2) administrative embracement and support, (3) activities that promote student involvement, (4) external expert and school collaboration as praxis, and (5) policy as the blueprint and five barriers (1) deficiencies in responding academic misconduct, (2) prioritization of academic success over academic integrity, (3) teacher resistance against change, (4) exam-based assessment design, and (5) timing of the activities. Each theme was discussed in detail, and recommendations were made for high schools which set out on a journey of creating academic integrity culture.

Although writing is considered one of the most essential foreign language skills, to nurture and develop writing skills among students is challenging. To overcome this, teachers have recently considered benefiting from digital technology. Self-monitoring and self-evaluation, as sub-skills of metacognition, in addition to scaffolding, might be beneficial in accordance with the Zone of Proximal Development; hence both peer feedback and self-monitoring could be integrated with digital platforms in language classrooms. This quasi-experimental research study aimed to investigate the impact of exchanging self and anonymous peer feedback on writing assignments in a digital environment among Turkish EFL high school learners. Data were collected both quantitatively and qualitatively by means of open-ended questions and writing task scores using an analytic scoring rubric. Forty-six students in two intact classes exchanged both self and anonymous peer feedback through four writing assignments submitted via Edmodo as the digital environment. Participants were categorized as good, moderate and weak in each group and each student exchanged self and peer feedback on four written assignments in reverse order. Findings revealed that both self and peer feedback contribute positively to the revision of papers by student authors as they scored significantly better in the revised versions. Their writing scores indicated improvement in five major components: organization, content, grammar, vocabulary, and format. The participants also reported improvements related to content, grammar and format and indicated a positive attitude towards digital self and peer feedback. Since both digital self and peer feedback were found to be beneficial, EFL teachers should be encouraged to implement them in their writing classes.

This study examines the decision-making behaviors of raters with varying levels of experience while assessing EFL essays of distinct qualities. The data were collected from 28 raters with varying levels of rating experience and working at the English language departments of different universities in Turkey. Using a 10-point analytic rubric, each rater voice-recorded their thoughts through think-aloud protocols (TAPs) while scoring 16 essays of distinct text qualities and provided brief score explanations. Data collected from TAPs were analyzed by using a coding scheme adapted from Cumming, Kantor, and Powers (2002). The results revealed that text quality has a larger effect than rating experience on raters' decision-making behaviors. In addition, raters prioritized aspects of style, grammar, and mechanics when rating low-quality essays, but emphasized rhetoric and their general impressions of the text for high-quality essays. Furthermore, low-experienced raters differed more in their behaviors while assessing scripts of distinct qualities than did the medium- and high-experienced groups. The findings suggest that raters' scoring behaviors might evolve with practice, resulting in less variation in their decisions. As such, this research provides implications for developing strategy-based rater training programs, which might help to increase consistency across raters of different experience levels.

This study mainly aims to investigate the preferences of language learning strategies by English Language Teaching Department students. Oxford's five-scale Likert type inventory, consisting of 50 items on the use of language learning strategies, was administered to 189 participants at the ELT department of C¸anakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey to identify the impact of gender, class, and period of English study on the use of strategies. Descriptive statistics indicated that the participants mostly preferred compensation and metacognitive strategies. Controversy, affective and social strategies were the least preferred strategies by the participants. A significant difference was found between preparatory class and 3rd year students in terms of use of strategies. However, t-test and post hoc test did not indicate significant differences among the participants in terms of their gender, age, and period of English study.

This study presents the processes of developing and establishing reliability and validity of a reading test by administering an integrative approach as conventional reliability and validity measures superficially reveals the difficulty of a reading test. In this respect, analysing vocabulary frequency of the test is regarded as a more eligible way of measuring validity. A study was conducted at Dokuz Eylu¨l University and C¸anakkale Onsekiz Mart University with three colleagues and 100 undergraduate students to establish validity and reliability along with readability and vocabulary frequency of a 32-item reading test which was developed by the researcher. Such detailed assessment is highly recommended for researchers who are in need of preparing pre and post tests which are different from each other.

This study investigated whether cultural familiarity influences comprehension of short stories and whether nativizing the story or using reading activities can compensate for the lack of such familiarity. The study was conducted with 44 advanced-level students of English at a state university in Turkey. In a 2 x 2 experimental research design, the 1st group of students read an original short story without any activities while the 2nd group of students read the original short story with some activities. The 3rd group read the nativized version of the text without any activities while the 4th group read the nativized version with the same set of activities as the 2nd group. The analysis of variance indicated a better comprehension of the nativized story. The activities contributed to the comprehension of the original story, but the difference caused by nativization remained intact, indicating a powerful impact of cultural schema on comprehension. (Contains 6 tables.)

Because students learn from each other as well as lecturers, it is important to create opportunities for collaboration in writing classes. Teachers now benefit from access to plagiarism detectors that can also provide feedback. This exploratory study considers the role of four review types, open and anonymous, involving the students themselves, peer and tutor reviewing, and anonymous digital review by means of plagiarism detectors. Eighty-seven freshmen from Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, participated. Throughout the term, feedback was provided by four sources: the tutor, peers, software, and by students themselves. At the end of the term, written assignments were self and peer reviewed, and graded by the course lecturer. Results indicated that higher-scoring students could manage both self and peer review tasks more effectively. The study suggests that academic writing and reviewing skills are related, and that integrating review skills into evaluation procedures may result in a more reliable assessment.

