Abstract:

Because scrutinizing the factors that derived from international studies and have potential to make a country more successful in scientific literacy has been one major concern of researchers in science education field, we carried out a study to expose the differences between a low-performing country (Turkey) and a high-performing country (Finland) with regard to their students’ views of science and familiarity to ICT (Information Communication Technology) based on the PISA 2006 results. A principal component analysis was performed to the items selected from the student questionnaire and ICT familiarity student questionnaire in PISA 2006 to gather the related factors and factor scores. Then, discriminant function analysis was conducted on the basis of the factor scores to explore the differences between a low-performing country (Turkey) and a high-performing country (Finland). The results revealed that the two countries were significantly discriminated based on the seven composite (latent) variables that consist 60 observed variables regarding socioeconomic status, doing well in ICT tasks, self-efficacy in science , importance to given to science, frequency in ICT tasks, student-centered activities, and science activities in leisure time. Whereas the use of student-centered activities and ICT tasks were encouraged in the low-performing country (Turkey), students in the high-performing country (Finland) tended to have high socioeconomic status and high self-efficacy in science. In addition, the results revealed that, even though the students in the high-performing country used the ICT tasks better than the students in the low-performing country, students in the low-performing country (Turkey) tended to do more activities related to ICT tasks.

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