Abstract:

Chemistry laboratories are an essential and indispensable part of chemistry education; however, the process in the laboratory cannot fully provide the desired gains. Although various scales in the literature address the process in the chemistry laboratory from different perspectives and enable evaluations, a new perspective on the process is student engagement. By determining to what extent and how students engage in the process, the chemistry laboratory can be carried out more effectively, and the efficiency of the teaching process can be increased by making the necessary arrangements. This study aimed to adapt the scale (Smith and Alonso, 2020) from international literature to Turkish and to determine its validity and reliability. For this purpose, the original scale went through the translation phase, and its language validity was checked. The sample of this study consists of 242 students who continue their education in Sakarya University (N= 158) and Gazi University (N=84) Education faculties, Science teaching and Classroom teaching departments. Then its construct validity was ensured by Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Its reliability was studied by determining the internal consistency coefficient. At the same time, the comparison of the data according to some demographic characteristics was also carried out. As a result, The Student Engagement in The General Chemistry Laboratory Scale adapted to our language is a valid and reliable scale consisting of 25 items and six factors.

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