Attitude towards social studies lesson in the prediction of motivation towards social studies lesson: A correlational study on secondary school students

In this study, it was aimed to examine the attitudes and motivations of 5th, 6th and 7th grade secondary school students towards social studies according to variables such as their gender, class, grade point average, education level of parents and monthly income of the family, to examine the comparison of attitude scores and motivation scores, and finally, to examine to what extent the attitudes of these students towards the social studies lesson predict their motivation towards the social studies lesson. The sample of the study, which was created by convenience sampling, consisted of 350 students studying in the 5th, 6th and 7th grades of Yurtpınar Yenimahalle Imam Hatip Secondary School, Murtuna Gazi Secondary School, Aksu Secondary School, Celal Sönmez Secondary School and Perge Secondary Schools in the Aksu district of Antalya province in the 2021-2022 academic year. The data were collected through a personal information form developed by the researcher and an instrument consisting of the Attitude Scale towards Social Studies Lesson and Social Studies Lesson Motivation Scale. In the analysis of the data, Student's t-test, one-way analysis of variance, Tukey test, Kruskal-Wallis H test, Dunn's multiple comparison test with Bonferroni correction, Pearson's r product-moment correlation coefficient, Spearman's ρ rank correlation coefficient, and multiple linear regression techniques were used. Result of the study revealed that, there was a significant relationship between the 5th, 6th and 7th grade secondary school students' demographic characteristics such as gender, grade, grade point average, parents' education level and monthly income of the family with the sub-dimensions of their attitudes and motivations towards the social studies course and the total score of the scale. In the regression analyses, in which the sub-dimensions of the attitude towards the social studies course were the independent variables and the sub-dimensions of the motivation towards the social studies course were the dependent variables; it was observed that interest and use of knowledge significantly predicted intrinsic motivation, interest predicted external motivation, and finally use of knowledge and unwillingness significantly predicted caring. Finally, results were discussed and suggestions were made. Keywords: Social studies, attitude, motivation.