Investigation of Science Achievement on Transition to High School System (THS) in Terms of Some Variables

THS is applied to Science High Schools, Social Sciences High Schools, Anatolian Technical Programs of Vocational and Technical Anatolian High Schools and Project schools for student selection. With THS, approximately 10 percent of more than one million students are placed in a secondary education institution based on their preferences. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the success of the THS Science test of the students who have just graduated from middle school and who took the THS exam and their middle school science course scores, gender, and socio-economic level. In this ex post facto research, a total of 101 students were involved in the sample. Majority of the students were male (n=54, 53.5%). Pearson correlation analysis revealed that THS science score of participants were significantly and positively correlated with their 6th, 7th, and 8th grade science scores. The results of independent samples t-test demonstrated that there was no significant difference in THS science scores for male and female participants. Finally, the results of one-way ANOVA indicated that there were significant differences in THS science scores by participants' socio-economic levels. Accordingly, students with high socio-economic level had higher scores from THS science test than students with moderate and low socio-economic levels. Based on this particular finding, policy makers are recommended to reconsider their efforts to provide equality of opportunity in education. [This paper was published in: "EJERCongress 2022 Conference Proceedings," Ani Publishing, 2022, pp. 225-231.]