A scale development study of attitudes of middle school students towards programming

The aim of this study is to examine the attitudes of students towards programming in terms of gender and class level by developing a valid and reliable scale measuring attitudes towards programming and to examine whether there is a significant relationship between students' Mathematics scores and their attitudes towards programming and students' Information Technologies and Software Course scores and students' attitudes towards programming. Fort his purpose, the research was carried out in two stages. In the first stage, data from 508 middle school students from Kocaeli, Sakarya and Bolu provinces were collected and the Exploratory Factor Analysis was carried out. As a result of the factor analysis 19-item scale consisting of affection, cognition and behavior dimensions, reduced to 13-item scale consisting of one dimension. In the second stage, data were obtained from 414 middle school students from Istanbul, Bolu and Ankara and then Confirmatory Factor Analysis was performed. It can be concluded that the 13-item scale is a reliable and valid. Moreover it was found that the level of attitudes of middle school students towards programming was at an advanced level. The students' attitudes towards programming did not differ significantly according to the gender variable. When students' attitudes towards programming were examined according to the class level variable, it was seen that they differed meaningfully between the 5th and 7th grades, 5th and 8th grades, 6th and 7th grades and 6th and 8th grades. No significant difference was found between the 5th and 6th grades and the 7th and 8th grades. It was seen that there was no meaningful relationship between students' attitudes towards programming and Information Technologies and Software Course achievement scores. Similarly, there was no meaningful relationship between students' attitudes towards programming and Mathematics achievement scores.