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-