The State of Educational Research in Turkey

Mustafa Yunus Eryaman
Vice President
Turkish Educational Research Association (Eğitim Araştırmaları Birliği, EAB)
Jan 2011

Even though educational research in Turkey is mainly conducted by universities, these studies are largely financed by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Ministry of Education, universities, EU agencies also provide funds for the educational research studies. The participation of NGOs into the process of conducting and funding the educational research is very limited. 

Privatization and decentralization of higher education and the Bologna process have an impact on educational research since the language of the market is very dominant in these processes: accountability,performance and quality assessment, entrepreneurship, and university and industry collaborations. Implementation and coordination of the Bologna Process in Turkey is carried out by the Council of Higher Education. In the name of economic competence and sustainability, the Council openly promote all forms of research in higher education institutions to be in closer relations with the market. The main consequences of promoting these processes in Turkish higher education institutions are the restraint of academic research space, the standardization of the structure and the curriculum of the academic programs.

The assessment of the quality and usefulness of educational research in Turkey is now becoming an important issue for universities and government agencies to determine the funding to support educational research and to use the research results for developing and implementing public policy. Evaluating the quality of educational research brings to the front a number of issues.

One issue that emerges when assessing any form of research is the usefulness of educational research. To what extent does educational research inform teaching and learning processes in schools is a contentious debate in Turkey. The Ministry of Education and other government agencies are generally sceptical about usefulness of educational research in the development and assessment of public policy for various reasons. Furthermore, assessing the quality of educational research involves a limited level of consultation with the academic community, specifically with the educational research organizations.

Another issue is identifying the form of measurement used for assessing the quality of educational research, who conducts the measurement and the assessment and what the results are used for.

Specifically, the use of an assessment strategy based on Web of Science index ranking to evaluate quality of educational research and individual academicians performances for promotion and tenure is a controversial issue in Turkish higher education.