The effects of a divorced family background on science learning of the students according to science teachers

It is important to identify the disadvantageous situations encountered by children, whose parents have divorced, in the process of learning science so that these children could get proper benefit from the learning environment. In this study therefore, the effects of having divorced families on learning Science have been uncovered together with the possible effects of science teachers and school culture. In this study which contains cultural elements, ethnographic research method has been applied. The research has been carried out in a middle school in Bursa, affiliated to Ministry of Education. The sample of the research is two Science teachers, chosen through purposive sampling, and the researcher himself. For the determination of participative teachers, the experience of sharing the same school environment for a long time has been taken into consideration. Observation and semi-structured interview (SSI) were applied to collect data in this research. The collected data has been analyzed through content analysis. The findings revealed that the students with divorced parents (1) could not get enough support from their parents and were drifted apart from their Science learning purposes, their expectations changed, and the value they placed on Science learning process decreased, (2) they needed more external motivation because they lost their internal motivation, (3) they did not realize their self-efficacy and their faith in capability to be successful decreased, (4) they had difficulty in structuring Science concepts and had misconceptions because of their concentration problems, (5) they did not want to take part in question-answer-feedback activities, (6) they did not attend the classes properly, and their in-class participations were generally low.