Attitudes and motivational beliefs are seen as an essential prerequisite for language learning so both of them should be taken into consideration through this process. The study was designed to investigate the undergraduates’ motivational beliefs and attitudes regarding learning English in terms of gender, grades and department variables. A total of 447 undergraduates participated in this research study. The measuring instruments used were ‘Attitudes towards English Scale’ that focused on the attitudes towards learning English and ‘Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire’ specifically on self-regulatory strategies and motivational beliefs. The data collected were computed and analyzed via Pearson correlation, t-test, and one-way ANOVA. The findings of the study were generalized in the way that follows: one of the findings of the study is that there is significant correlation between the undergraduates’ motivational strategies and the attitudes but not self regulation. There is not significant difference on motivational strategies and attitudes regarding learning English in terms of gender and grades. There is significant difference between undergraduates’ motivational strategies and the attitudes according to their faculties. Some useful implications are discussed based on the research findings in order to help provide possible further solutions towards the English language learning.

Comparative relational screening method was used in this study, in which complementary assessment tools were used to measure the 7th grade students’ success in the unit entitled “The Granular Structure of Matter”. The study was carried out with 23 participants, 7th grade students studying in Hamamözü in Amasya. The tools prepared for this study included achievement tests, diagnostic branched trees, structured grids and knowledge maps. At the end of the unit, the participants were asked to create concept maps about the concepts they had learned throughout the unit, and then these concept maps were evaluated. The differences in students’ scores achieved for various assessment tools were analyzed and it was found that there was a significant difference among all the assessment tools except for knowledge maps and concept maps. It was seen that the students were less successful in diagnostic branched trees compared to the others. Finally, some suggestions for educators were made.

As classroom teaching is a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field, classroom teachers are expected to be equipped with different competencies when compared to other teachers. In this research, it is aimed to determine the special field competencies of classroom teachers. Within the frame of this main purpose, it is examined whether the special field competencies of classroom teacher candidates show significant differentiation according to the variables of gender, order of preference, type of education and academic success. The research is conducted with 207 teacher candidates studying their 4th year at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Undergraduate Program of Classroom Teaching, by using “Classroom Teaching Special Field Competency Scale” developed by Kahramanoğlu and Ay (2013). As a result of the research, it is seen that the total points (average=3.93) of teacher candidates’ special field competency are adequate and according to sub-dimensions, their competency level vary. It is conducted as a result that special field competencies of teacher candidates do not show a significant differentiation according to the variables of gender, order of preference and academic success and in terms of the variable of education type, there is a differentiation in countenance of teacher candidates studying evening education program.

The purpose of this study is to develop a scale to determine secondary school students’ attitudes towards listening skill. In this regard, literature review conducted in this field is done and item pool is created by addressing openended questions to 270 participants. Questions in the item pool are identified as 29 items in accordance with the expert opinions; pre-treatment was applied to 56 participants. 2 questions that cannot be understood by the participants were omitted in line with expert opinion. As a result of the analysis of research data, 4 items that are not appropriate were omitted and KMO value was calculated as .85, and Bartlett’s value was 3576,335(p<.000) hence, it has been concluded that the available data was suitable for scale development. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis for the construct validity of the scale, it has been observed that 49.1% of the total variance is explained. As the result of the exploratory factor analysis demonstrates, 4 sub-dimensions has come out in 23 items for Listening Skill Attitude Scale. Internal consistency of the scale was examined for reliability of the scale, and the internal consistency coefficient for the whole scale has been found to be 75%. In addition, internal consistency coefficient of “Advantage” sub-dimension is found as .80, “Effect” is .89, “Enthusiasm” is .70 and “Respect” is .45. Item value of 23 items, 11 items between the scores .41 to .73 were gathered under “Advantage” sub-dimension. Variance is found as 21.74. It has been observed that 4 items are put under the sub-dimension “Effect” as the second sub-dimension. When examined the item values, they are between the scores .86 to .87. The explained variance is 13.50. When considering the third sub-dimension “Enthusiasm” 4 items are collected under it. Item values are between .61 ile .77. Variance of this dimension is 8.39. Finally, 3 of the items are placed to the fourth dimension. Item value of the subdimension “Respect ” are between .58 ile .69. And the variance explained is 5.44. It has been found that sub-top group reliability of 27% of the scale all the items differ significantly (p<.001). Significant correlation has been obtained .72 (p<.001) in the analysis of another reliability study, test-retest method that is applied with an interval of 4-weeks.

Teaching Turkish as a foreign language gains more importance day by day. Within the process, the ability to use the four basic skills in the best way possible is closely related with teaching vocabulary. Due to this reason, the study was conducted in order to determine the vocabulary level of students at B1-B2 level in the Turkish Education as Foreign Language classes of the Turkish Application and Research Center under Mersin University. Within the scope of the study, in different weeks the students were presented with the topic titles of "1- Narrate a day where your dreams come true; 2- Describe a match of a different branch of sports you have watched; 3- Write an essay concerning your opinions on brand enthusiasm; 4- Imagine that you are an entity other than human and write down your feelings" and were asked to write essays on these. In order to be able to obtain data from the essays written by the students, the essays were transferred into computerized environment, and the word lists of each topic title were created via the software Simple Concordance 4.07. Final lists were obtained by removing the inflexional suffixes of the words included in these lists. While it was determined that a total of 3575 words were used in the essays, removing the duplicated words resulted with a total of 782 different words. Afterwards, these words were categorized according to their types. In conclusion, it was determined that the sources used in teaching Turkish to foreigners are not subjected to an evaluation in terms of active vocabulary. This conclusion was found important not only because it sets forth the original aspect of the study, but also in terms of its quality that would serve as a guide to further studies to be carried out.