Abstract

This aim of this research was to examine the levels of motivation among high school social science students towards learning geography. The study group consisted of 397 students from different classes at Aksaray Ahmet Cevdet Pasa High School in the College of Social Science. The research was carried out with a scanning model, with data obtained using the Scale for Motivation Towards Learning Geography. In the analysis of the data, the t-test and the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used. As a result of the research, the levels of motivation among social science students towards learning geography were found to be moderate. From the analysis of the aforementioned scale’s subfactors, those related to the interest of students and information acquisition were found to be ‘undecided’, while the subfactors related to self-confidence and performance were found to be ‘in agreement’. It was determined that the level of motivation towards learning geography reported in the findings, with regard to the gender variable, showed a significant difference among male students. In addition, it was indicated that the motivation levels of male students were higher for the subfactors of interest and self-confidence than those of female students. In terms of the subfactors of information acquisition and performance, no significant changes were found in the motivation levels among both male and female students. Analyses based on class level demonstrated that the average scores of the students differ in this context, but that this difference was found to be statistically significant for 11th grade students for the subfactor of self-confidence.

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