A Content analysis of graduate theses concerning early childhood education in Turkey

This study aims to investigate the descriptive characteristics, research topics and methodological procedures of master’s theses and doctoral dissertations regarding early childhood education in Turkey. Within the scope of the current study, 931 Master’s. theses and 171 doctoral dissertations were analyzed according to university, institute, department, publication year, academic title of the advisor, research topic, sample group, location in which the study took place, research setting of the study, type of research, instruments, statistical analysis, and sampling methods. The study covers theses published from 1986 to 2016, and a content analysis method was implemented for data analysis. As expected, the current study found that students were the most frequently used subject groups in both M.S. theses (37.39%) and Ph.D. dissertations (53.39%). In the M.S. theses, researchers mostly preferred research topics regarding the education of young children (29.95%) whereas in PhD. dissertations, researchers mainly focused on developmental issues (32.78%). Nearly, all the graduate theses were conducted in city centers and central districts