The attitudes and academic self concepts towards science course of 6., 7. and 8th grade students

The purpose of this research is to examine attitudes and academic self concept towards science course of sixth, seventh and eighth grade students according to gender, grade level and science achievement; to determine the relationship between the attitudes and academic self concept towards science course of the students.During the first semester of 2009?2010 academic year, 1491 students who are studying primary schools in the central district of Çanakkale Province, participated in this research.The research data collected by ?Attitude Towards Science Lesson Scale? developed by Altınok (2004a) and ?Academic Self Concept Scale? adopted by Senemoğlu (1990) into Turkish.Arithmetic Mean, Standard Deviation, t test, One-Way Analysis of Variance and Scheffè Test were used for the analysis of data.Research has revealed the following results:The attitudes towards science course of students are generally positive.Although there are differences in the sub dimensions of attitude (participation and willingness to work), in general there is no differences between the attitudes towards science and gender.There are differences between the attitudes towards science and grade level.Higher grade levels makes attitudes more negative.There are differences between the attitudes towards science and science achievement.Being successful makes attitudes more positive.The academic self concept of students is generally positive.There are differences in favor of girls between academic self concept and gender.There are differences between the academic self concept and grade level.Higher grade levels makes academic self concept more negative.There are differences between the academic self concept and science achievement.Being successful makes academic self concept more positive.The highly significant and positive relationship between attitude towards science and academic self concept has been identified.