Abstract:

In the reports published by the Ministry of National Education (MONE) of Turkey regarding the study “Monitoring and Assessment of Academic Skills (ABIDE)”, the variables that affect student achievement are generally addressed individually. In this research, student characteristics that affect students' mathematics achievement in ABIDE 2016 administration were addressed and examined together. In this context, since this research aimed to find out the extent to which eighth grade students can apply their maths knowledge to daily life cases and the factors affecting the academic success of the students, this research is expected to contribute to the relevant institutions, researchers and politicians in terms of developing curricula that will increase the performance of students and arranging learning-teaching environments. In this study, which is a correlational research model, it was aimed to determine the student characteristics that expain the academic success of the eighth grade students in the ABIDE 2016 mathematics subtest. CHAID analysis method was used in the analysis of the data. When the eighth grade student characteristics were examined, ABIDE mathematics achievement scores were explained by the variables “educational goals”, "number of siblings", "number of books excluding magazines, newspapers and textbooks at home" "socioeconomic level", "frequency of absenteeism" and “mathematics self-efficacy" respectively. It was found out that as the socioeconomic level, the number of books excluding magazines, newspapers and textbooks at home and the mathematics self-efficacy scores increase, mathematics achievement scores increase, too. However, as the number of siblings and the frequency of absenteeism increase, academic achievement scores decrease to a great degree.