Abstract
Imam Hatip High Schools are secondary education institutions affiliated to the General Directorate of Religious Education of the Ministry of National Education. In these institutions, Science, Social Sciences, and Basic Islamic Sciences education are given together. Seventy-five percent of the courses taught are Science and Social Sciences, and twenty-five percent are Basic Islamic Sciences. The “Qur'an” is taught in the 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grades of Imam Hatip High School. Considering that motivation is an important factor for success, students' motivation levels for the course should be high in order for the objectives of the course to be realized, and for a meaningful learning to take place. Because highly motivated students will have a high interest and attention, their desire and effort to learn the content of the course will also increase. Motivation can develop internally or externally. This situation creates two types of motivation. These are intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to act selflessly in order to enjoy and be happy without expecting any external reward. Extrinsic motivation, on the other hand, is the state of wanting to avoid or abandon a behavior due to external reward or encouragement or fear of punishment. In this context, examining the motivation, which has a significant effect on learning , and the motivation of students for any course, can provide important data about the realization of the goals of the course.
When the studies related to the “Qur'an” course in the literature are examined, it is seen that these studies are mostly related to the elective Qur'an course. In these studies, methods used by the course teachers, the opinions about the course and the attitudes of the students about the course have been examined. However, no study has been found in the literature examining student motivation for the Qur'an course, one of the basic courses at Imam Hatip High Schools. As a result of the examination of the related studies, it is concluded that the examination of student motivation for the Qur’an course at Imam Hatip High Schools will contribute to the field.
In this study, cross-sectional survey research, one of the quantitative research methods, was employed. The sample of the research consists of 564 (398 girls, 166 boys) students studying at Anatolian Imam Hatip High Schools in the central districts of Antalya in the 2021-2022 academic year. As a data collection tool, the personal information form created by the researchers and the Motivation Scale for Elective Qur’an Course were applied to the participants. The scale consists of 18 items and 3 dimensions. The data was collected through an online form, which was sent to the students.
In the first stage of the study, the internal consistency (Cronbach's Alpha) values of the sub-dimensions and the entire scale were calculated in order to evaluate the internal consistency of the scale. Accordingly, intrinsic motivation sub-dimension was .85, extrinsic motivation sub-dimension .57, cooperative motivation sub-dimension .81, and .90 for the whole scale. These results reveal that the scale is a valid and reliable tool to measure the motivation level of Imam Hatip High School students towards the Qur'an course. It is understood that the structure of the scale is compatible with its original form. In the second stage, it is found that the motivation of Imam-Hatip High School students towards the Qur'an course is at a high level. The motivation for the Qur'an course do not differ according to gender, but the types of motivation differ according to the class variable.