Investigation of the characteristics of primary school students regarding the life study course

Life sciences course can be defined as a course that enables students to produce solution strategies to cope with possible problems they may encounter in their daily lives. This course is important in terms of providing students with the basic knowledge and skills necessary for their adaptation to their natural and social environment starting from their immediate surroundings. Many factors have an effect on the ability of students to acquire the desired characteristics in the life sciences course. Some of these factors are enjoyment of the course, their attitudes and beliefs towards the course, and the level of teacher-student intimacy. The information to be obtained about these characteristics may have an effect on the learning and teaching of life sciences course. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between primary school students' level of having fun in life sciences course and the variables of beliefs, attitudes and teacher-student closeness levels towards life sciences course. This study, in which the quantitative research paradigm is employed, is a relational survey model. The population of the study consisted of 175,323 students studying 2nd and 3rd grade in primary schools affiliated to Ankara Provincial Directorate of National Education in the 2022-2023 academic year. Within the scope of the research, two sample groups were formed, consisting of teachers and students. The sample groups were determined by multi-stage cluster sampling method. In the first stage, stratified sampling method was used to create maximum diversity sampling. In the second stage, two schools were randomly selected from the schools representing each stratum. In the third stage, 416 students were reached by adopting the criterion sampling method. The classroom teachers (12) of the first sample group were included in the second sample group of the study. The data were collected by using "Determining the Level of Fun in Life Sciences Course", "Life Sciences Course Belief Scale", "Life Sciences Course Attitude Scale" and teacher-student closeness items of "Teacher-Student Relationship Scale". Pearson correlation technique, multiple linear regression analysis, multiple regression analysis, hierarchical regression analysis, descriptive statistics, one sample t-test, independent groups t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Scheffe test, LSD test, Hayes mediation test, Sobel test were used to analyse the collected data. The results of the research are as follows: That primary school students have fun in life sciences course, belief and attitude levels towards life sciences course and teacher-student closeness levels are positively high. There are positive and significant relationships between primary school students' levels of having fun in life studies course and their attitudes towards life studies course, belief levels towards life studies course and teacher-student closeness levels. There is a medium level relationship between having fun and belief and attitude levels, and a low-level relationship between having fun and teacher-student closeness. There is a positive, significant and medium level relationship between primary school students' attitudes towards life sciences course and their beliefs towards life sciences course, and there is a positive, significant and low-level relationship between attitudes and beliefs and teacher-student closeness levels. It is concluded that the level of belief towards life sciences course has an effect on the level of having fun in life sciences course of primary school students, the level of belief towards life sciences course significantly predicts the level of attitude towards life sciences course and teacher-student closeness, and when the belief towards life sciences course is included in the model together with the mediating variables of attitude towards life sciences course and teacher-student closeness, the level of belief towards life sciences course continues to predict the level of having fun in life sciences course in a significant way. Among the mediating variables, the level of attitude towards life science course significantly predicted the level of having fun in life sciences course, while the level of teacher-student closeness did not significantly predict the level of having fun in life sciences course. It was established that attitude towards life sciences course was a partial mediator and teacher-student closeness variable was not a mediator variable.