Determining the relationships among middle school students' conceptions of learning science, science learning self-efficacy and scientific process skills

The aim of this research is to determine the relationships between middle school students' conceptions of learning science, science learning self-efficacy and scientific process skills. The sample of the research consists of 620 students, 273 boys and 347 girls, studying in the 8th grade. According to the results of the correlation analysis of the research the "memorizing" dimension, which is one of the lower-level conceptions of learning science, showed a significant, negative and low relationship with scientific process skills. However, it was found that there was no relationship between the students' lower-level conceptions of learning science that are "testing" and "calculate and practice" dimensions and their scientific process skills. Significant, positive and low relationships were determined between students' higher-level conceptions of learning science and scientific process skills. Significant, positive and moderate relationships were also determined between students' science learning self-efficacy and scientific process skills. According to the results of the regression analysis, while students' lower level conceptions of learning science that are "testing" and "calculate and practice" and higher-level conceptions of learning science that are "applying" and "understanding and seeing in a new way" do not predict scientific process skills, students' lower-level conception of learning science that is "memorization" predicts significantly and negatively scientific process skills. In addition, the dimension "increase of knowledge" in higher-level conceptions of learning science and "conceptual understanding", "higher-order cognitive skills" and "practical work" in science learning self-efficacy predict significantly and positively scientific process skills. If the learning environment where students can develop their self-efficacy and gain higher-level conceptions of learning science can be created and appropriate activities are chosen, it can be expected that their scientific process skills will be higher.