A comparative study of achievement levels, opinions, and attitudes of students at faculty of education related to curriculum and evaluation course

The main purpose of this research is to investigate the differences and relationships between students? achievement, opinions, and attitudes towards the Curriculum and Evaluation Course. The data of the research, which is descriptive in one aspect and also in another aspect a quasi?experimental design called as pre?test post?test or repetitive assessment design, were gathered by "Curriculum and Evaluation Course Achievement Test" and "Attitude and Opinion Test" which were both developed by the researcher. The research was conducted in the spring term of 2005?2006 educationalyear. The sample was chosen by using quoto sampling. The participants were 818 sophomore students and students of 3,5+1,5 graduate programs without a required thesis who attended the different teaching programs of the Buca Faculty of Education. The data were analyzed by frequency, mean, standard deviation, standard error, one-way and repeated measures analysis of variance, Bonferroni Test, t-test, and Pearson product moment correlation coefficient technique. SPSS 13 statistical program was used in data analysis. According to the results of the tests, there was no statistically significant difference between achievement of students in terms of gender and their being day or evening class students. There was a significant difference between students in their achievement in the Curriculum and Evaluation Course in terms of the field score of students in university entrance exam, the program they attend and their teaching field. This difference was also statistically significant in favor of curriculum dimension of the given test. There was no statistically significant difference between students? opinions and attitudes towards Curriculum and Evaluation Course in terms of gender. No significant difference was found between the attitudes of students and their field score in university entrance exam. However, a significant difference was found between the field score in university exam and opinions about the Curriculum and Evaluation Course. In addition, statistically significant differences were found between students? opinions and attitudes towards Curriculum and Evaluation Course in terms of the programs they attended. While the difference between the day class students and evening class students? attitudes towards Curriculum and Evaluation Course was significant, the difference between the opinions of these students was not significant. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the students in their attitudes and opinions in terms of their teaching fields. A significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results of students in Curriculum and Evaluation whole test score, curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course. A significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results of students in Curriculum and Evaluation whole test score, curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course in terms of gender. A significant correlation was found between the achievement test results of students who had equally distributed score in the university entrance exam in their Curriculum and Evaluation whole test score, curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course. A significant correlation was found between the achievement test results of students who had foreign language score in the university entrance exam in evaluation dimension and attitudes towards the course. A significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results of day class students in curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course. In addition, a significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results of evening class students in the whole test and curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course. When teaching fields of students are taken into consideration, within the group of Primary School Teaching students, a significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results in the whole test and curriculum dimension and attitudes towards the course. Within the group of Primary and Secondary School Teaching of Two Fields students, a significant and negative correlation was found between the achievement test results in evaluation dimension and opinions about the course. In addition, all of the participants in the study mentioned that the course should be divided into two sections and practicing should be focused.