Effects of reading scientific novels on students' scientific attitude

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of reading scientific novels on students' scientific attitude. Furthermore, the effects of variables, such as gender, type of the school which students graduated from, their parents' occupation were examined. The sample of the study is comprised of students in Afyon Kocatepe University Education Faculty Mathematics Teaching Department and Technology Faculty Metallurgy Department. 31students attended Scientific Research Course and they also read three science fiction novels, 34 students attended the course and 26 students in control group did not attend the lesson and they did not read books. In order to determine students' scientific attitude Scientific Attitude Scale was used. Scientific Attitude Scale was developed by Moore and Foy (1996) and Demirbaş and Yağbasan (2006) adapted the scale into Turkish and tested its reliability and validity. Scale consists of forty items and according to reliability and validity its Cronbach Alpha is 0.76 and Spearman Brown correlation is 0.84.The values show that the scale is reliable. In analyzing data Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis Tests were used. The results show that reading scientific books has no effect on students' attitude towards science. Scientific Research Methods Course affected students' scientific attitude negatively in terms of willingness for scientific research and the importance of science but it affected students positively about the aim of science. Morover variables such as gender, type of the school which students graduated from, their parents' occupation have no effect on students' scientific attitude.