The Relationship between Socio-Economic and Socio-Cultural Structures of High School Students and Their Attitudes to English Classes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to put forth attitudes of students to English class within the scope of socio-cultural structure. Scanning method was used in the study.5 point likert scale was used as a data collection tool. Questionnaire scale was composed of two parts. In the first part, demographical question items providing general information about students were included and in the second part, 5-point attitude items aiming at determining students' attitudes to English class were included. The questionnaire was prepared by scanning the relevant literature and scope and face validity of the questionnaire was tried to be fulfilled through opinions and suggestions provided by English teachers and expert Pedagogues. The items ranked in the questionnaire as "Strongly Disagree", "Disagree", "Neither Agree nor Disagree", "Agree", "Strongly Agree" were scored with 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. High schools at the center of Siirt were chosen as population of the research. While determining the sample, easily accessible and random sampling methods were utilized. In this regard, students in Anatolian High School (Public High School), High School of Social Sciences, Vocational High School, High School of Athletics and High School of Fine Arts which are located in different socio-economical environments in Siirt was chosen. After removing questionnaires responded by students in an uninterested and wrong way, resting 849 questionnaires were analyzed for data. In analyzing, SPSS 21 Package program was utilized and kruskall wallis analysis was used for descriptive statistics, frequency, crosstabs, independent groups t test, one-way variance and non-parametric tests. Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of the questionnaire was found 0.96. As a result, it was determined that students had a view of "undecided" for 38 items regarding attitudes to English class and although not being a very high average, "Agree" for 16 items in the questionnaire. It was determined there was a significant difference in favor of males between attitudes of students in High schools as to English classes in line with the independent variable 'gender'; on the other hand, there was not any significant difference between their attitudes in terms of independent variables 'Number of Family Members', 'Self-Expression' and 'Field of Teacher'