A Contemporary Physics Attitude Scale for Secondary School Students: Development, Validity and Reliability

Abstract

Attitudes toward science is defined as a learned predisposition to evaluate in certain ways objects, people, actions, situations, or propositions involved in learning science (Eagly & Chaiken, 1993; Petty, 1995). Science educators have agreed that the development of a positive attitude toward science should be one of the most important goals of the school curriculum (Aiken & Aiken, 1969; Koballa, 1988; Laforgia, 1988). This view has effected the development of new physics curriculum established in 2007 in Turkey. In the new physics curriculum it has been emphasized that students should have positive attitudes towards physics such as appreciating, being concerned with and feeling the need for learning physics. This view can be shown both in general structure and skill acquisitions of the curriculum. In this context, it is needed some scales aimed to find out students’ attitudes required by the new physics curriculum and its contemporary learning approaches.