FYI 2009

Words ought to be a little wild—for they are the assault of thoughts upon the unthinking.

J. Maynard Keynes (1933) National Self-Sufficiency. The Yale Review


Consciousness is reflected in the word as the sun in a small drop of water. The meaningful word is a microcosm of human consciousness.

Lev S. Vygotsky (1934) Thought and Language

The most famous fractal: Mandelbrot set © 2009 PBS NOVA

NERA 2008

Children’s Weekend Activities across Cultures: A Dissertation Proposal

Asil Ali Özdoğru

Children’s out-of-school time activity patterns and profiles reveal important information about their individual and emotional development. Studying the structure and the schedule of children’s weekend activities across cultures is valuable in the understanding of developmental processes as well as the role of culture in human development. In addition to looking at activity profiles of children from four different cultures, this dissertation will test the relation between adult-structure in activities and specific outcomes of emotional development. Fourth grade students’ adult-structured weekend activities and their relation to enjoyment and anxiety in children from Bulgaria, Taiwan, Turkey, and United States will be discussed.

Keywords: Out-of-school activities, cross-cultural psychology, anxiety, enjoyment

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2008, October). Children’s weekend activities across cultures: A dissertation proposal. Paper presented at the 39th annual conference of the Northeastern Educational Research Association, Rocky Hill, CT, USA.

UAlbany ISSS

Asil Ozdogru awarded International Student Leadership Award for 2008

Congratulations to Asil Ozdogru for winning the International Student Leadership Award for 2008 (shown here with Margaret Reich, Director of International Student and Scholar Services). Asil is a doctoral student in Educational Psychology who has given a large amount time and energy to improving the lives of students here at the University at Albany.

In 2004, he served as an Orientation Assistant in the International Student & Scholar Services program for new international students. He and a group of friends, then, started the Turkish Student Association in the Spring of 2006. They have organized various cultural events open to the entire University, including movie screenings, a painting exhibition, a cooking class and a graduation party, in collaboration with the Graduate Student Organization.

Asil volunteers his time to assist international students in many ways, such as transporting them to and from airports in Albany and New York City, helping to move furniture, and helping them find apartments or roommates. He also advises them on writing papers and introduces them to new friends from different cultures. He has started two email groups, one for people interested in playing pick-up soccer at UAlbany and the other for Turkish people within the University and the local community, both quite successful with 74 and 84 members respectively.

Asil has taken the initiative to develop ways to help people connect here at the University. Although his main concern has been international students, helping to ease their cultural transition to living in Albany, his activities have benefited the larger community by introducing them to Turkish culture and providing an outlet for physical activity.

Published online in the International Student and Scholar Services Web site
http://www.albanyinternationaleducation.com/iss/article.php?articleid=13

TASSA 2008

The Case of “Hurried Child” in Different Cultures: A Dissertation Proposal

Asil Ali Özdoğru

Fast pace of modern times requires effective time management skills. In terms of parenting, it translates into efficient use of children’s time in wide array of activities that are enriching and preparing children for a competitive economic system. Some scholars argue that this form of parenting is harmful for normal child development and label these children as hurried or overscheduled children who are rushed through one activity to another. Some others defend organized activities for their skill-building and protective features. This study proposes to look at fourth grade students’ adult-structured weekend activities in relation to enjoyment and anxiety associated with these activities in Bulgaria, Taiwan, Turkey, and United States. Preliminary findings show that children from these four cultures spend different amount of time in activities like watching television, studying academics, and playing sports. Gender differences also offer valuable insight for parenting and socialization in cultures with different value orientations.

Keywords: Cross-cultural psychology, parenting, out-of-school activities, anxiety

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2008, April). The case of “Hurried Child” in different cultures: A dissertation proposal. Poster presented at the 4th annual conference of the Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Association, Boston, MA, USA.

FYI 2008

The aim of science is, on the one hand, a comprehension, as complete as possible, of the connection between the sense experiences in their totality, and, on the other hand, the accomplishment of this aim by the use of a minimum of primary concepts and relations.

