Examination of Variables Affecting Science Success of Eighth Grade Students Using Ordinal Logistic Regression Method

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the factors affecting the science success of eighth-grade students using the Ordinal Logistic Regression method. In this study, information collected from a total of 4224 students, 2202 (52.1%) male and 2022 (47.9%) female, who participated in the ABIDE 2016 application was used. The scores obtained from the science course of the students entering the ABIDE 2016 application were transformed into categorical ones according to the determined threshold values. In the analysis, the categorical science success score was used as the predicted variable, and 15 variables that were thought to affect science success were used as predictive variables. The data obtained later were examined by the Ordinal Logistic Regression method. As a result of the examination, the factors affecting science success were determined as peer bullying, perceived self-efficiency, value given to the course, parental attention, family pressure, father’s educational status, mother's educational status, monthly income, having a computer or tablet, having a room of one's own, student's educational goal and participation in science support courses. The findings were found to be remarkably similar to those found in the literature. This indicates that the OLR method is quite effective in predicting training data. Such research is expected to be handled objectively and without bias.