Examining vocational high school students' school belonging, academic motivation and hopelessness levels

The general purpose of this study is to determine whether there is a significant relationship between school belonging, academic motivation and hopelessness of vocational high school students. In addition, another aim of the research is to determine whether the school belonging of vocational high school students varies significantly in terms of gender, age, grade level, birth order, number of siblings, achievement status, parents' relationship status, parents' education level and reason for choosing the school. In the study, the relational research model, one of the descriptive research methods, was used to analyze the data. The population of the research consists of students studying in vocational high schools in Adıyaman city center in the 2023-2024 academic year. While creating the sample of the research, stratified purposeful sampling method, one of the purposeful sampling methods, was used. The sample of the research consists of 651 students attending vocational high schools in Adıyaman city center. As data collection tools; "Sense of Belonging to School Scale" (SBS), "Academic Motivation Scale" (AMS), "Hopelessness Scale" (HS) and "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher were used. As a result of the research, a significant difference was detected in the school belonging of vocational high school students in terms of mother's education level, achievement status and reason for school choice. There is a positive, low-level significant relationship between school belonging and academic motivation of vocational high school students; it was determined that there was a moderately significant negative relationship between school belonging and hopelessness scores.