Albert Einstein (1936) Physics and Reality


Perceptions are guided by preconceptions. … [Individuals'] expectations not only channel what they look for but partly affect what features they extract from observations and how they interpret what they see and hear.

Albert Bandura (1986) Social Foundations of Thought and Action

View of Earth from Moon in 1969 © 2008 NASA

AEA 2007

Creating a Sense of Community Through Empowerment Evaluation of an Academic Program

Asil Ali Özdoğru

In the evaluation of an academic program, students and faculty, as major groups of stakeholders, can perform various phases of evaluation. This study demonstrates a case example of a graduate program utilizing its constituents in the planning and implementation steps of its evaluation. The program accomplished a valid and responsive evaluation as a result of the collaborative project between students and faculty. Triangulation of different perspectives and experiences provided a rich array of information in the identification of major program components, development of essential outcome measures, and interpretation of evaluation results. This collaborative approach also resulted in the strengthening of sense of community among program members by enhancing community knowledge and ownership. Findings and experiences from this participatory evaluation process will be shared to exemplify the lessons learned and best practices for academic program evaluation from an empowerment perspective.

Keywords: Empowerment evaluation, program evaluation, sense of community

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2007, November). Creating a sense of community through empowerment evaluation of an academic program. Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, Baltimore, MD, USA.

NERA 2007

Days of Our Lives in Graduate School

Asil Ali Özdoğru

Our days in graduate school can follow very much the same kind of storylines we used to see in soap operas. We make plans for our future, work towards achieving our goals, and negotiate solutions to our daily stressors and long-term problems. In the company of Jorge Cham's intuitive cartoons (http://www.phdcomics.com/) this talk lays the ground for necessary steps of action and golden keys for success in academic and non-academic settings for graduate students.

Keywords: Graduate students, life planning, peer advise

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2007, October). Days of our lives in graduate school. Invited talk at the 38th annual conference of the Northeastern Educational Research Association, Rocky Hill, CT, USA. 

ISHS 2007

Sense of Humor and Humor-Assisted Learning in College Students

Asil Ali Özdoğru and Robert F. McMorris

Appreciation and production of humor has cognitive, affective, and social components. Sense of humor is a psychological construct that is associated with many social, emotional, and health outcomes. We hypothesize that sense of humor as an individual differences variable can also influence cognitive processes and learning of basic concepts. Principles of aptitude-treatment interaction also assert that effectiveness of a treatment is the result of the interplay between individual characteristics of learners and qualities of instructional treatments. In order to test relative influences of sense of humor and humorous concept presentation on student learning, we surveyed 156 undergraduate seniors and graduate students. After students studied six one-page concept presentations–three with and three without humorous cartoons–from an introductory psychology textbook, they completed a questionnaire including demographic questions, rating items about their perceptions of the material, the Multidimensional Sense of Humor Scale, and achievement items related to concepts. Our results did not show significant effect of sense of humor nor the humor treatment on learning outcomes, but students’ reported opinions favored using humorous instructional materials. Higher sense-of-humor scores are associated with more positive ratings of the humorous material. We discuss that consistent findings of favorable student perceptions about using humor in instruction and inconsistent results from studies looking at learning outcomes in the literature point out potential roles of instructional sensitivity, student motivation, and effect sizes on assessment of student learning.

Keywords: Sense of humor, learning, methodology

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A., & McMorris, R. F. (2007, June). Sense of humor and humor-assisted learning in college students. Paper presented at the 19th annual conference of the International Society of Humor Studies, Newport, RI, USA.

APS 2007

A Cross-Cultural Examination of Children's Weekend Activities

Asil Ali Özdoğru, Joan Newman, Çağrı Özköse-Bıyık, Temi Bidjerano, Chin-Cheng Kao

936 fourth graders from Bulgaria, Taiwan, Turkey, and United States reported on their usual activities in Saturdays. Play, watching television, and routines were the most reported activities across four countries. There were apparent cultural differences in time spent in academics and sports, and gender differences in reading and play.

