Career Decisions

The study examined factors influencing career decisions using a sample of high school learners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A mixed-method approach was utilised. In the quantitative phase of the study, a sample of 536 high school learners in South Africa filled out the Career Interest Inventory (Fisher & Stafford, 1999) in understanding factors that influence career decisions. Phase two sought to understand qualitatively how the identified factors from phase one influence the enactment of career decisions using focus groups with 60 learners drawn from the sample in phase one. Results from phase one showed that learners' career decisions were highly influenced by academic experiences and self-efficacy, parents, teachers, and peers, respectively. Learners perceived ethnic-gender expectations and negative social events as having low levels of influence when making career decisions. Female learners are significantly more highly influenced by parents, teachers, academic experiences, and self-efficacy than their male counterparts. Findings also reveal not only the complexity but also the sense-making that occurs when making career decisions. Implications are made based on these findings.

This study examined the contributory impact of spirituality, parental involvement and locus of control to the prediction of career decision-making among school going adolescents. A multiple regression statistical method was used in analyzing the data collected from 150 final year secondary school students. They were randomly selected from three coeducational secondary schools in Katsina, Katsina state, Nigeria. Results obtained indicated that the three variables when put together contribute significantly to career decision making. There is significant relative effect of parental involvement and locus of control to career decision making. However, spirituality factor is not a strong predictor of career decision making in this study. Hence, counselling psychologist should consider these factors when making plans to boost career decision making skills among the adolescent. It was also suggested that parents should encourage their adolescent children to make explorations of occupational choices. INTRODUCTION The social and economic stability of any nation always depend on the quality of information on career choice available to school-going adolescents who are leaders of tomorrow. Career choice is viewed as lifelong experiences, occurring in stages and contributing to an individual's values and belief, hence career development process addresses an individual's need and goals, thus mold ones character, determine his social status, and provides means of personality, expression and condition one's life styles at different stages of life. Decision making regarding a career is an important task which occurs among school going adolescents in early years of high school and it is always associated with watershed. This is the stage the adolescents actively explore their interest and aptitudes and, develop career-related goals and aspiration. The skills for making appropriate career decisions is very central to the psychological adjustment of the school going adolescents. According to Asuquo (2007), the choice of occupations becomes more difficult as new ones develop in ever increasingly complex contemporary society of the 21 st century in which the range of career opportunities becomes greater. Projecting this view, Olayinka (1993) contends that in Nigeria, the choice of career are sometimes made at an age when most of the school going adolescent are too young and immature to be fully aware of the consequences of some of the choices they may make. Also researches by (Salami 1997) , Onivehu(1991) reveal that the problems of career indecision, indecisiveness and unrealistic career decision are still prevalent among school going adolescents, despite the few career guidance programmes designed by some researchers, Adeyemo (1998), Salami and Onyeacho (1999) to foster career decision making , self efficacy and career maturity among school going adolescents. As indicated by Aziude and Iwundu (1995), career occupational choices information is required to facilitate this process of career choice as it leaves the school going adolescents with a better understanding of the deeper implication of the job he may want to take up. However, a great deal of researches exist that has frequently describes the goal of career counselling as

Anksiyete; kaygı veya başka bir deyişle endişe insanların deneyimlediği bir korku ve gerilim halidir. Bazı görüşlere göre yaşanan iç çatışmaların sonucudur. Bazılarına göre ise öğrenilmiş davranışlardır. Denetim dışına çıkıp kişinin işlevselliğini aksattığında rahatsızlık olarak adlandırılır.

Eskiden insanların ortalama ömürleri otuz beş yılken ve kendi küçücük dünyalarında yaşarken çoğu kez endişeli olmaya fırsatları olmazdı ve anksiyeteden söz edilmezdi. Oysa, globalleşmenin dünyayı adeta kocaman bir ülkeye dönüştürmesi , mobil teknolojilerin ve sosyal medyanın günbegün hayatımıza sirayeti, bilgisayarların gitgide insan gücünün yerini alması, rekabetin hızla artması, stresli yaşam koşulları ve tarihte hiç olmadığı kadar çok sayıda seçenek arasından karar verme mecburiyeti günümüzde anksiyeteyi en yaygın zihinsel rahatsızlık konumuna getirmiştir. Günümüzde sadece ABD'de yılda 40 milyon kişi anksiyete rahatsızlığından muzdarip olmakta, her dört kişiden biri ise hayatının bir noktasında onunla mücadele etmektedir.

Aksiyete Çağı'm adlı kitapta The Atlantic adlı derginin editörü olan yazar Scott Stossel, kendi yaşadığı ve hayatını etkileyen anksiyete sorununu keşfetmek üzere çıktığı cesur yolculuğu okurlarla paylaşmaktadır. Bu yolculukta Stossell, insanlara büyük ısdırap veren , ancak çoğu kez zayıflık olarak görülen bu illeti; arka planda yıllardan beri incelediği genetik ve sinirbilimi bulguları ve anksiyete tarihi olmak üzere kendisinin ve yakın aile bireylerinin şaşırtıcı hayat hikayesi eşliğinde esprili bir dille ve büyük bir içtenlikle anlatmaktadır.Kitapta ayrıca, anksiyete kıskacına sıkışmış dünyaca ünlü kişilere ve onların hikayelerine de yer verilmektedir.

This study investigated the influence of personality traits on career decisions among secondary school students in Yakurr Local Government Area of Cross River State, Nigeria. The research design adopted was the survey design. 200 students drawn from 10 public schools in the area of study, made up the sample of the study and this was done through stratified random sampling technique. The major instrument used for data collection was the personality traits and students’ career decisions questionnaire (PTSCDQ) and data generated were analyzed using the independent t-test analysis. The null hypotheses were tested at 0.05 level of significance. The result obtained indicated that personality traits of attitude and perception have a significant influence on career decision among secondary school students. Based on this among others, it was concluded that career decision among students are not only influenced by their parents and image figures but their attitude, perception and individual traits depending on how they think about such careers. It was therefore recommended that, professional counselors, parents/guardians, teachers and administrators alike should strive to create career awareness and give more attention to the personality trait of attitude and perception as displayed by students.

