Editors Message and Referees Index
Authors: Uzunboylu Huseyin , Hursen Cigdem 
Published: December 2015

From the EditorsHuseyin Uzunboylu, Cigdem HursenIt is an honor for us to welcome you as Editors of Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences which has accepted publications indexed in qualified databases since 2006. We are ready to publish the new studies of Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences which has 5 full length articles written by authors from, Cyprus, Iran and Turkey.The aim of this issue is to give the researchers an opportunity to share their academic studies. First of all, I would like to thank all who have contributed to this issue. There are different focuses. For example, Cihat Demir, Burhan Sincar and Rıdvan Çelik explored to specify the matters encountered by science teachers during the teaching of physics and to provide them with solutions. The study group consisted of 50 science teachers who worked in Diyarbakır and Batman over the period of 2014 - 2015. This research is a descriptive study carried out by content analysis. According to the research findings, the top problems that the physics teachers encountered in physics lesson while processing the topics were laboratory problems. Some solutions have been introduced for science teachers in order to help them provide a better physics education.On the other hand, Parisa Abdolrezapour and Elahe Fallah explored the effect of reflective teaching on learner autonomy and the intrinsic motivation of Iranian upper-intermediate female learners. The subjects included 60 adult upper-intermediate EFL learners chosen out of ninety, based on the scores obtained through administration of the TOEFL exam. They were randomly assigned to two groups: a) the experimental group - taught by a reflective teacher - and b) the control group instructed by an unreflective teacher. The experimental group was then taught by the reflective teacher and the control group was taught by the unreflective teacher who adopted no tangible reflective actions. Finally, both groups sat for motivation and autonomy questionnaires. The results indicate that reflective teaching leads to the enhancement of both learners’ autonomy and the intrinsic motivation level.In addition to these, Nazım Kaşot and Serap Özbaş aimed in their study to assess the egoistic, altruistic and biospheric awareness of the consequence of high school students regarding the loss of bio-diversity, then comparing the results on the basis of some independent variables (gender, class and family income). According to the outcome of the research, students believed in biospheric, egoistic and altruistic results at the similar levels. While the impact of gender and family income on biospheric, altruistic and egoistic awareness of consequence is not so significant, the impact of class is significant on biospheric and altruistic awareness of consequence.Also Nazım Kaşot and Mete Özsezer studied historical environment subjects in elementary school social sciences textbooks.  They focused on the 4th and 5th Grades in the context of both content and visuals. The method of the study analysed has been organised in accordance with the qualitative research. The population was not indicated pursuant to qualitative research and so purposive sampling was implemented. The textbooks used were mainly selected from the afore-mentioned grades and classes. All the data collected were based on the textbooks used during the assessment process. The data was gathered in accordance with the document analysis technique and everything was analysed in detail. The categories used were generated after the authors performed analysis by utilising textbooks. To ensure the validity of the categories, literature scanning was undertaken and expert opinion was taken. The category definitions were written for public access. Finally, Hakan Sarıcam and Üzeyir Ogurlu carried out a study on gifted students. Authors examined the relationships between metacognitive awareness and maths anxiety in gifted students. The second aim was to compare with gifted and non-gifted students’ metacognitive awareness and maths anxiety levels. According to the findings; firstly, gifted students’ metacognitive awareness scores were higher than those of non-gifted students. On the other hand, non-gifted students’ maths anxiety levels were higher than those of gifted students. Secondly, there was negative correlation between metacognitive awareness and math anxiety.I would like to express my thanks to all authors preferring Cypriot Journal of Educational Sciences to make their articles published, all reviewers working seriously in the process of publishing, and also quest editors supporting us in this process.Best regards,Prof. Dr. Huseyin Uzunboylu, Editor-in-ChiefAssist. Prof. Dr. Cigdem Hursen, Executive Editor