An investigation into knowledge of 8th secondary school students on congruence and simillarity subjects

Thanks to the developing technology and opportunities, the requirement for information is constantly increasing. It is necessary to acquire skills in mathematics and geometry in order to supply the needs of daily life and adapt to social life. In this context, geometry is regarded as an essential point in teaching mathematic, considered as an integral part of mathematics, based on the study of spatial relations in our environment. One of the sub-learning areas of geometry, congruence and similarity improve students' spatial thinking skills and enable them to think outside the box. In addition, teachers, one of the most important factors of education and training, and their qualifications also play a major role in the teaching process. Content knowledge, which is one of the primary qualifications of teachers, can be considered as the in-depth knowledge required to teach a subject. Many factors such as teachers' knowledge of the subject matter, the methods and techniques they use, and their attitude towards the lesson will also affect the student's content knowledge and affective aspect, which is an inseparable part of the cognitive aspect. In this context, the aim of the research is to analyze the content knowledge of secondary school students on the subjects of congruence and similarity. In accordance with this purpose, the ability of secondary school students to know the basic concepts and principles related to the subject and to associate the subject with other matters of the field was analyzed. Furthermore, the relationship between the level of content knowledge of congruence and similarity, and attitudes towards geometry and self-sufficiency beliefs were also observed. The survey method, which is one of the quantitative research methods, was used in the study.It was conditioned to have learned the subjects of equality and similarity in the course of determining the sample in the study.The study was carried out with 50 secondary school students studying at Sani Konukoğlu Secondary School in Gaziantep affiliating to the Ministry of National Education in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the study, the "Congruence and Similarity Subject Content Knowledge Achievement Test" developed by the researcher to measure students' content knowledge on congruence and similarity, and the "Attitude towards Geometry Scale" developed by Özdişçi (2019) to measure students' attitudes and self-sufficiency beliefs towards geometry were used. The data collected in the research were analyzed using the SPSS 26.0 package program. As a result of the research, it is obvious that the learning levels of the students on the subjects of congruence and similarity are low. As a result of this comparison made according to gender, it was concluded that the level of congruence and similarity learning was not affected by the gender variable. Considering the answers given to the scale used to determine the attitude and self-sufficiency level of the students participating in the study, it is obvious that the attitudes towards geometry and self-efficacy belief levels are high. In addition, as a result of the analyzes made, it is concluded that the attitude towards geometry and self-efficacy beliefs are not affected by the gender variable. In accordance with the correlation analysis conducted to determine the relationship between students' attitudes towards geometry and their learning levels of congruence and similarity, it is observed that there is a negative and moderate relationship between the scores obtained from the attitude scale and the scores obtained from the achievement test.In other words, it is observed that while students' attitudes and self-efficacy beliefs towards geometry increase, their learning levels on the subject of congruence and similarity decrease, or while their attitude and self-efficacy beliefs decrease, their learning levels on the subject of congruence and similarity increased. Finally, it is concluded that students' attitudes towards geometry and self-efficacy belief levels and their academic achievement in mathematics don't affect each other. The researcher has come to the conclusion that the lack of students' learning about the subject of congruence and similarity results from many different reasons such as the teachers' knowledge of the subject, the methods and techniques they use, their attitude towards the lesson and their point of view. In this context, in the teaching process, the cognitive and affective dimensions of learning should be considered as a whole, and the teacher and the content knowledge, which is one of his qualifications, should be given due importance.