This study aims to articulate the students' perception about cyber bullying, particularly on social media. Even though ICT technology provides a large number of benefits, particularly those who are young, as Campbell (2005) has pointed out that it has also a "dark side" (p. 68). Particularly after the intensive and extensive use of the social media, the impact of the cyberbullying has dramatically increased, but it is rarely discussed and prevented. Hence, in this study, the forty-five participants were selected from two different universities and by using phenomenological analysis (Moustakas, 1994), eight research questions were answered in the semi-structured interviews, which were approximately 45 minutes in length. By gathering theoriginal data were gathered from 'naive' descriptions the experiences related to cyber bullying were taken into account based on reflection and interpretation of the participant's different stories. The collected data were analyzed in Atlas.ti 6 in order to make depth study. Additionally, there were limitations in terms of selecting the participants since a few students wanted to share their personal experiences. As a result, the data showed that the students had inevitably affected by the cyber bullying in the social media in many ways. Among ali these students, the female students had been influenced to a greater degree comparing to male students. Most (96%) of the participants agreed that social relations had changed a lot and they had to have connections with their friends through the social media. The students— particularly females—viewed cyber bullying as a problem, but no one rarely discussed at the university. More importantly a large number (89%) felt loneliness and they did not know how to behave properly. Most (91%) students did not see any helpful resources when dealing with cyber bullying. Students (82%) were currently experiencing the majority of cyber bullying instances outside of the school day, but they had direct relationship with the events at the university. Students (84%) were not able to suggest some basic strategies in order to deal with cyber bullying. They (79%) agreed that they did not know how to respond to cyberbullying. Additionally, a large number of the (94%) participants agreed that the effects would be different on the elite environments comparing to the socially disadvantaged environments. They (96%) pointed out that the future of social media had been changing in terms of education and learning so that they did not have any chance to ignore the social media. Most (85%) of the participants clarified that the university social environment, centres and counselling offices would develop a better network and understanding in order to decrease cyber bullying. Most (88%) participants articulated that cyber bullying on the socail media would develop particuiar problems and would change the culture of social life. Most (81%) claim that social media are important not only for their social life but also for their Professional life so that they did not want to see their private photographs on the walls of their friends. These (61%) participants strongly pointed out that
privacy was remarkably important for the individuals but it was not controlled. Furthermore, most (92%) participants mentioned that the autonomy in the social media would make the individulas aggressive due to the fact that there was not any law and regulations to.

In a global economy, the major focus of organisations is to manage a diverse workforce. Therefore, it is important that more women are employed in managerial positions and have a satisfying career growth. Women in managerial positions are underutilised. Their skills remain unexplored due to the traditional mindset of the society. In spite of the obstacles in their path, the number of women with children taking an interest in the paid workforce has increased notably in the past few decades. However, the major portion of the work environment has still not changed their attitude in providing employment that enables women to balance their work and family obligations. The point of the research is to study the main factors that affect the professional success of a woman, both in the global sense and especially in the Indian setting. Thus, to discover the status of the administrative position and furthermore part astute nearness of women in Indian corporate. The study is based on literature review. It focuses majorly on various factors, such as the individual, the family, the organisational and the socio-cultural, that influence career advancement of women, and affect organisational performance and the economic growth of the country. This research builds a hypothetical structure of the current research. It also proves to be a guide that addresses administrative issues in the workplace, the execution of the changes and the development of the organisation. The hole of different measurements how it varies with authoritative practice, approach making, basic leadership for the vocation movement of women utilised in the organisations.

The study examined factors influencing career decisions using a sample of high school learners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A mixed-method approach was utilised. In the quantitative phase of the study, a sample of 536 high school learners in South Africa filled out the Career Interest Inventory (Fisher & Stafford, 1999) in understanding factors that influence career decisions. Phase two sought to understand qualitatively how the identified factors from phase one influence the enactment of career decisions using focus groups with 60 learners drawn from the sample in phase one. Results from phase one showed that learners' career decisions were highly influenced by academic experiences and self-efficacy, parents, teachers, and peers, respectively. Learners perceived ethnic-gender expectations and negative social events as having low levels of influence when making career decisions. Female learners are significantly more highly influenced by parents, teachers, acade...

This article revises the effects of the metacognition development on project-based learning by giving different cases for the graduate level students (n=86) at the innovation and entrepreneurship courses. The objective of the article is to understand clearly and deeply how metacognitive learning methodologies affect the learning process and outcome. As a result, cases in which everyday challenges, such as social, economic, cultural, and environmental are solved develop better environments for the development of metacognition due to the fact that the highest ‘meta-level’ of cognition is implicated. In the project-based learning, by solving different problems it is possible to develop creative ideas while improving highly developed skills.
© 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the Organizing Committee of the ERPA Congress 2014.
Keywords: metacognition; development; project based learning; metacognitive skills; learning process

The study reported in this paper compared the effects of two approaches of blended learning on students’ learning outcomes in courses on intellectual property rights and patents. One group of students followed three weeks of online graduate courses and underwent peer assessment. In a second group of students, the online work and peer assessment were combined with active face-to-face experience-based learning. Pre and post-tests were used to measure the students’ knowledge about intellectual property rights and patents. In addition, a questionnaire was used to gather data on the students’ opinions regarding course arrangement and implementation, digital learning, the learning environment, and their knowledge, understanding, and implementation of intellectual property rights and patents. The data were quantitatively analyzed to determine whether the two blended learning approaches differed in terms of the effects measured. The findings show that the students approved of the online courses and also the face-to-face learning. These findings may reflect approval of the decrease in costs and time. The implication is that active face-to-face experience-based learning should supplement online courses with peer assessment, as this combination led to more successful learning outcomes among students taking courses on intellectual property rights and patents.

According to the objectives of the paper, the evaluation was checked together with the participants in semi-structured interviews. Two assessments were given to the students: the strategic talent management and the innovation potential assessment. A control group was used, wherein the students received an innovation potential assessment but not the strategic talent management assessment. There was a vital difference between students who took the strategic talent management assessment and those who did not in assessing their innovation potential. A difference was also seen in the area of flexibility, self-confidence and achievement drive. The research exhibited that the assessment had helped the majority of the participants to get more involved in the needs of the market to make a greater impact in on today’s society since they became more aware of their own skills, talents,
capabilities, and goals.

