In this dissertation, I establish a research program that uses computational modeling as a testbed for theories of phonological learning. This dissertation focuses on a fundamental question: how do children acquire sound patterns from noisy, real-world data, especially in the presence of lexical exceptions that defy regular patterns? For instance,…

Sound symbolism, the iconic link between speech sounds and meanings, helps children's verb learning. In sound symbolically rich languages such as Turkish, hearing sound symbolic words might facilitate early verb learning and later language-specific expressions of motion events, by providing an easier way to map verbs onto events. These links could…

Negation is a cornerstone of human language and one of the few universals found in all languages. Without negation, neither categorization nor efficient communication would be possible. Languages, however, differ remarkably in how they express negation. It is yet widely unknown how the way negation is marked influences the acquisition process of…

This research study aims to utilize a second-order meta-analysis procedure to synthesize the effects of inquiry-based learning model (IBLM) on learning outcomes. An extensive systematic review process resulted in the inclusion of 10 meta-analyses conducted between 2015 and 2022 with minimal overlap between primary studies. The results revealed…

This paper builds on a collaborative pilot project on "Critical Multilingual Language Awareness" (CMLA) in a linguistically diverse Preparatory Class with migrant adolescents in Sweden. Importantly, the approach involved Multilingual Study Mentors (MSMs), whose role normally is to provide scaffolding in the strongest language of recently…

The aim of this study is to compare the teaching process of early reading in the US to in Turkey. This study observes developing early reading of students, their reading miscues, and compares early reading process of students in the US and to early reading process of students in Turkey. This study includes the following research question: What are…