Similarity reports of plagiarism detectors should be approached with caution as they may not be sufficient to support allegations of plagiarism. This study developed a 50-item rubric to simplify and standardize evaluation of academic papers. In the spring semester of 2011-2012 academic year, 161 freshmen's papers at the English Language Teaching Department of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Turkey, were assessed using the rubric. Validity and reliability were established. The results indicated citation as a particularly problematic aspect, and indicated that fairer assessment could be achieved by using the rubric along with plagiarism detectors' similarity results.

This study aims primarily to investigate the impact of learning multiple foreign languages on the use of metacognitive reading strategies (MRSs) by foreign language teaching (FLT) department students. A number of factors such as gender, hand preference, class, and programme with reference to their belief orientation were also involved in the study. A five-scale Likert type questionnaire, consisting of 22 MRSs and 12 belief orientation items, was administered to 205 participants in the department of FLT at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey. Post Hoc test indicated significant differences among the participants in different programs, evidencing the contribution of learning a second foreign language to the use of MRSs. Participants of the Japanese Language Teaching Programme implied that learners' preference of MRSs would develop hand in hand with their difficulty with the target language.

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This article examines the issue of polygamy in Turkey, Pakistan and Malaysia and its effects in the light of the socio-economic conditions, fiqh and laws and discusses the reason behind the revelation of provisions on polygamy under specific circumstances.

Copyright of Education & Science / Egitim ve Bilim is the property of Turkish Education Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: Previous studies on school-based education programs have reported that asthmatic and nonasthmatic adolescents, teachers and school personnel do not have enough information on asthma. However, the number of education programs including adolescents without asthma is not sufficient. The aim of the present study was to determine the knowledge of school children about asthma and to investigate whether their knowledge of asthma can be increased by an education program through a booklet distributed as a handout. Methods: This cross-sectional prospective questionnaire survey was carried out in a private school in Ankara, Turkey, between February and April 2006. 720 adolescents in grades 6, 7 and 8 were included. Knowledge about asthma was evaluated by a scoring system before and after the education offered by means of a booklet. Results: The final analysis was conducted on 642 students in total. The number of right answers in 5 categories, percentage of right answers and total questionnaire score improved significantly after the education received (p < 0.001). The total questionnaire scores of the girls (p = 0.002), those students with a university graduate mother (p = 0.006) and those with a physician parent (p = 0.041) were higher than those of the other pupils. Conclusion: Theoretical material in the form of a booklet can be used in a school-based asthma education program in order to improve the knowledge of adolescents about asthma. Copyright © 2011 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

HızlıŞ, Özdemir O, Abacı A, Razi CH and Kabakuş N. Relation of subepicardial adipose tissue thickness and clinical and metabolic parameters in obese prepubertal children. Background: The measurement of subepicardial adipose tissue thickness (SATT) has been found to be related to insulin resistance (IR) in adults. Until now, the association between SATT and IR has not been evaluated in obese prepubertal children. We aimed to determine the relation of SATT with clinical anthropometric and metabolic parameters and to provide cutoff value of SATT associated with IR in obese prepubertal children. Methods: Fifty-two obese (mean age: 9.5 ± 1.6 years, 29 female) and 31 lean prepubertal age- and gender-matched subjects (mean age: 9.2 ± 1.4 years, 12 female) were evaluated by echocardiography. SATT was measured by transthoracic echocardiography. Results: SATT (6.54 ± 1.38 mm) and homeostatic model assessment-insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) (3.2 ± 2) values of obese prepubertal subjects were significantly higher than those of the lean subjects (3.72 ± 0.57 mm and 1.6 ± 1) in the control group (both p < 0.001). Bivariate correlation analysis showed significant correlation between SATT, age, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), hip circumference (HC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR), mid-arm circumference (MAC), triceps skin fold (TSF) thickness, insulin, and HOMA-IR (r = 0.547, r = 0.524, r = 0.543, r = 0.431, r = 0.289, r = 0.402, r = 0.400, r = 0.328, r = 0.289, p < 0.05, respectively). As an optimal cutoff point, an SATT of 4.33 mm determined IR with 93.3% sensitivity and 51% specificity. Conclusions: Our study on obese prepubertal children showed that SATT was significantly correlated with age, BMI, WC, HC, MAC, TSF, insulin, and HOMA-IR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims primarily to investigate the impact of learning multiple foreign languages on the use of metacognitive reading strategies (MRSs) by foreign language teaching (FLT) department students. A number of factors such as gender, hand preference, class, and programme with reference to their belief orientation were also involved in the study. A five-scale Likert type questionnaire, consisting of 22 MRSs and 12 belief orientation items, was administered to 205 participants in the department of FLT at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University in Turkey. Post Hoc test indicated significant differences among the participants in different programs, evidencing the contribution of learning a second foreign language to the use of MRSs. Participants of the Japanese Language Teaching Programme implied that learners' preference of MRSs would develop hand in hand with their difficulty with the target language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]