In this study, how the innovative career counselling at the career offices of the different universities affects the university students in their career path was critically analysed by studying the different cases of the world universities in the US and in Turkey. The changing atmosphere in the higher education and job environment had critically changed the university students' decision-making processes. Today, the new career counselling approach is needed and called "talent management" in search of alternative perspectives (Capelli, 2008). As Berger and his friends (2011) mention that even though the current talent management literatüre has a too narrow and one-dimensional approach, the innovative career counselling offices develop talent management in order to decrease career conflicts by helping the students in their career decisions. İn the new talent management, the three dimensions are taken into considerations which are namely, majors, talents, and skills. The new perspectives in the career counselling are not only valuable for the development of the students in their fields in general but also essential for the success and reputation of the universities in different contexts. İn order to understand the real effects of innovative career counselling in decision making process of the university students while decreasing their conflicts, the data were collected by using a phenomenological analysis (Moustakas, 1994, p. 2). Hence, the original data were gathered from "naive" descriptions by asking open-ended questions and dialogue. The researcher described the experiences based on reflection and interpretation of the research participant's story. İn this study, the university students (n=48), who studied from seven different universities in the US and in Turkey had participated and answered semi structured interview and focus group questions. Since a few universities had been using talent management, there were some limitations in sampling. Additionally, ali the students were Turkish due to the limitation in reaching ali the students in the US. Furthermore, the results were finalised by processing Atlas.ti 6 in order to understand deeply the complex structure of the role of the career counselling offices on career decisions and career conflicts among the students. As a result, the data show that the new career counselling called in general as talent management had inevitably affected decision making process of the university students in many ways. Even though most (83%) students were happy to contact and to work with the career counselling offices since they had become good in adapting quickly in the changing conditions of the market. The large number (98%) clarified that they had conflicts in choosing right career path, and they tried to choose majors to earn money rather than learn. Hence, in this career decision process only (96%) agreed that career counseling
offices were very well structured in helping to integrate and penetrate into the market. The data showed that the career counselling offices in the US were significantly different than those in Turkey, particularly in understanding the needs and the talents of the students by giving different assessments and in developing the social network with the business world. Even though the students in Turkey had same kind of interests, skills, and talents, they had been living significant conflicts due to the lack of proper career counselling at their universities called "talent management." İn this context, ali the students who study in Turkey were not happy and satisfied and that mentioned that they were living deep career conflicts in the 3rd and 4th grade. However, those students, who studied in the best universities in the US where career-counseling offices were active and well organized, had better self-confidence. In one of these universities, new approach of the career counselling had been using innovatively by taking holisticaily the concept of the career conselling so that all the students clearly mentioned that they did not have negative experience or conflicts in their decisions. They had been involved in their career decision activities while they were studying at the universities by attending actively in workshops, counselling sessions, assessment process, and mentoring.  Berger, L A., & Berger, D. R. (Eds.). (2011).
The Talent Management Handbook: Creating a Sustainable Competitive Advantage by Selecting, Developing, and Promoting the Best People. McGraw-Hill. Cappelli, P. (2008). Talent management for the twenty-first century. harvard business review, 36(3), 74. Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological research methods. SAGE Publications, Incorporated.
Key Words: Talent Management, Innovative Career Counselling, Career Counselling Offices, Career Conflicts, and Career Decisions

The study examined factors influencing career decisions using a sample of high school learners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A mixed-method approach was utilised. In the quantitative phase of the study, a sample of 536 high school learners in South Africa filled out the Career Interest Inventory (Fisher & Stafford, 1999) in understanding factors that influence career decisions. Phase two sought to understand qualitatively how the identified factors from phase one influence the enactment of career decisions using focus groups with 60 learners drawn from the sample in phase one. Results from phase one showed that learners' career decisions were highly influenced by academic experiences and self-efficacy, parents, teachers, and peers, respectively. Learners perceived ethnic-gender expectations and negative social events as having low levels of influence when making career decisions. Female learners are significantly more highly influenced by parents, teachers, acade...

Problem Statement: Transferring technology from university labs to startups at techno-parks is expensive and takes time.Therefore,blended learning has been using to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of technology transfer.
Research Questions: in this study, how the blended learning can significantly affect the technology transfer from the university labs to the startups at the university technology parks is studied.
Purpose of Study: The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative practice model called blended learning at the technology parks to enhance the effective and efficient technology transfer experiences. Hence,the design,methodology,and approach in technology transfer have changed by empowering the blended Iearning-online, mobile, and face to face learning.
Research Methods: in this study, 46 participants were randomly selected and randomly placed into a technology transfer group (n=23) and a control group (n=23). The data were collected through intensive interviews and analyzed by using Atlas.ti 7.The learning experiences and outcomes were articulated and compared through pre and post tests,including the control groups.
Findings: The results shovved blended learning had increased motivation of the participants.Most(89%)of the participants agreed they could not find time and money even though they needed the intensive know-how in terms of the technology transfer in their field that they could reach from the experts at the university .They learnt additional info to improve their products and services.
Conclusions: The experiences in blended learning could öpen new perspectives in empovvering the startups in technology transfer.The shareholders at the university labs and startups could not find enough time and even money to increase efficiency and effectiveness of the technology transfer.Hence,face to face learning on online and mobile can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the technology transfer. Key Words: Technology Transfers,Techno-parks, Higher Education,Blended Learning

This study has analyzed and compared emotionai intelligence training on high school students' conflict resolution, empathy, and leadership skills. Emotionai intelligence (EQ) is one element in a broad spectrum of skills that enable high school students to create value for their community and themselves. Since Salovey and Mayer's (1990) seminal article on the concept, and its popularization in a social science book of the same name (Gibbs 1995; Goleman 1995), emotionai intelligence has emerged in several different models and measures. Matthews et al. (2002) outlined three contexts for the study of emotionai intelligence: psychometric, theoretical, and applied. The focus of this study is on measurement and applied use of emotionai intelligence by giving a special training as after school activities. This study was conducted at two different high schools in Turkey in which 959 students were involved. The first study site was in Samsun where 282 students had participated in the experimental and control groups. On the other hand, in the second site, İstanbul, 677 students had participated. Data were collected using two instruments; Conflict Resolution Skills (Akbalık, 2004) and Bar-on Emotionai İntelligence Assessment (Bar-On, 2004). The assessments were given to the participants in the experimental and control groups before and after the emotionai intelligence oriented training called "Geniş Açı." Test scores were conducted in SPSS by taking score means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations, using demographic variables received from the personal information sheets. The study revealed that there is considerable room for improvement in the emotionai skills of the students in high schools. Additionally, this study showed that emotionai intelligence influenced significantly the conflicts resolution, empathy and leadership skills comparing to control groups. The large number (%81) of the participants' conflict resolution skills had changed after the emotionai intelligence oriented training. More importantly, their empathy skills had improved 78%. Furthermore, in their leadership skills, the participants' skills were upgraded 73%.

The study examined factors influencing career decisions using a sample of high school learners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A mixed-method approach was utilised. In the quantitative phase of the study, a sample of 536 high school learners in South Africa filled out the Career Interest Inventory (Fisher & Stafford, 1999) in understanding factors that influence career decisions. Phase two sought to understand qualitatively how the identified factors from phase one influence the enactment of career decisions using focus groups with 60 learners drawn from the sample in phase one. Results from phase one showed that learners' career decisions were highly influenced by academic experiences and self-efficacy, parents, teachers, and peers, respectively. Learners perceived ethnic-gender expectations and negative social events as having low levels of influence when making career decisions. Female learners are significantly more highly influenced by parents, teachers, acade...

