THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PERCEPTIONS OF STUDENTS TOWARDS SCHOOL, SCIENCE TEACHER AND SCIENCE CLASS AND SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT DURING THEIR MIDDLE SCHOOL EDUCATION

The purpose of this research is to determine the relationship between the perceptions of students towards school, science teacher and science class and science achievement during their middle school education. Therefore, this study intends to present results of the change in the views of students by analyzing TIMSS studies, which were attended by the same age group students both in 2011 (fourth grade level) and in 2015 (eighth grade level). In this study, a descriptive research is used, which is one of the quantitative research approaches, has been adopted. The sample consisted of 6.079 8th grade students who participated in TIMSS 2011 and 7479 4th grade students who participated in TIMSS 2015. The SPSS 24 packet program was used in the processing of data analyses. According to the results, while 4th grade students’ thinking of “they did not have to study science”, “they learn many interesting things in science”, and “they are interested in what my teacher says in science lessons” are have a positive and medium effect size on their science achievement, 8th grade students’ thinking of “science is more difficult for me than for many of my classmates” has a negative and large effect size their science achievement. While 4th and 8th grade students’ thinking of “they learn quickly science subjects” has a positive and medium effect size on their science achievement, both fourth and eighth grade students’ thinking of “science is harder for me than any other subject” has a negative and medium effect size on their science achievement. It is seen that students' interest and attitudes towards school and science class have an impact on science achievement. Moreover, it is found that the academic development of students, as well as, the positive development of the emotional characteristics of students, such as trust and love, and the improvement of the quality of the values education are important for science achievement. On the other hand, it is concluded that the attitude and approaches of the teacher towards the student have an effect on the students' science achievement. For this reason, the quality of courses and seminars related to student psychology should be improved in teacher education (both pre-service and in-service training) system