Sekizinci sınıf öğrencilerin fen başarısına etki eden faktörlerin Üçüncü Uluslararası Matematik ve Fen Çalışması Türkiye verilerine dayalı modellenmesi

The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors that are related to students̕ science achievement in TIMSS-R. Basically instructional activities, affective characteristics of students and socioeconomic status (SES) were taken as the variables of the model proposed within the Linear Structural Modeling (LSM) framework. This study examined the TIMSS data for Turkish students with the sample size of 7841 through the analysis of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Resulting path diagram showed that the largest relationship existed between science achievement and SES of students. It was also observed that students̕ enjoyment of science did not seem to have a significant contribution on science achievement. In addition, science achievement had a negative relationship with the classroom activities considered as student-centered. On the other hand, the activities considered as teacher-centered had a positive impact on the science achievement scores of the TIMSS tests. It was also observed that science achievement and perception of success/failure in science were highly related with each other. The results were interpreted within the framework of Turkish educational system, and some suggestions for future research studies were proposed.M.S. - Master of Scienc