Examination of good citizenship levels of secondary school students

This research aims to determine the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of the seventh-grade secondary school students and to examine these levels in terms of various variables. For this purpose, "Good Citizenship Cognitive Scale for Secondary School" and "Good Citizenship Affective Scale for Secondary School" were developed. The results of the Exploratory Factor Analysis conducted for both scales indicated that "Good Citizenship Cognitive Scale for Secondary School" had 48,690 of the total variance with one single factor and 14 items while "Good Citizenship Affective Scale for Secondary School" had 46,125 of the total variance with one single factor and 16 items, and these structures were confirmed by Confirmatory Factor Analysis. As a result of the reliability analyses of the scales (Cronbach Alpha, McDonald's Omega, and Guttman), the internal consistency coefficients for "Good Citizenship Cognitive Scale for Secondary School" were found to be between .85-.95, and they ranged from .87 to .95. for "Good Citizenship Affective Scale for Secondary School" As a result, it was found out that "Good Citizenship Cognitive Scale for Secondary School " and " Good Citizenship Affective Scale for Secondary School" were valid and reliable scales in determining the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of seventh-grade students. With these scales developed during the research, the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of the seventh-grade students at the secondary school were examined whether to differ in terms of the variables of gender, number of siblings, educational status of parents, family income status, number of books to be read per year, place of residence, region of residence, role model person, and self-perception of good citizen status. In this study, in which the survey model, one of the quantitative research methods, was used, 600, seventh- grade students studying at secondary school level in the central districts of Antalya were reached for the first part of the research during the development process of the scales, and 1518 students studying at public secondary schools in the provinces located in the different geographical regions of Turkey were reached for the second part of the research using simple random sampling, one of the random sampling methods. The data obtained in the research were analysed with the SPSS 25 package program. One-way ANOVA, Kruskal Wallis and Mann Whitney U tests were used to determine whether the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of the students differed according to various variables. The results of the study showed that the secondary school students in the sample had high cognitive and affective levels of good citizenship. It is possible to say that the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of the seventh-grade secondary school students differed according to the variables of gender, number of siblings, educational status of parents, family income, number of books to be read per year, place of residence, region of residence and self-perception of good citizen status. In addition, it was found out that there was a high and positive significant relationship between cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship of the students. According to the results, it was suggested that the Social Studies Curriculum should be revised by adding the gains at the cognitive and affective level as well as the gains at the behavioural level, that qualitative research studies examining the reasons for the differentiation in terms of the variables found to have an effect on good citizenship should be carried out in the future, and that the cognitive and affective levels related to good citizenship should be examined with the students attending a different grade level.