Browsing by Subject "perception"
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Item Open Access 360-degree feedback : the influence of perceptions of organizational culture on upward appraisal system attitudes(Bilkent University, 2003) Yalçın, MuratAt the threshold of the 21st century, organizations have reinterpreted organizational achievement factors for employees and they have started to emphasize the importance of human resources more in their organizational activities. Moreover, human resources have become a global competition element for organizations in their institutional environments. For that reason, organizations have to manage their human resources in a better way to motivate their employees and to drive their energy into organizational achievement. It is also necessary and critical to evaluate properly the performance of employees for various human resource practices such as promoting, compensating, etc. In other words since organizational achievement can be considered as a synergic sum of individual efforts, performance appraisal for improvement purpose is crucial for such an organisation. Ie army organization. The way that an organization measures and evaluates individual employee performance will directly effect organizational achievement. Therefore, evaluation results should reflect the factual evidences about the performance of organizations at the unitary level. To produce iii objective appraisal results, it is necessary to combine evaluations of all stakeholders involved in the process. It is also important to have positive perception of organization wide on the appraisal methods. This study discusses 360-degree feedback and upward appraisal systems that provide supervisors the opportunity to increase their self-awareness. This will also help them to improve their leadership conducts by having feedback from various sources. The system will also increase individual commitment of subordinates by giving them chance to express their opinions about supervisors, and thus, to participate more in the decision making process which is likely to create a higher level of motivation. However if organizations try to implement 360-degree feedback or upward appraisal system without studying the organizational culture, their effort may be futile. This thesis aims at identifying attitudes toward 360-degrees feedback and upward appraisal systems. It also tries to provide a general profile of organizational climate for Turkish Army through perceptions of Army officers.Item Open Access An analysis of medical students' English language needs(Bilkent University, 2007) Taşçı, ÇağlaThis study aimed at finding out the academic and professional English language needs of medical students in an EFL context, from the perspectives of administrators, currently enrolled students, and academicians, in order to contribute to the process of English for medical purposes curriculum development. Data were collected via questionnaires which were designed to compare the perceptions of the currently enrolled students and the academicians at the medical faculty of a Turkish-medium university. An interview was held with the Dean of the Medical Faculty to better obtain information about perceptions of the administration towards the English language needs of the medical students and their expectations from the English classes. The questionnaire data were analyzed quantitatively, and the interview data were analyzed qualitatively. The main results of the study revealed that medical students studying in Turkish-medium contexts primarily need to improve their English reading skills in order to do research for their problem-based learning classes. In addition to English reading skills, medical students regard speaking skills and an interactive way of learning English in groups as very important. This finding indicates a changing trend in the students’ perceptions of their foreign language needs in comparison with the previous needs analyses of English language needs in medical contexts. The overall findings of this study revealed that there is a need to increase the class hours, provide technological equipment, and appoint trained instructors for the efficient teaching of medical English.Item Open Access Composition and the uncanny : a methodological account of composition in visual arts(Bilkent University, 2001) Ertem, FulyaThis study aims at giving an account of composition in visual arts by basing itself on the notion of uncanny. In that respect the works of three different surrealist artists, Max Ernst, Giorgio De Chirico, and Joan Miro, will be analysed in terms of their compositional uncanniness, by taking into consideration writers who analysed the uncanniness of these artists’ works. As an addition to those writers’ ideas, the aim of this thesis will be to find some new aspects of compositional uncanny in order to challenge the traditional account of composition in visual arts, as a source of visual resolution into unity.Item Open Access Effects of surface reflectance on local second order shape estimation in dynamic scenes(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Dövencioğlu, D.N.; Wijntjes, M.W.A.; Ben-Shahar O.; Doerschner, K.In dynamic scenes, relative motion between the object, the observer, and/or the environment projects as dynamic visual information onto the retina (optic flow) that facilitates 3D shape perception. When the object is diffusely reflective, e.g. a matte painted surface, this optic flow is directly linked to object shape, a property found at the foundations of most traditional shape-from-motion (SfM) schemes. When the object is specular, the corresponding specular flow is related to shape curvature, a regime change that challenges the visual system to determine concurrently both the shape and the distortions of the (sometimes unknown) environment reflected from its surface. While human observers are able to judge the global 3D shape of most specular objects, shape-from-specular-flow (SFSF) is not veridical. In fact, recent studies have also shown systematic biases in the perceived motion of such objects. Here we focus on the perception of local shape from specular flow and compare it to that of matte-textured rotating objects. Observers judged local surface shape by adjusting a rotation and scale invariant shape index probe. Compared to shape judgments of static objects we find that object motion decreases intra-observer variability in local shape estimation. Moreover, object motion introduces systematic changes in perceived shape between matte-textured and specular conditions. Taken together, this study provides a new insight toward the contribution of motion and surface material to local shape perception. © 2015 The Authors.Item Open Access Professional army system : a diagnosis of the perceptions(Bilkent University, 2002) Işıkçı, ErolThis study analyzes the perceptions about the concept of