Middle school students’ attitudes toward science, scientists, science teachers and classes

As a consequence, students from different regions of Turkey have different attitudes towards science, scientists and science courses. In west part of Turkey, students have more positive attitudes towards science. This conclusion can be due to more comfortable and equipped school environments and educated parents; on the other hand, students from Southeast and Central Anatolia regions of Turkey have less positive attitudes than from the other regions. It was expected that students from Southeast region may have less positive attitudes toward science, science learning and scientists since their conditions are worse than the other regions of Turkey. The school environments must be improved in terms of instructional equipment and technology. Students should be supported by counselors since it is difficult for them to share their thoughts with parents. Counselors should act as an advisor and should be a bridge between student and parent. Nonetheless, although students from Middle Anatolia have better school environments than the students from Eastern Anatolia, the possible reason(s), which is students’ from Middle Anatolia hold less positive attitudes than their counterparts from Eastern Anatolia, should be investigated. Moreover in terms of school facilities and opportunities, and ratio of educated parents, the region of Eastern Anatolia in Turkey are not well equipped as well as Middle Anatolia but students from Eastern Anatolia have not so bad attitudes toward science like Middle Anatolia. This result might be owing to students’ intrinsic motivations and their teachers. In Turkey, teachers mostly at their early career teach at school in east parts of Turkey and it is assumed that their motivations are higher at the beginning of their professional career. That’s why; their students may have more positive attitudes toward science. It is also found that girls are more interested and have more positive attitudes toward science than boys in Turkey. This conclusion is coherent with that girls usually do better than boys at university entrance exams and some other national exams. Lastly, positive interest and attitudes toward science decreases with respect to grade level (or age). From fourth grade to eighth grade, students’ attitudes toward science get lower. The reason of this may be increasing in complexity of science related courses. In order to deal with such situation, teachers should try to motivate and attract their students’ attention to the courses and scientific events. They can visit science centers and other non-formal educational institutions so as to develop their students’ curiosities.