Peer-reviewed article
An Analysis of Graduate Theses on Early Childhood Education: The Case of Turkey
Yasemin ABALI ÖZTÜRK, Mehmet Kaan Demir ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study analyzed 182 graduate theses on early childhood education in Turkey from 2005 to 2017 to identify research trends and patterns. The analysis examined author and supervisor demographics, research methods, focal points, and data collection approaches. Most authors were female, and the research predominantly used quantitative methods with questionnaires as the main data collection tool. The theses focused mainly on teacher qualifications, parent characteristics, and the effects of different educational approaches on young children.
Key points
- 85% of thesis authors were female; 59% of supervisors were female
- 68.1% of graduate theses used quantitative research methods
- Questionnaires were the most frequently used data collection tool (65%)
- Main research focal points were teacher qualifications, parent characteristics, and effects of different educational approaches
- Qualitative methods like observation (0.5%), case study (1.1%), and interview (1.6%) were rarely employed
Limitations
This is a meta-analysis of existing theses rather than primary research, so it describes research trends but does not evaluate the quality or actual impacts of early childhood education interventions in Turkey. The document does not provide evidence about child outcomes or the effectiveness of the educational approaches studied in the theses.
Abstract
The primary concern of this study is to reveal the general tendencies (genders of the authors/supervisors, change in the number of graduate theses by year, number of research problems-results-suggestions, focal points, the corpus by research models/methods, data collection methods/tools, and population/sample group) of graduate on early childhood education in Turkey between 2005 and 2017.The sampling of the present research study consists of 182 graduate theses.The study relies on the retrieval of the desired data by document analysis through a systematic examination of the available theses by using a thesis examination form developed by the researchers.The results revealed that 85% of the authors were female and almost half of the supervisors were assistant professors and moreover 59% of the supervisors were female.The study also showed that a great majority of the examined theses contained 0-10 research problems, results and suggestions.It was also figured out in the study that the focal point of the thesesis majorly qualifications of preschool teachers, characteristics and tendencies of parents, effects of different approaches/methods on early childhood education, characteristics of children in early childhood education or at preschool age.It was observed that 68.1% of graduate theses were quantitative studies and that the least employed research method was observation (0.5%), case study (1.1%), interview (1.6%) and phenomenological method (1.6%), while the most frequently administered data collection tool, accounting for 65%, was questionnaire.