Abstract:

This article describes a newly developed instrument for measuring perceptions about biology: Attitudes of secondary school students about/toward biology as a science and the course (BCAS). The field study is descriptive and the working group was 349 9th grade secondary school students. The instrument consisted of 64 Likert-type open ended statements to get their opinions and a pool of selected items were pooled from the collected data. The preliminary instrument was finalized into the applied scale to measure attitudes toward biology science and course. Annotated Factor Analysis, Cronbach?s Alpha Factor, Pearson?s Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and descriptive statistics were employed in the analysis of scale data. KMO (Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin) value of the scale for attitudes towards biology science and course was 0.95 and Barlett Test value estimated as 9390.63. Analysis of reversed basic components showed the scale to be composed of three sub-dimensions: Interest, enjoyment and anxiety. Cronbach?s Alpha reliability factor was determined as 0.93 for the scale as a whole, whereas it was calculated as 0.89 for interest dimension, 0.90 for enjoyment dimension and 0.77 for anxiety dimension. A positive and statistically significant correlation (p<0.05) was found between dimensions of the scale.. As a result: the attitude scale developed toward biology science and course is valid and reliable therefore has wide applicability. Keywords: biology, biology course, attitude, scale, validity, reliability

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