Problem Statement: The youth peace camps can provide active safe environments for young people, especially those who come from different conflict background to understand each other and to develop empathy. Research Questions: What the effects of the peace camps are on learning together about conflict, sharing their experiences, and transforming the conflicts for more peaceful culture is critically studied. Purpose of Study: This study has analyzed and compared perceptions and experiences of the students who came from Greece,Turkey,and Cyprus and spent a week together.Since the students who had different perception and experiences regarding to the conflicts among the countries, the effects of the peace camps had been analyzed. Research Methods: In this study, by conducting experimental research analysis, the conflict resolution skills (as assessed by Conflict Resolution Inventory, Akbalık, 2001), emotional intelligence and leadership skills (as assessed by Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory,(Bar-On, 1997),and perceived psychological health (as assessed by Personalıty Assessment Questionnaire, Rohner 1998,Varan 2002) were compared before and after the active learning environment activities. Findings: Significant differences were seen after the camps,especially in conflict resolution skills, in their interpersonal, intrapersonal, and leadership subscales of the EQ. More importantly, while their leadership skills were increasing the hostility-aggression subscale in personality dimensions. Most (67%) students experienced that their conflict resolution skills were changed by being together and talking about their conflicts Conclusions: The large number of the participants had showed minimum 10 % changes in their conflict resolution skills.in the subscales of the EQ, the changes in Intrapersonal Intelligence were more than the changes in interpersonal intelligence.All the subscales of the Personal Assessment had changed after the camp. Key Words: Youth Peace Camps, Emotional Intelligence, Leadership

This study investigates critically the structure of Silicon Valley in order to adapt properly to the Turkish system while changing science and technology policies to engage in growing high-tech economies through fostering university-industry-government collaborations and linkages. Even though many countries tried to replicate Silicon Valley by moving physically industries into certain geographic locations, they could not be compared to the original impact of Silicon Valley. Most of the best and the greatest high-tech companies are in the Valley where almost one-third of all the venture capital investments have been received and have become the locomotives of growth of the US and most of the brightest students try to study or work. The Valley has been analyzed using critical theory to understand the structure of the system, the values that have been decided and applied by the members in different processes, and the practices. Some unique findings of the research about the Valley which can be applied by many techno-parks or research centers are the capability of cooperation and active learning. Most of the companies are working around the same issues together with the universities’ members who are not only coming from Stanford. In other words, the cooperation has been conducted under the umbrella of Silicon Valley. An innovative platform has been created where people interact more often to cooperate and they are legally protected by developing social networks which are their value systems. The cultural diversity of different ethnic traditions, viewpoints, and value systems is welcomed in personal and professional level which strength unity in the community.

Key words: University-industry-government collaborations, value systems, social network.

Even though for some women in Turkey can rarely find the opportunities to study at the university, most of whom have canalized to the majors which are not related to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors. However, there are important studies, which clearly show that even though the women have the ability in STEM areas, they do not like to choose these fields. In their choices, there are different reasons which strong have effected in their career path.

In order to understand the Turkish women’s hidden reasons of not choosing the STEM areas, a well rounded research had conducted in Istanbul, the most developed city in Turkey, in which two different universities STEM departments had chosen together with non STEP departments in order to compare the reasons.Firstly,by using Strategic Talent Management and Career Decision (STMCD) Assessment (Sart, 2013),the competences, potential, strengths, and weaknesses of the young people (490) between 18 and 24 had checked and analysed The results showed that there were not any significant differences between the male and female students in the competences, potential,strengths,and weaknesses.Most (96%) had mentioned that they had chosen their career path with the effects of their social environments.

In order to analyze the main reasons of the career choices, deep interviews were done with the young people who were coming from the STEM departments, so were not the STEM departments. The study sample consisted of 80 undergraduate students: Among them, 54% are female. In the study, a phenomenological analysis was conducted and 16 research questions were taken into consideration during the semi-structured interviews. Then the data were overviewed critically by using Atlas.ti 7 to elaborate deeply the main reasons of the career choices in STEM and non-STEM areas.

The results of the depth analysis showed that most of the participants (88%)accepted that they were significantly affected by their social environment, particularly those who were not chosen the majors in STEM areas.Those (43%) who were studying in STEM majors, however, pointed out that before choosing the STEM areas,they felt alone and scared. More importantly, some (25%) of the participants had mentioned also their professors’ negative attitudes and behaviors towards the female students in STEM areas. Those, who were successful, on the other hand,had also mentioned the negative attitudes of their male classmates in the departments where almost 20% of the female students had left the departments.The results of the participants who were not coming from STEM areas were analyzed and showed that STEM areas were launched them negatively by their families, their teacher at the high schools, and their counselors. The first argument mentioned was that STEM areas were for male students since the women were not capable to work hard in these departments. Most (89%) of them strongly clarified that they became aware after they came to the university where they did not see any difficulty in studying STEM areas. The participants had mentioned that those graduates from STEM department had much better chances than those who were not coming from STEM areas to find better jobs and to have career path. According to the most (93%) of the participants, the awareness about the importance of the STEM departments were significantly low in Turkey so that a new strategy was needed to promote the STEM areas in order to increase innovation.
keywords: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem), gender differences in stem areas, gender based careers differences in stem areas, career counselling.

The study examined factors influencing career decisions using a sample of high school learners in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. A mixed-method approach was utilised. In the quantitative phase of the study, a sample of 536 high school learners in South Africa filled out the Career Interest Inventory (Fisher & Stafford, 1999) in understanding factors that influence career decisions. Phase two sought to understand qualitatively how the identified factors from phase one influence the enactment of career decisions using focus groups with 60 learners drawn from the sample in phase one. Results from phase one showed that learners' career decisions were highly influenced by academic experiences and self-efficacy, parents, teachers, and peers, respectively. Learners perceived ethnic-gender expectations and negative social events as having low levels of influence when making career decisions. Female learners are significantly more highly influenced by parents, teachers, acade...

This study has analyzed and compared pre and post prceptions and experiences of the students who came from Greece, Turkey and Cyprus and spent a week together. Since the student who had different perception and experiences regarding to the conflicts among the countries the effects of the active learning environment had been analyzed on their pre and post perceptions. In this study, by conducting experimental research analysis, the conflict resolution skills (as assessed by Conflict Resolution Inventory, Akbalık,2001), emotional intelligence and leadership skills (as assessed by Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory, Bar-On, 1997), and perceived psychological health (as assessed by Personality Assessment Questionnaire, Rohner 1998, Varan 2002) were compared before and after the active learning environment activities. As a result, significant difference were seen after the intervention especially in understanding/compromise among the conflict resolution skills, in their interpersonal, interpersonal and leadership subscales of the EQ. More importantly, while their leadership skills were increasing the hostility-aggression subscale in personality dimensions (as assessed by Personality Assessment Questionnaire) was decreasing. Most (67%) students experienced that their conflict resolution skills were changed by being together and talking about their conflicts. The large number (%91)of the participants had showed minimum 10% changes in their conflict resolution skills. In the subscales of the EQ, the changes in Intrapersonal Intelligence (17 %) were more than the changes in interpersonal intelligence (12%). All the subscales of the Personal assessment had changed (9%) after the activities where the most significant one was in the changes of the world view of the participants.