Children's participation and engagement in various out-of-school time activities and programs are defined by their social, economic, and cultural contexts (Göncü, 1999). Activities of children in developing countries can be much different than the ones in developed countries (Ritchie, Lloyd, & Grant, 2004). Differences as well as similarities in various out-of-school activities across cultures were noted in the literature. However, there are limited data on activity patterns of children from Bulgaria, Taiwan, and Turkey. Weekend is the two-day leisure period in which children can engage in variety of activities unrestricted by the schooling schedule. Previous research has shown some differences in time usage during weekends and weekdays. Following Larson and Verma's (1999) recommendations for more descriptive studies of children's activity patterns in different cultures, this study investigates children's weekend activities in four countries.

Participants of this study were fourth grade elementary school students primarily from middle socioeconomic classes in four countries; Bulgaria (n = 289), Taiwan (n = 249), Turkey (n = 137) and USA (n = 195). An after-school activity questionnaire developed by the researchers, asked children to recall the activity they generally engaged in during each given one-hour time period on Saturdays from 10:00 to 22:00. Sample activities (music lesson, soccer, TV, eating, homework, reading, and playing with friends) were provided to facilitate children's response generation.

Across all countries and both genders the average amount of time spent in each activity showed that children spend most of their time in play (32 %) then routines (29.5 %), TV (19 %), academics (8.5 %), extracurricular (7 %), reading (2.5 %) and sports (1.5 %) respectively during weekends. A 4 by 2 Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was performed by using 7 activity categories as dependent variables. Country with 4 levels and gender with 2 levels were the independent variables. MANOVA revealed a significant effect for each independent variable and their interaction. An individual Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for each activity category tested the effects of country, gender, and their interaction on activity participation. All three factors were statistically significant (p<.05) for reading and play. Country and interaction effects were significant for extracurricular; country factor for TV, academics, and sports; and interaction effect for routines.

Turkish children spent significantly more time in reading than their American and Bulgarian counterparts who spent more time in reading than Taiwanese children. Female students in each country spent more time in reading than their male counterparts except in the Bulgarian sample. American and Bulgarian children spent significantly more time in play than Turkish children who spent more time in play than their Taiwanese peers. Males spent more time in play than females in all countries except in the Bulgarian sample. In extracurricular activities, Taiwanese and Turkish children spent significantly more time than their American and Bulgarian counterparts. Taiwanese children spent significantly more time watching TV than their American and Bulgarian counterparts who spent more time watching TV than Turkish children. Taiwanese and Turkish children spent significantly more time in academics than Bulgarian children who spent more time in academics than American children. American children significantly surpassed other countries in time spent in sports.

Keywords: Out-of-school activities, cross-cultural psychology, gender differences

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A., Newman, J., Bidjerano, T., Özköse-Bıyık, Ç., & Kao, C.-C. (2007, May). A cross-cultural examination of children’s weekend activities. Poster presented at the 19th annual convention of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, DC, USA.

Kelly 2007

Stakeholders as Evaluators in Academic Program Evaluation

Asil Ali Özdoğru

In an attempt to evaluate an academic program, students and faculty, as a major group of stakeholders, can perform various phases of evaluation. This study presents a case example of a graduate program utilizing its constituents in the planning, information gathering, and analysis steps of its process evaluation. A doctoral program in educational measurement and methodology asked one of its seminar groups to carry out the evaluation of program activities and student attitudes about the program. The program accomplished a valid and responsive evaluation as a result of the collaborative group project between students and faculty. Triangulation of different perspectives and experiences provided a rich array of information in the identification of major program components, development of essential outcome measures, and interpretation of evaluation results.

Keywords: Program evaluation, stakeholders, empowerment evaluation

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A. (2007, April). Stakeholders as evaluators in academic program evaluation. Paper presented at the 21st annual Edward Kelly Conference, Ottawa, Canada.