Relationship between students' tendencies toward academic risk-taking and their attitudes to science

İsa Deveci and Furkan Aydın
Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University, Turkey

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between fifth to eighth grade students' tendencies toward academic risk-taking and their attitudes to science. A total of 680 students participated in this study which used a relational survey model. The "Science Attitude Scale" and "Academic Risk-taking Scale" scales were used to collect data. Simple linear regression, stepwise multiple regression, t tests, and ANOVA statistics were used to analyse the data. It was concluded that there is a statistically significant positive correlation at a moderate level between students' tendency to take academic risks and their attitudes to science. For the academic risk sub-factors, there was a low positive correlation between the tendency to have negative feelings after failure and attitudes to science. Similarly, there was a low positive correlation between the tendency not to do any homework and attitudes to science. There is a statistically significant difference between students' attitudes to science and their tendency to take academic risks based on gender (female), grade level (low) and academic success (high). In addition, the students' tendency to take academic risks significantly predicted attitudes to science. Whether students' tendencies to take academic risks predicts their creativity, and their critical, analytical and innovative thinking skills can be examined using these results.
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Authors: Dr İsa Deveci (corresponding author) is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education at Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University in Turkey. His research interests include E-STEM (entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, mathematics), entrepreneurial characteristics, life skills, middle school science education, and pre-service science teacher education. Email: deveciisa@gmail.com Furkan Aydın is a academician at Kahramanmaras Sutcu Imam University in Turkey. His research interests are computer and instructional technologies, cyberbullying awareness, adaptive learning and educational data mining. Email: furkanaydin@live.com Please cite as: Deveci, İ & Aydın, F. (2018). Relationship between students' tendencies toward academic risk-taking and their attitudes to science. Issues in Educational Research, 28(3), 560-577. http://www.iier.org.au/iier28/deveci.pdf