In this study, the university students‘ perceptions and experiences about the effects of emotional intelligence (EI) on creativity were investigated while taking into consideration physical, emotional,
intellectual, spiritual, and socio-economic-cultural conditions. The results were compared with the world standards in EI. Since creativity and innovation have significantly become important, the conditions and study environments at the university have been playing an important and crucial role on students‘ creativity as well as their personality development. In this study, the university students
(n=290), who came from two different universities in Turkey, had participated and answered emotional intelligence assessment. The data was analyzed through the BarOn EQ-i, which includes 90 questions in 5 categories and 15 scales with scores in a range between 90 and 450. In addition, some personal and social demographic data were gathered from the participants. Then, data were analyzed using SPSS- 17.0 and descriptive and inferential statistics and compared with the world norms. The evaluation was checked together with the participants in the semi-structured interviews in order to understand deeply the relation between the EI and creativity. The evaluations showed a significant difference between the emotional intelligence scores of participants who were defined themselves as creative people. (p < 0.005). Also, there was a significant difference between
participants‘ emotional intelligence in all categories particularly in empathy, responsibility, flexibility, self-regard, interpersonal relationship, and emotional self- awareness. And in all scales, the EI of participants who were creative was higher than those who were not.
Keywords: Emotional intelligence, creativity, university students, empathy, flexibility.

The aim of the study is to determine what the experience means for the people who have had the experience. Therefore, the research begins with a personal question or challenge, which has social or universal significance. This study was conducted by using a phenomenological research analysis among 34 university students. The results were finalized by processing Atlas.ti 6 in order to understand deeply the complex structure of the conflicts among the students. Most (83%) students try to choose the private universities rather than the public universities since they are good in adapting quickly the changing conditions of the market. The large number (93%) clarifies that they have conflicts in choosing right career path, and they try to choose majors to earn money rather than learn. Hence, most (96%) agree that engineering departments are better than social sciences departments to integrate and penetrate into the market. Even though they (86%) have great interests in social sciences courses, they have chosen technology-oriented courses to earn money even while studying at the universities. In this context, most (85%) of those who are in the social sciences are not happy in their major since they do not see any future.

The goals of the study are to provide an updated picture of the current situation with regard to accreditation schemes, strategies of governments to transformation and innovation in terms of establishing world-class universities in Europe, in the US, and in Turkey from a comprtive perspective. This study is designed to understand why and how the authorities use innovative strategies to transform higher education in Europe, in the US and in Turkey using qualitative methods. The critical theory in the globalized context and the theory of academic capitalism are taken as frameworks to understand higher education policies and innovative strategies together with content and discourse analysis of published and web-based documents, aided in the design of this study. This study finds that institutional actors decided to emulate the key features of U.S. originated innovative strategies to make R&D innovation-led economic growth sustaining the global competitiveness in the knowledge-economy while creating huge differences among institutions as well  as in terms of gender. Institutions should make serious efforts to be a part with their science-research needs using their available capital and resources.

In the technology-based economies, the industry based projects are critically important in order to improve the quality of production and services with the help of the best universities contemporary activities. Even though some best elite universities in the world, like Stanford University and MIT, can collaborate efficiently and effectively with the industry, most of the Engineering Departments in Turkey cannot collaborate with the industry as other best elite universities in the world.
Hence, in this study, the main drawbacks of the Engineering Departments were critically analyzed in order to improve the collaboration by increasing industry-based projects at the Engineering Departments. The participants (46) from four different Engineering Departments at two different universities participated in this study.In order to understand the hidden reasons, the data were collected from semi-structured interviews using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The analysis had two themes, which were described here. The first theme provided a detailed perspective of the drawbacks of the industry-oriented projects at the engineering departments. The second theme examined how the industry-based projects would be increased.

Under the first theme, the data showed that most (85%) of the participants did not have any idea and deep knowledge about how they could conduct industry-based projects since they were far away from the realities of the industry. Additionally, all the participants were not aware about the needs of the industry, particularly those institutions, which were close to their university. Furthermore, a few (21%) participants who collaborated with the industry failed in their projects due to the fact that they could not be tangible for the contemporary needs of the industry. More importantly, their projects were not highly competitive for the global market. In addition to all these drawbacks, those projects, which were taken into account by the industry, had minor or no impact on industries productivity or competitiveness. Therefore, the industry did not want to spend money on R&D at the universities. Although the Engineering Departments had been supplying human capital by graduating many engineers, the participants agreed that they could not help strategically their graduates by conducting industry-oriented projects. More importantly, as the participants mentioned that a few graduates came back to the departments to ask help. Consequently, according to the participants (96%) the collaboration between the university and industry was not established and developed in Turkey as it was seen at the best universities in the world.

Under the second theme, however,the participant clearly addressed how they could improve the collaboration between the university and industry. All the participants agreed that there should be mutual collaboration by developing mutual benefits for both sides. In order to develop this collaboration, the participants pointed out the team leaders from each side since they could not find enough time to understand the real needs of the industry. They strongly suggested the field studies by sending the students of the departments to the real environments. Instead of laboratories at the universities, they preferred the laboratories of the companies in order to make their students observe the needs.
keywords: university industry collaboration, technology transfer, industry based projects.

In the digital society, rapid socio-cultural, economic and technological changes have forced higher education in terms of improving innovation and technology-based projects in order to empower new generations, to attract more funding and venture capital, to develop new products and services, to increase the number of startups and spinoffs, and to raise licensing and royalties. On the other hand, organizational culture, which is interpreted as “shared philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions, beliefs, expectations, attitudes and norms in organizations” (Lund, 2003. p. 3), can be developed in the organization by the people who cope with different problems and issues of external adaptation and internal integration (Schein, 1999). As Zhu and Engels (2014) describe,

Organization culture has three levels which can be shaped over a period of time. The first level is arte facts that comprise the physical components of the organization that relay cultural meaning. The second level deals with the professed culture of an organization’s members – the values. And the third level refers to the organization’s tacit assumptions. Organizational culture is nurtured and shaped gradually reflected in terms of collaboration, trust and learning, and it can shape the behaviors of people in that organization (p. 137).

This study attempts to analyze critically how the role of the organizational culture on the development of innovation and technology-based projects at the higher education from the perspective of the researchers’ perception. The participants (34) of the research were selected from two different universities by doing stratified sampling among the researchers. Hence, in the phenomenological analysis, eleven research questions were answered by the participants, who were coming from engineering departments, medical school, and social sciences, in the semi-structured interviews.

