Examination of primary and secondary school students attitudes towards science lessons

In this study, the level of attitudes of 3rd and 4th grade students of primary and secondary school students towards the science lessons were investigated according to gender and class level variables and evaluated according to the obtained data. The sample of the study consisted of 835 students are studying in 3rd and 4th grade students in Ankara in 2017-2018 academic year. This research is designed by survey model. In this study, "Science and Technology Attitude Scale" developed by Nuhoğlu (2008) was used. In this study, Cronbach α coefficients for whole scale, "Attitude towards Science and Technology Lessons" and "Attitude towards Science and Technology Activities" sub-dimensions were calculated as 0,892, 0,791 and 0,844, respectively. The reliability level of the scale was found to be sufficient (> 0.70). The two dimensional structure of the scale was confirmed by confirmatory factor analysis and the evidence was provided for construct validity. In the analysis of the data, firstly the recode process was carried out for the inverse items on the data collected from the scale. Kolmogorov Smirnov test was used to determine if it showed normal distribution. Mann-Whitney U test was used for the analysis of the data which were not found to be normal. The significance level was taken as 0.05 in all analyzes. The analyzes were carried out in SPSS 20.0 package program. As a result of the study, it was determined that student attitudes towards science lessons in general were positive. There was a significant difference in both gender and class level variables. It was found that the female students are more positive than male students and the students in 4th grade are more positive than students in 3th grade for science lessons.