期刊名称：International Journal of Environmental and Science Education
电子版ISSN：1306-3065
出版年度：2006
卷号：1
期号：2
页码：172-180
出版社：IJESE
摘要：Background (Introduction) It may be many factors that effect students’ math and science learning. Teaching strategies and methods and students’ learning preferences also are the most important factors of students’ math and science learning. Therefore, responses for the following questions has been searched in this research; Question 1. Are these scores which were taken by primary school students from the factors of the scale towards students’ science learning preferences showing a significant difference according to their grade level? Question 2. Are these scores which were taken by primary school students from the factors of the scale towards students’ math learning preferences showing a significant difference according to their grade level? Question 3. Is there a relationship between primary school students’ science and math learning preferences? Purpose This research attempted to examine primary school students’ math and science learning preferences based on their grade level. Thus, the study was adopted quantitative research approach, where it will then be employed to test hypotheses of the study. Sample Subjects of the research is 679 primary school students who were selected by random and studied at 6th, 7th and 8th grades of primary schools in Sivas in 2004-2005 spring semester.Design and methods The study was used a five-point Likert-type scale which was developed by the researchers. The scale were primary based on the work conducted by Taylor, Fraser and White (1994). Furthermore, there were also benefit from the works done by Knochs and Riggs (1990), Koul and Rubba (1999), and Riggs and Knochs (1990). It was administered to primary school students for determining primary school students’ math and science learning preferences based on their grade level variable. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the scale included two factors. It contained items measuring primary school students’ individual learning preferences (factor-1) and teacher-centered learning and working with group (factor-2). The results indicated analysis of variance for the entire scale was 42.90%; for each factor, analysis of variance ranged from 26.05% to 16.85%. Factor loading of items in the scale also ranged from .572 to .712. Furthermore, Cronbach Alpha Coefficient is also calculated as .81 for reliability of the entire scale; for each factor, alpha ranged from .891 to .847. Based on the reliability and validity analysis, it showed that there were satisfactory factor structure and reliability of the scale. For determining primary school students’ opinions according to the scale factors were used descriptive statistics methods. In addition, multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and simple correlation analysis were used for the statistical analyses.
