Determination of In-Class Trust Levels of Secondary Education Students

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to determine students' in-class trust levels and compare them according to some variables. In the research, survey, one of the quantitative research methods, was adopted. The population of the research consists of the secondary school students participating in the central districts of Antalya in the 2019-2020 academic year. The sample consists of 271 secondary school students determined by simple random (probabilistic) sampling method. In the study, the "In-Class Confidence Scale" was used as a data collection tool. The data collection tool is a 5-point Likert-type scale consisting of 3 sub-dimensions and 34 items [Basic Trust (25 items), Freedom of Expression (5 items) and Threat Perception (4 items)]. In this study, the Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient was found to be .80 for the whole in-class confidence scale. Frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, t-test for independent samples and One-Way ANOVA analyses were used to analyze the data. As a result of the research, it was found that the students' in-class confidence levels were at medium levels. As a result of the comparison made according to gender, a significant difference was found in all dimensions of in-class confidence, and it is seen that the averages of males are higher than females in all dimensions. In the comparison made according to the classes of the students, it was observed that the sense of basic trust of the 11th grades is higher than the other classes; the freedom of expression was higher in the 9th graders compared to the 10th graders, and the 10th graders compared to the 11th grades. It has been determined that the threat perceptions of 11th grade students are higher than 9th and 10th grade students.