Investigation of middle school students' scientific attitudes after the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this research was to compare the scientific attitudes of middle school students in Turkey during the Covid-19 epidemic. In the literature on the subject area, there are many studies on the scientific attitudes of students before the Covid-19 epidemic. The rationale of this study is to clearly reveal how the scientific attitudes of middle school students changed after the Covid 19 epidemic. The sample of the study, which is based on the quantitative research approach, is the 5th-8th grade of public middle schools in Rize province and its districts. It consisted of 2936 students studying in their classrooms. Data were collected with a measurement tool consisting of two parts. In the first part, questions measuring the scientific attitudes and demographic information of the students, in the second part, the "Personal Information Form" developed by the researcher and the "Scientific Attitude Scale" developed by Moore and Foy (1997) and the Turkish version of Demirbas and Yagbasan (2006) has been collected. The scale, which is a five-point Likert type consisting of 40 items, was used directly as it was adapted into Turkish. Data were analyzed by using SPSS 28.0.0.1. (Statistical Packet for Social Sciences) package program. In this process, to examine how scientific attitude mean scores differ according to independent variables, one-way ANOVA with the Unrelated t-Test was carried out due to the normal distribution conditions being met. As a result of this research, variables such as subscribing to a scientific journal during the epidemic and providing a similar opportunity for children and organizing science conversation type activities by teachers emerged as a positive privilege for some children in terms of scientific attitudes.