A comparison of attitudes, motivations and scientific process skills of the 6th grade students in public and private schools, and opinions of teachers regarding the program Ağri province example

As is known, the Ministry of National Education updated the Science and Technology Curriculum taught in primary and secondary schools as the Science Course curriculum to be initiated in the 5th grades and to be implemented gradually as of 2013-2014 academic year by the Board of Education and Discipline. In this context, the science and technology lesson which was instructed in the 6th grades has been replaced with the updated science lesson as of 2014-2015 academic year. A comprehensive revision in the curriculum was performed upon the requirement of MoNE since the beginning of 2016-2017 academic year. The aim of the study is to compare attitudes, motivations and scientific process skills of the 6th grade students in public and private schools, and to reveal the opinions of teachers regarding the program. The research, in which the special case method was used, was conducted by 315 sixth grade students from 146 private and 169 public schools affiliated to center of Ağrı province. While the data collected from Motivation Scale, Attitude Scale and Scientific Process Skills Test were used in the quantitative part of the research; the data obtained from semi-structured interviews conducted with 13 science teachers were used in the qualitative part of the research. The quantitative data of the study were analyzed by SPSS 21.0 package using Independent T-test, Mann-Whitney U Test and Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and evaluated on the significance level of 0,05. For the analyses of qualitative data, descriptive and content analyses were used. Qantitative data obtained in the study; while there was no significant difference between private schools and public schools in terms of motivation, a significant difference was found in favor of private schools regarding scientific process skills and attitudes towards science. Interclass effects of Motivation, Attitude and SPS were separately analyzed for private and public schools. It has been concluded that levels of Motivation-SPS and Attitude-SPS did not affect each other whereas it was not the case between the levels of Motivation-Attitude. As a result analysis of qualitative data obtained it has been noted that teachers are generally positive about the updated curriculum however they face various difficulties since the program is new. Especially; the decrease in attainment number and simplification of the program are defined as the positive aspects of the program. On the other hand, it has been stated that the content of the program is cleared out, there are difficulties in terms of succeed and the changes are only the changes of the names as the negative aspects. Some suggestions are made for those who will study in the field according to the results of the study. Keywords: Public and Private Schools, Motivation, Attitude, Scientific Process Skills, 6th Grade Students