Examining the attitudes and opinions of high school students on socioscientific issues

This research aimed to examine high school students' attitudes and opinions towards socioscientific issues. A total of 590 students, including 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students studying in high schools affiliated with the National Education Directorate in the center of Diyarbakır during the 2023-2024 academic year, participated in the study. The research was conducted in five different school types: Science High School, Anatolian High School, Anatolian Imam Hatip High School, Vocational and Technical Anatolian High School, and Sports High School. This study, which aims to examine the attitudes and opinions of high school students towards socioscientific issues, quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis methods were used together. The "Attitude Scale Towards Socioscientific Issues" was used as the quantitative data collection tool, while the "Interview Form on Socioscientific Issues," consisting of five open-ended questions prepared by the researchers, was used as the qualitative data collection tool. In this mixed-method study, qualitative data were analyzed using a descriptive approach, while quantitative data were processed through the SPSS software. According to the results of the quantitative analysis; It was observed that high school students' general attitude levels towards socioscientific issues and their attitudes in the liking, anxiety, usefulness and importance sub-dimensions were neither positive nor negative. While no significant differences were found in students' general attitudes towards socioscientific issues and their attitudes towards the liking and anxiety sub-dimensions by gender, differences were observed in the benefit and importance sub-dimensions. Regarding school type, no significant differences were observed in the general attitude levels and the liking and anxiety sub-dimensions; however, differences emerged in the benefit and importance sub-dimensions. Another finding of the study revealed that while the general attitude levels towards socioscientific issues and the average scores of the anxiety, usefulness, and importance subdimensions differed according to grade levels, the liking sub-dimension did not show differences by grade. Additionally, the findings indicated that while the general attitude levels and liking sub-dimension scores towards socioscientific issues varied according to the father's education level, no differences were found in the anxiety, usefulness, and importance subdimensions based on the father's education level. On the other hand, it was concluded that the xi general attitude levels towards socioscientific issues and the average scores of the importance, liking, and anxiety sub-dimensions did not differ based on the students' department or the mother's education level.