The collected data, which were analyzed in Atlas.ti 7, show that most of the academic people (89%), who were coming from well-developed organization in terms of physical components, had better results in developing innovation and technology comparing to the academic people who were coming from not well-developed cultural organization. Furthermore, the second level, which is related to the values of the organization, is strategically important in order to increase the depthless of the innovation and technology-based projects development. As most of the researchers (91%) agree that the values, particularly trustworthiness, ethics, transparency, and accountability, improve their commitment and make change attitudes towards their efforts and achievements. However, in the case of the low cultural values, the large number of the participants (98%) mention that the lack of values, particularly main values, like ethics, transparency, and accountability, demotivate them and decrease their efficiencies and effectiveness. Additionally, in the third level, which is organization’s tacit knowledge and capacity building in technology transfer, a large number of the participants (85%), who are coming from the well-developed organizational culture, point out that if the first two levels are not achieved, it is difficult to transfer the knowledge, especially tacit knowledge. In the second institution, however, the participants (89%) agree that the transfer of the tacit knowledge is very limited.
keywords: higher education, organizational culture, innovation and technology-based projects perceptions of the researchers.

This study investigates the entrepreneurial intention levels and career decisions of a sample of 340 university students studying sport sciences. Entrepreneurship refers to a career-related choice that is driven by a risk-taking and innovation imperative. Entrepreneurs of the future are expected to make their career related choices well before they move into labor markets. In this context, this study attempts to designate young adults' entrepreneurial intentions which are considered to be highly related with their career decisions. The study also tests the potential effects of career decisions on entrepreneurial intentions. The findings of the study evidence the significant effect of conscious career choice on entrepreneurial propensity. A blind career choice is found to be also correlated with entrepreneurial intentions, albeit less so than the conscious career choice. The environmental factors subscale of career choice proves to be insignificant in terms of entrepreneurial propensity within the scope of this study's sample group. Findings are discussed with a view to practical implications.

Many gifted learners in Turkey are not receiving an appropriate education due to a lack of researchers in the field of education, largely due to  lack of gifted identification tests and assessments, due to a lack understanding about the needs of gifted learners and due to a lack of funding. However, among all these issues the lack of teachers' perception related to the identification and dealing with their needs is more critical one. For that reason, a course had opened named Education for Gifted Children at Yeditepe University Education Department during the spring semester in order to improve the perception of the pre-service teachers at their senior years regarding to gifted and talented children and their education.

The purpose of the study is to determine highly intellectual students’ perception and view, including their emotional intelligence after attending a civic project about environmental consciousness named Living in Green. The influence of the community involvement project was studied as a six-month-long project on the students who were coming from different high schools in Istanbul. This program was organized as a non-profit project in order to explore the idea of sustainability. Two instruments, Piers-Haris Self Concept and BarOn (2001) Emotional Intelligence Inventory, were used in order to analyze the effects of the curriculum named “Living in Green” at the beginning of the project as a pretest and after the project as a post test as well. The curriculum was developed particularly under the eight different subjects after the pilot study in which the effects of the subjects were analyzed. While the empirical research was undertaken, an exploratory case study design was applied to gain insights into the connection between participation, learning, and sustainable management. Transcriptions of the interviews were analyzed and compared to the numerical results. Common themes and differences were discovered when comparing the empirical results and interview transcriptions of the two groups. At the end of this study, the findings showed that the cooperative and active community involvement education was more effective on the students’ interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence as well as on their academic achievement than those who did not participated in the project. The students who participated in this project had improved their emotional intelligence which consisted of intrapersonal intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, adaptability, stress management, emotional attitude, leadership skills, and environmental awareness.

Restructuring of higher education and its management is one of the liveliest debated topics in Turkey. In this paper, this issue is approached by focusing on university-industry relations. Technological advancement and globalization have substantial effects on the structure of the university and the industry. This paper not only
aims to make suggestions that could be useful in the on-going debate about restructuring of higher education management in Turkey, but also to analyse critically and deeply what the roles of the higher education managements have on clustering, how they affect the success of the clustering, particularly what kinds of roles
they have that they can affect significantly their stakeholders, universities in the region, international and national companies, small medium enterprises (SMEs), researchers, academics, start-ups, spinoffs, suppliers, and non governmental institutions, particularly in the field of health in which the translational research is the main area of activities. The author concludes that the mentality and the strategic approach of the higher education managements play an important and crucial role in developing sustainable partnerships like
clustering, which requires long-term, intensive collaboration.
Keywords: university; industry; alliances; collaboration; higher education management; stakeholders; clustering

In highly changing environments of the 21st Century,it is difficult to choose right career path giving opportunities in the new landscape of work and identifying key work skills needed in the next 30 years.What will be the jobs of the future is not clear;however, there are important studies show that there are specific talents not changed throughout the human history,like academic, acting, and artistic. In order to use these talents,different skills are needed to use depending on the personality.Specific job categories and majors have specific requirements depending on the highly dynamic global markets.A new strategy is needed to understand the career decisions of the youth by improving strategic talent management and career decision scale taking into account future work skills, proficiencies,and abilities required across different jobs and work settings of the competitive global markets.

This Strategic Talent Management and Career Decision (STMCD) Assessment provides the practice and competence in their career development for the people between 18 and 35.The STMCD Assessment report give also the opportunities to make the participants to see their potential, strengths, and weaknesses in the 21st century wok sectors. In that way, it is possible to make counseling and coach in a time period.

In order to develop such this assessment, deep interviews were done with the experts, young people, and HR Departments of the well-known corporations. Then, literature review was systematically done to decide about the items for the assessment. For the content validity, twelve experts examined the scale. According to their recommendations, the final version of the scale was developed. In the STMCD assessment, the number of items was 180 assessed with a five-point scale. The study sample consisted of 1299 undergraduate students from three different universities and five senior high school students in Turkey. Among them, 54% are female. According to the results, item-total correlation test, comparisons for upper and lower 45 % groups, exploratory factor analysis and Alpha coefficient were used for psychometric examination. All items had factor loadings more than 0.60. Cronbach’s α for the entire scale was 0.96, with subscales ranging from 0.85 to 0.97. The internal consistency of each of the scales reinforces the results of factor analysis, demonstrating that overall the results are consistent.

As a result, when all of these results were taken into consideration, STMCD Assessment is found reliable and valid for measuring talents, skills, aptitudes for specific majors of the young people (between 16-35).In other words, the psychometric quality of the instrument proved satisfactory in order use the STMCD Assessment for these groups.

The results have implications for individuals, educational institutions, particularly high schools and universities, businesses, and even government.To be successful in the highly competitive global markets, specifically in innovation, leaders, counsellors,and people need to demonstrate foresight in navigating a rapidly shifting landscape of institutional forms and skill requirements. Therefore, they need, strategic following systems, using the Internet platforms in order to continually reassess the skills they need,and quickly put together the right resources to develop, and update these.
keywords: strategic talent management, career decision, talents, skills, aptitude, innovation.

