Investigation on secondary school students' motivation levels and metacognitive awareness on learning science

The purpose of this study is to determine the secondary school students' motivation levels on learning science and metacognitive awareness and analysing their motivation levels on learning science and metacognitive awareness in terms of their demographic features and academic achievements. The 630 students who get their education in high, medium and low socio-economically level secondary schools in central county of Aydın in 2012-2013 academic year formed the sample of this research. "The Motivation Scale for Science Learning", "The Metacognitive Awareness Scale" and "Personal Information Scale" were applied to the students. While analyzing the data, descriptive statistic methods (Frequency, Percentage, Average, Standard Deviation) as well as the Kruskal Walis H-test, the Mann Whitney U-test and the correlation analysis were used. According to investigation results, it was found out that the motivation levels on learning science and metacognitive awareness of students show significantly statistical difference according to the parameters of gender, grade, the socio-economic level of family, parents' educational background, computer possession at home and having Internet access at home. In the meantime, it has been ascertained that there is a positively significant correlation between their academic achievements and their motivation levels on learning science and metacognitive awareness. Likewise, it was defined that there stands a positively significant correlation between the motivation levels on learning science and metacognitive awareness of secondary school students. Key words: Secondary school students; Motivation on Learning Science; Metacognitive Awareness; Academic Achievement