This paper presents a content analytic approach on doctoral dissertations in the field of distance education in Turkish Higher Education context from the years of 1986 through 2014. A total of 61 dissertations were examined to explore keywords, academic discipline, research areas, theoretical/conceptual frameworks, research designs, research models, tests and analyses, data collection tools, participants, variables/research interests, and leading contributor institutions. It is believed that this study can be beneficial to the field of distance education in Turkish context to identify research trends and set a research agenda by exploring dissertations that were published between 1986 and 2014.

The open nature of online networked spaces enables diverse participation from all around the globe, raising cultural diversity as a paramount issue within the learning perspective. In this context, the purpose of this research is to examine participation and engagement patterns in online networked learning spaces in terms of cultural dimensions. The findings of this research have demonstrated that there is diversity in both time and space. The geographical distribution demonstrates that most of the participation originates from developed, Western, Anglo-Saxon cultures. Diversity in time creates its own loop, in which interactions were fed continuously and terms, such as day and night, sync and async have blurred borders. The English language is dominant over other languages and learners predominantly participate from those countries where English is spoken as a native or official language. In terms of cultural perspectives, the findings indicate that there is cultural dominancy as well as cultural diversity in online networked learning spaces.

This study aims to investigate the beliefs of Turkish EFL teachers about implementing digital technology in the classroom and the underlying factors which affect their beliefs. Quantitative research design was selected and online Beliefs Questionnaire was used for data collection. The participants of the study consisted of 563 Turkish in-service EFL teachers working at state schools, private schools or colleges in various parts of Turkey. Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were performed to determine whether the participants’ four categorized beliefs about the use of digital technology (i.e. importance, use, expertise, and context) interrelated with each other, and if any of the participants’ demographic and background factors (i.e. age, gender, level of education, years of teaching experience) predicted the reported beliefs. The results indicated that teachers shared positive views on the use of digital technology in EFL classrooms in terms of importance, use, expertise, and context. It was also found that gender, age and teaching experience did not create any significant change on teachers’ beliefs.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a relationship between Turkish online learners' sense of classroom community, perceptions of success in team development process and their preferences of studying in teams. A survey instrument included the Sense of Classroom Community Scale, Tuckman's Teamwork Questionnaire and some other items were used to collect data. The study has shown that there is a medium level relationship between online learners' sense of community and their perceptions of success in team development process. In other words, the study suggests that sense of classroom community can be used as a predictor of success in teamwork and vice versa. It was also observed that each stage of the team development process has an influence on the following one; thus, when a problem occurred in a stage, it usually continued in the following stages. Analyses, additionally, revealed that the majority of the problems occurred in the forming stage, the first stage of the team development process.

The open nature of online networked spaces enables diverse participation from all around the globe, raising cultural diversity as a paramount issue within the learning perspective. In this context, the purpose of this research is to examine participation and engagement patterns in online networked learning spaces in terms of cultural dimensions. The findings of this research have demonstrated that there is diversity in both time and space. The geographical distribution demonstrates that most of the participation originates from developed, Western, Anglo-Saxon cultures. Diversity in time creates its own loop, in which interactions were fed continuously and terms, such as day and night, sync and async have blurred borders. The English language is dominant over other languages and learners predominantly participate from those countries where English is spoken as a native or official language. In terms of cultural perspectives, the findings indicate that there is cultural dominancy as well as cultural diversity in online networked learning spaces.