Çelikel Foundation has started an education project in two high schools, one since 2007 the other in 2011. As the BU Peace Education Application and Research Center, we have been a part of this project in providing education in some areas such as career development, academic success, motivation, non-violent communication, conflict resolution skills, ethical thinking, standardized test techniques, personal growth, and innovative teaching and learning strategies for the students, teachers, and parents with the aim of bringing about positive and sustainable growth. We had also evaluated the last year education program and process by giving pre and post tests, including for the control groups in order to analyze the effects of education program on conflict resolution (as assessed by Conflict Resolution Inventory, Akbalık, 2001), emotional intelligence, and leadership skills (as assessed by Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory, Bar-On, 1997), and personal development as assessed by Personalıty Assessment Ouestionnaire (PAQ), (Rohner 1998,Varan 2002). The significant differences were seen after the intervention especially in understanding /compromising among the conflict resolution skills, in their interpersonal, intrapersonal, and leadership subscales of the EQ. More importantly, while their leadership skills improving, their aggression and negative self-confidence subscales in personality dimensions were decreasing. Most (87%) students experienced that their conflict resolution skills were improved by having interactive educational program in a year. The evaluation results articulated significant differences in EQ subscales, mainly in the interpersonal intelligence (18%), the intrapersonal intelligence (24%), and leadership skills (%17). Finally, the subscales of the PAQ had statistically changed (14%) after the intensive programs where the most significant one was in the changes of the independence.

The aim of the present study was to understand the effects of neo-liberal economies and globalization on education policies where they  create inequalities and conflicts. From this perspective, three alternative curricula namely; Peace Education (developed by the Education department of Harvard with the name Program for Young Negotiators), Conflict Resolution Education (developed by the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution, Teachers College at Columbia University), and Peace Education and Conflict Resolution Education combined were implemented and evaluated among the highly intellectual students. The present study was to investigate the effects of these three curricula and to find the most effective curriculum among them on conflict resolution skills. The sample consisted of 56 students from the best high schools in Istanbul. All were from families with moderate socio-economic levels. For data collection, the “Demographic  Information Form”, and the Turkish forms of “Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory”, “Tennessee Self Concept Scale” and Conflict Resolution Scale were used before and after the implementation of the curricula. The findings indicated that the Peace Education, Conflict Resolution Education, and the Peace Education and the Conflict Resolution Education combined had significant effects on Emotional Intelligence, Self Concept and Conflict Resolution Skills. Among these three curricula, the Peace Education and Conflict Resolution Education combined had the highest effects on Emotional Intelligence, Self Concept, and Conflict Resolution Skills. The second  curriculum was the Peace Education which was more effective than the Conflict Resolution Education. The factors that additively and uniquely affected conflict  resolution skills were also analyzed and it was found that Emotional Intelligence and Self Concept additively explained approximately 99.3% of the conflict resolution skills after the implementation of the three curricula.

Problem Statement: Since most of the young people do not know what
majors are right according to their talents and skills, they are not happy in their academic and business career
Research Questions: How the Strategic Talent Management Assessment and Counseling (STMC) can be helpful to decide about the majors of the students according to their talents and skills was researched
Purpose of Study: This study examines the effects of the STMC on the young
people's career decision in the highly competitive markets by taking into account their talents, skills, their majors that they are studying, and the needs of the market for short-term and long-term satisfaction and
happiness.
Research Methods: This was a phenomenological study focuses on the
strategic talent management and counseling using the assessment
originally designed to analyze critically the talents and the skills of the
participants within the academic majors and global marketsThe
participants(n=24)were randomly selected from different departments of the universities.The data were collected through intensive interviews and analyzed by using Atlas.ti.
Findings: The results shovved that talents and skills were the force that
drove success and happiness and brought value to the majors where the students were concentrated. STMC had significant diagnostics(98%) and evaluation(96%) effects on talents and skills and decision (94%) effects on majors according to the demand of the competitive market. STMC provided short and long term planning.
Conclusions: STMC significantly motivated, mentored, encouraged, and empowered highly potential youth to make them understand, think,navigate,communicate, integrate, establish, engage, innovate, create, and lead value at all levels.Hence, it is important to make STMC affordable, accessible, visible, and sustainable to establish effective, successful, and happy generation to deal, lead, and change in the 21st Century challenges. Key Words: Strategic Talent Management and Counseling

Such projects and activities are particularly about the incubation of start-up firms in which the students try to commercialize their knowledge by taking entrepreneurship courses to develop partnerships and delivery of their innovative products and services at the technology parks of the universities.

Hence, in the first part, the last regulations related to the university-industry-government partnership has been articulated in order to understand critically how the last regulations make changes in developing innovation as national strategies.

In the second part of this study, by using a phenomenological research analysis, the effects of the entrepreneurial courses were analyzed. The results were finalized by processing Atlas.ti 7 in order to understand deeply the complex structure of the courses in order to develop innovation and the effects on the university students who played important roles at the technology parks of the universities.

Problem Statement: In the universities, the leadership and entrepreneurship have gained importance to improve the activities and roles in the technology-based economies. Therefore, new continuing education programs have developed for the administration.
Reserch Questions: Ten research questions were des,gned for this quantitative study to analyze the effects of the new continuing education programs on leadership and entrepreneurship at individual, institutional, and higher education levels.
Purpose of Study: This study critically analyzed the effects of leadership and entrepreneurship programs for administrators in colleges and universities. In this study, the perceived value of the programs was questioned at the individual, institutional, and higher education levels.
Research Methods. An original value development survey was developed to understand how the leadership and entrepreneurship development programs were effective in developing values. The survey was given to the administrators. Then, the results were analyzed through SPSS.17 in order to see the effects on the continuing education programs on the development of the leadership and entrepreneurship.
Findings: The results showed that there were gender differences on the effectiveness of the courses. Although most of the participants want to make critical changes in leadership and entrepreneurship, the effects of courses were not enough to develop values on these subjects. Participants believed programs were more effective on leadership than on entrepreneurship at all levels, especially at the individual level.
Conclusions: This program should be considered as priority at the higher education programs; however, they should be redesigned by empowering the content and the activities, such as real case studies. These courses should be given in blended learning and in project-based learning.
Key Words: Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Higher Education, Blended Learning

