DEVELOPING CONNECTIVES TEST AND EXAMINING STUDENTS’ CONNECTIVES KNOWLEDGE BASED ON VARIOUS VARIABLES

There are two main aims of this research. The primary aim is to develop a reliable and valid connectives test to determine students’ connectives knowledge. The secondary aim is to determine whether students connectives’ knowledge significantly varied in terms of gender, grade level, reading frequency and writing frequency. This descriptive study was conducted on 934 students who were studying at secondary school fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade in 2013-2014 academic year in Antalya, Burdur, Niğde, Ordu, İstanbul and Gaziantep. The data were collected using connectives test which was developed by authors and personal forms to describe personal traits of the students. As a result of research, a valid and reliable 28- item scale was developed to measure students’ connectives knowledge. On the base of research findings; the students’ connectives knowledge test points are significantly differenced interms of gender, grade level, reading frequency and writing frequency. It was seen that, mean scores of girls are higher than boys, as well as in terms of grade levels eighth grade participants have a higher success than fifth and sixth grade level participants. In addition, it is found that, the average of students who never or rarely read is lower than the students who read more frequently. Similarly, students average with low writing frequency was found lower than students with more frequent writing.