Investigation of physics achievement of 4th grade students participating in TIMSS 2015 application in Turkey in terms of student and family characteristics

In this study, it is aimed to examine how the student and family factors discussed in the 2015 International Mathematics and Science Trends Survey (TIMSS 2015) are in relationship with the physics achievement of 4th grade students in Turkey. Survey model was used in the research. The study group consists of 6341 4th grade students participating in TIMSS 2015 from Turkey. Data from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement was used as a data collection tool. The content of the data includes student and family characteristics and physics achievement scores. Multivariate regression analysis was used to determine the factors affecting students' physics achievement. In this context, the dependent variable is student physics success and the independent variables consisted of 21 variables belonging to the student and family. According to the research findings, in the first stage, the student's variables consisting of eight variables were entered. These variables explain 31.6% of TIMSS 2015 Grade 4 physics success. In the second stage, family variables consisting of 13 variables were entered. The whole model, which consists of two stages, explains 49.3% of the total variance in physics achievement. In the last model, all of the variables belonging to the student were found to be significant predictors of the dependent variable, while the variables other than the level of pre-school early literacy activities out of 13 family variables, the level of parent's perception of the school and the parent's attitude towards mathematics and science were found to be significant predictors. It was determined that the students' self-confidence level in science lesson, parent's education level, parent's educational expectation, and the frequency of speaking test language at home were the variables that contributed the most to the success of physics.