Examination of the attitudes of secondary and highschool students towards social media: Çekmeköy sample

This study has been conducted in order to examine the attitudes of students towards social media.In the first phase of the research, 95 items, which were formed as to develop an evaluation instrument that measures attitudes towards social media, was presented to specialists; succeeding the scope validation processes, certain items were omitted from the scale. The draft scale that was comprised of 75 items was applied to 302 students. As a result of the principle components analysis and factor analysis, which were conducted as to determine the structural validity of the scale, a 4 factored (sharing necessity, social self-efficacy, social isolation and relation with teachers) scale that explains 52.650% of the total variance and that was comprised of 23 items was obtained. In the analyses, held for determining the reliability (internal coherence), Cronbach aT=.85 was calculated for the totality of the scale. For the subscale, alpha coefficient varies in between Cronbach 0^=79 and Cronbach amax=.81. Furthermore, it was determined that item-total and corrected item-total correlations were significant and items were discriminative and that significant correlations were present between the factors. The scale was reapplied to the same group in three weeks for reliability and the test-retest correlation coefficient was found as meaningful in positive sense (r=.83; p<.00l). These findings are qualified as to prove that the scale is valid and reliable.In the second phase of research, the attitude of secondary and high school students towards social media was examined. The study was conducted upon 735 students receiving education in £ekmekoy province of Istanbul. The SMAS (Social Media Attitude Scale) total points obtained from the sample group and points gathered from subscales were compared with regards to demographic variables. As a result of the study, it was found that the attitudes of the students regarding social media were positive. Again, according to the findings of the study, the attitudes of the students regarding social media were determined as to manifest a meaningful difference with regards to receiving education in secondary or high school, school type, class level, perceived income level, membership to social media websites, social media using time, using frequency, average spent time and most frequently used website variables.Key Words: Social Media, Student, Attitude, Attitude Scale