Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to determine the attitudes of Dicle University Faculty of Theology preparatory class students regarding Arabic classes in terms of gender, the type of high school attended, and according to the variable of daytime/evening education. The study has been conducted on a sample of 259 (163 male, 96 female) prep class students studying at the summer school of 2014-2015 academic year. The 30-item Attitudes towards English Classes Scale developed by Aydoslu (2005) was adapted to measure the attitudes towards Arabic classes. An item of cognitive attitude and an item of affective attitude were removed from the original scale due to incompatibility with Arabic studies, totaling 28 instead of 30 items. The study uses a comparative design which is a descriptive research method. According to the findings of the study, there is no significant difference in students' attitudes towards Arabic classes in terms of cognitive and affective attitudes based on gender but, in terms of behavioral attitude female students seem to be at an advantage. The results demonstrate no statistically significant difference between the attitudes of daytime and evening education students. The study also concludes that attitudes towards Arabic classes do not differ based on the high school attended

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