This study aims to analyze how the role of the university and technology parks administrations have affected on the development of the Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in changing environment of the Turkish universities. The participants were selected from two different university technology parks. By using phenomenological analysis, six research questions were answered in the semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed in Atlas.ti in order to make depth study. As a result, the data show the globalization has inevitably affected higher education system all around the world in many ways. During this transformation process, academic people have been influenced to a greater degree. Academic profession, which is an umbrella term for working conditions for academics, has changed a lot. Most (89%) participants agree that performance indicators are used to assess and measure individuals, departments and universities against each other; therefore, IRP have gained importance. More importantly, the large number (94%) mentions that these business practices have caused insularity among academics. Additionally, a large number of the (91%) participants agree that the effects would be different on the elite universities comparing to the socially disadvantaged universities, particularly those in Anatolia. They (65%) explain that the future of higher education has been changing in terms of faculty organizations, particularly with new IRP policies. Most (95%) of the participants agree that university administration would develop a threat in order to increase the patent activities so that they have seen job security problems, especially for those faculty members who do not have financial opportunities or/and for those faculty members who come from social sciences. Most (88%) participants articulate that IRP would develop particular problems for public higher education since they do not have enough financial support. Therefore, IRP would change the culture of academic world. Some (41%) of the participants claim that competitiveness is important not only for the universities so that the university administration would change their performance criteria to prepare properly for the competitive global market. These (41%) participants strongly point out that employability is remarkably important for the universities. By improving intellectual property rights and entrepreneurial activities, universities can increase their funding. Hence, they take into account technology parks as the places to develop strategies for different activities to increase income. Furthermore, most (87%) participants mention that the financial autonomy would make the universities aggressive in the market due to the fact that the government is increasingly reducing the support for the higher education. Hence, the university management would try to increase their income by means of the IRP at the technology parks. Even though some (35%) participants point out that IRP would increase conflicts and inequalities, the rest (65%) agree that the role and style of university management like in Wisconsin Madison could manage the universities without conflicts and inequalities. As a result, as most (89%) participants clarify that the university administration play important and crucial role in controlling and managing the conflicts and inequalities through IPR to protect all the stakeholders, particularly those who do not have strong background, like the students.
keywords: higher education, technology parks, university administration and management, intellectual property rights,autonomy.

The number of the courses and workshops in the best universities has increased since 2010, which have been officially supported by the private companies. Since then, the technology transfer offices have become more active to support creativity and innovation as their main innovation activity by giving initiatives of opening new creative thinking-oriented workshops. All these changes, regarding particularly on creative thinking-oriented workshops have changed the roles of the technology transfer offices in developing innovative products and services, particularly those technological ones. All these new trends have strategically changed in order to cope with the changes in the technology-based economies, which become benefits for the different parts, like benefits for the industry, benefits for the university, and benefits for the individuals.

As Anderson (2013) points out,‘design thinking has been described as the best way to be creative and innovate, while within the design realm, design thinking may be partly ignored and taken for granted, despite a long history of academic development and debate’ (p.1).Furthermore, creativity oriented trainings are the most important long-term strategies and missions of the organization, particularly those of technology transfer offices which develop strong partnerships between the university and the industry in producing technology based innovation.

This study aims to analyze how the role of the creative thinking-oriented workshops, like design thinking training have affected the development of the to develop an innovative technology based products and services in the changing environment of the technology transfer office in Turkey, like in Stanford University. The participants were selected from one of the university technology transfer office. By using phenomenological analysis, the workshops had been observed for six week and 12 different research questions were answered in the semi-structured interviews.The collected data were analyzed in Atlas.ti 7 n order to make depth study. Most (98%) agreed that the creative thinking-oriented trainings were strongly needed to promote and empower the creativity in the university environment. The participants had mentioned that the strategy and mission of the universities were not enough to meet the needs of today’s changes in the development of the technology based innovative products and services. Even though all the universities try to maximize innovation by improving their involvement in the technology based innovative products for the economic benefits, most of them are not so capable in technological improvements. Additionally, the large number of the participants (88%) agreed that the awareness particularly of the academics was not enough to increase creativity, so they needed short and intensive workshops and training courses, like in the other countries, especially in the US. More importantly, the technology transfer offices play important and crucial roles in empowering different strategies in the development of the innovative products and services. As most (83%) of the participants pointed out that creative thinking-oriented courses were not well developed in Turkey.More importantly,they had limited implications in the development of the innovative products. They strongly persuaded that awareness should have been increased in the training of the creativity at the universities where the technology transfer offices were the changing agents.
keywords: creative thinking-oriented trainings, workshops, design thinking, technology transfer offices, innovative technology based products and services.

In the era of digital transformation, the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) has become as a must to achieve more people with affordable prices.Hence, in the delivery of psychological testing,the psychologists, counselors, and other experts become more and more integrated into the use of the ICT.Such integration would not only help to achieve more people, particularly those who are under privilege, but would also improve the quality, flexibility, and the rapidness of the services. In the global era, the importance of psychological testing has been markedly increasing in education as well in business world. However, the accessing more people and preparing the reports for those people are expensive and need more time. Therefore, most of the counseling and psychology based centers and institutions have preferred to use intensively the psychological testing by using ICT.

This paper has focused on the usage of ICT on psychological testing in one of the selected public university in Turkey. The aim is to find out why psychologists and counselors,and even students use ICT on psychological testing and their perceptions and expectations about this new service. A simple random sampling was chosen to select 38 undergraduate students who had taken the psychological testing online. Two psychologists and three counsellors, who had been using ICT on psychological testing more than 8 months, were engaged to the research. In the research study, the phenomenological analysis had been preferred by giving nine research questions. The participants had answered why they used this service, and what were their perceptions and expectations in the semi-structured interviews.

By using Atlas.ti 7, the collected data were studied critically.The findings of this study revealed that the psychologists and counselors use ICT on psychological testing for reaching more students. More importantly, according to the participants as experts, the number of attendance has increased significantly because of the flexibility of time and space. Additionally, the quality of testing has improved dramatically due to the ICT’s effectiveness and efficiencies in collecting and storing data. Furthermore, as the psychologists and counselors point out, they have spent less time in reporting and they find better opportunities to collect more data and to make comparative studies.According to them, even though their perceptions and expectations about using ICT on psychological testing are negative at the beginning, they change after seeing the positive sides for themselves as well for the students.

Furthermore, most of the students (98%) clarify that they enjoy being parts of this service since it is easy, friendly use, flexible, attractive, and innovative. Since they can access even through the social media, the large number of the students (86%) have clarified that integration of ICT through the use of chat rooms, email and social networking, they become more interested and being aware about certain aspects.Even though a large number of them (91%) say that they like to have face-to-face relationship with the psychologists and counselors, they all agree that ICT increase visibility, affordability, and accessibility of the service. In conclusion, the study recommends that ICT would play important roles to achieve more and more students with a few experts since they increase capacity building by improving visibility, affordability, and accessibility of the service.
keywords: ict, psychological testing, higher education, visibility, affordability, accessibility.