INVESTIGATING RELATIONSHIPS AMONG HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS’ SCIENTIFIC PISTEMOLOGICAL BELIEFS, CONCEPTIONS OF LEARNING SCIENCE AND CONCEPTUAL ACHIEVEMENTS IN GENETICS

This study aims to examine the relations among high school students' scientific epistemological beliefs, conceptions of learning science and conceptual achievements in genetics. a model explaining the relations among the variables was proposed and confirmed through structural equation modeling. participants were 452 10th grade students from five different high schools in bolu. data were collected by cross-sectional design. three different scales were utilized for assessment of students’ conceptual achievements in genetics, scientific epistemological beliefs and conceptions of learning science. amos 20 and spss 21 programs were used to analyze survey data. confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to determine sub-dimensions of scientific epistemological beliefs and conceptions of learning science. according to results of structural equation modeling, epistemological beliefs affected conceptions of learning science strongly. however, the effects of conceptions of learning science and epistemological beliefs on students' achievements were quite limited.