Abstract:

The aim of this research is to adapt the Pupils’ Attitudes towards Socioscientific Issues Scale (Klaver & van der Molen, 2020) to Turkish and to examine its psychometric properties. The study group consists of the students studying in the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 8th grade classes of basic education schools in Konya and Tokat city center. In this context, data were collected from 216 students from the primary school level and 284 students from the secondary school level. The relevant data was subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analyzes. As a result of the exploratory factor analysis, it was seen that the scale has a 6-factor structure: “personal relevance”, “relevance school”, “positive feelings”, “concern”, “collective efficacy” and “dependency on others”. The resulting factor structure was tested with first and second level confirmatory factor analyzes. Internal reliability coefficients for the scale were calculated in line with the relevant analyzes. Accordingly, the Cronbach Alpha reliability coefficient was calculated as .941 for the whole scale. In addition, the reliability coefficients were .787 for “personal relevance, .886 for “relevance school”, .859 for “positive feelings”, .907 for “concern”, .944 for “collective efficacy” and .881 for “dependency on others” as calculated. The item-total correlation values for the scale and the correlation values between the factors were also calculated. Confirmatory factor analysis showed that the model fit values for the scale were in good fit. The scale can be used as a valid and reliable measurement tool used to collect data.

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