professional army. It aimed to find out the ideas and attitudes of the management people in defence sector toward being an army with totally professional soldiers. Recently, the effectiveness of the Army’s personnel was questioned for being totally professional, and efforts to modernize it or set up a completely new system. This large-scale organizational change has been discussed on the framework of opensystem theory. Although there may be various reasons for their perceptions, the reasons behind those perceptions are not investigated. The thesis will enable some information for further studies by picturing the present condition and finding the individual perceptions of respondents at all levels (upper, middle and lower levels) before the professional army established so that it gives a way for understanding how the social perception will change when the transformation is underway.Item Open Access The relationship between culture of learning and Turkish university preparatory students' readiness for learner autonomy(Bilkent University, 2008) Karabıyık, AslıThe applicability of learner autonomy in different cultural contexts has been widely researched in the literature in recent years. However, the studies investigating the connection between culture and learner autonomy in Asian cultures have been inconclusive as they revealed contradictory findings about Asian students‟ reactions to autonomous learning. Taking this inconclusiveness as an impetus, this study aimed to investigate Turkish university learners‟ readiness for learner autonomy and its relationship with learners‟ culture of learning to explore whether learners‟ approaches to learner autonomy were based on their culturally predetermined learning behaviors or could be explained on the basis of differences in their educational backgrounds and experiences. This study gathered data from 408 students from the preparatory schools of seven universities in Turkey. The data were collected through questionnaires, and analyzed quantitatively by using descriptive statistics, a one-way ANOVA, cross tabulations and a Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient. Analysis of the quantitative data revealed that there was a statistically significant relationship between the participants‟ culture of learning and their readiness for learner autonomy, which suggested that the extent of exposure to autonomous activities in the high schools in which the participants studied had an effect on their subsequent perceptions and behaviors related to learner autonomy. This study implied that national and ethnic definitions of culture, which describe all learners in homogeneous terms as if they were alike, may not sufficiently explain the differences in learners‟ autonomous behaviors. Therefore, learners‟ previous learning experiences -culture of learning- along with other individual factors should be taken into account in any attempts to promote learner autonomy.Item Open Access Students' and teachers' perceptions of interaction types(Bilkent University, 2007) Kaya, ÖzlemThis thesis investigated the perceptions of students at various proficiency levels and their teachers toward interaction types used in language classes, exploring students’ and teachers’ affective reactions to interaction types, along with their impressions of these interaction types’ effectiveness as learning tools. The study was conducted with the participation of 238 students from various proficiency levels (two classes from each level), and their Speaking-Listening course teachers at Anadolu University, School of Foreign Languages in the spring semester of 2007. The data were gathered through perception questionnaires and interviews. The analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that students and their teachers perceived group work as a more effective learning tool, and they had more have positive affective reactions to this interaction type than whole-class teaching, which suggested that students and their teachers had tendencies towards iv learner-centered learning. Moreover, there was no significant difference of perception across the proficiency levels, and opinions of students did not clash with those of their teachers to a great extent. This study implied that group work is an effective and enjoyable interaction type, which should be employed more frequently in addition to whole-class teaching in language classes. Further, it suggested that group work can become more effectively and smoothly implemented at all levels if students receive strategy training on group work.Item Open Access Turkish university EFL students' and instructors' views on the concepts of the good (English) foreign language teacher(Bilkent University, 2009) Önem, DilekThe objective of this study is to investigate Turkish University EFL students‟ and instructors‟ views on the characteristics of a good (English) foreign language teacher. Additionally, the study attempts to explore whether cultural and contextual differences lead to different views of what constitutes a good (English) foreign language teacher with reference to the related literature. The participants of the study were 300 students of upper intermediate, intermediate and pre-intermediate classes and 56 instructors from Erciyes University School of Foreign Languages (EU SFL), in the spring term of 2008-2009 academic year. In order to gather the necessary data from the participants, a Likert type questionnaire developed by the researcher was used as an instrument. Quantitative data analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics both for the scales and the items in each scale of the given questionnaire were used in order to explore both students‟ and instructors‟ views on the qualities of a good (English) foreign language teacher. It is found that all aspects of good teaching were considered important by both groups, including personal qualities, socio-affective skills, academic qualitie and teaching qualities. The only significant difference between the students‟ and the instructors‟ views was seen in good language teacher‟s socio-affective skills. Compared to the instructors, the students endorsed this aspect more. The findings of the study may be beneficial for (English) foreign language teachers, language teacher education programs and trainers to improve effective foreign language teaching.Item Open Access The world in-between : cinematography(Bilkent University, 2000) Yavuz, NurAnd cinema. The importance of saying and... and...and.... Images neither starts nor ends, they occupy the in-between. Cinema and philosophy come together to show the power of the in-between. Images understood as such are neither psychoanalytic nor linguistic determinants. The immanent flow of images with its undetermined intervals is what enables us to contemplate on time and movement and memory and consciousness and percepts and affects... And philosophy.