Factors Affecting Students’ Attitudes Towards Physics

Abstract

This paper attempted to investigate the combined and individual effects of certain independent variables (teachers' characteristics, gender, experience in teaching, age, students' gender, grade level and schools' conditions) on students' attitudes toward physics. The study was conducted with 317 tenth and eleventh grade science students from 5 high schools in Ankara. In this study, a physics attitudes scale and a physics teachers' characteristics scale were used. These tests consisted of 56 Likert-type questions. In order to analyze the obtained data, Multiple Regression and Correlation Analysis (MRC) was used. The results indicated that the combined effect of these independent variables on students' attitudes toward physics was significant. Also the teachers' characteristics, gender, experience in teaching, age, students' gender, and schools' conditions individually affected the students' attitudes toward physics significantly but grade level did not.