Hilal Aktamış

Determining the factors that influence parents’ views about science and technology

Abstract Background: Children generally adopt the behaviours and attitudes they see in their home environment. Because of this, education provided in the school can be effective, as long as it is supported at home and by extension to the entire environment where the child interacts. Isolating the family from school influences the continuance of the school’s educational impact. In this sense, families do have a significant impact on their child’s attitude about. Purpose: The objective of this study is to determine how parents view science and technology, the factors that influence their views (gender, age, educational level), and the relationship between these opinions and the students’ science academic achievement. Sample: The present study was conducted with the parents of 169 students attending randomly chosen primary schools in a city in western Turkey. Design and methods: The ‘Scale for Determining Views of Parents regarding Science and Technology’ (SFDVPAST) was developed by the researchers and used in the present study. The scale’s reliability was 0.88. Data obtained from SFDVPAST were analysed with SPSS 11.5 using frequency (f), percentage (%), average (X), standard deviation (SD), one-way MANOVA, a univariate ANOVA for each dependent variable as a tracking test, and simple linear regression analysis to determine the relationships. Results: At the completion of this study, findings indicated that gender does not have an impact on how parents view science and technology, but age and educational level do impact parents’ views on this topic. The science academic achievement of the student correlates with the views of his/her parents on science and technology. Conclusions: Parents’ views towards science and technology have affected their age and education level, but have not affected their sex. In addition, parents’ positive view towards science and technology has affected their science academic achievement of the students.