Abstract

The purpose of this study was the adaptation of “Students’ Motivation Toward Science Learning (SMTSL)” questionnaire which is developed by Tuan, Chin & Shieh (2005) to Turkish language and testing validity and reliability of its. The original questionnaire was in English and consists of six factors including 35 items. Firstly, questionnaire were translated into Turkish and in order to asses the face validity of the translated items, questionnaire was sent to nine experts who are studying in the fields of science education, testing and evaluation and foreign languages and it was improved based on their feedbacks. This Turkish version of questionnaire was applied 659 students enrolled at 6th, 7th and 8th grades of 6 different primary schools. Principal Components Analysis (PCA) was conducted to examine the construct validity of the scale and as a result of the factor analyses, 2 items were deleted from the scale. A science attitude questionnaire was used to establish criterion-related validity and it is found that two questionnaires were significantly correlated with each other (r=0,73). Cronbach alpha reliability coefficients were calculated to determine reliability of the tool and the all sub-dimensions. These findings revealed that Turkish version of the SMTSL is a valid and reliable instrument that can be used to measure students’ motivation toward science learning

Key words: Science learning, motivation, validity, reliability