Determination of The Mental Positions of Middle School Students In Conceptual Learning: A Scale Development Study

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop a valid and reliable scale that aims to measure the mental stateof middle school students in conceptual learning. The pilot study was conducted with a total of 321 students, 168of which were in the seventh grade and 153 of which were in the eighth grade. A draft scale consisting of 62items was created by reviewing the literature and asking opinions of experts in the area. In order to determine theconstruct validity of the scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis was performed. After the analysis ofpilot study data, some items were removed from the scale and the remaining 35 items were found to be divedinto 4 subcategories in total. It was determined that the emotion and intention categories of the scale consisted oftwo factors and the other categories of internal and external mental states showed a single-factor structure. Thesignificance of the difference between item scores of the upper and lower subgroups of 27 percent was alsotested in order to determine the discrimination indices of the scale items. The results of the t-tests show that thedifferences are significant for all items and factors. As a result of the reliability analysis, the Cronbach alphacoefficients for the reliability of the scale subcategories ranged from .67 to .79 and the Cronbach alpha internalconsistency coefficient for the whole scale was calculated to be .90. These analyses show that the developedMental State Scale in Conceptual Learning (MSSCL) is a valid and reliable measurement tool.