High School Students' Intrinsic and Extrinsic Regulation in Learning Biology

The aim of this study was to investigate high school students' intrinsic and extrinsic regulations when learning biology. Participants included 565 high school students in the ninth, tenth, eleventh and twelfth grades from different schools in different cities. The data was collected through the motivational regulation scale. In the reliability and validity analysis, the 17-item and four-dimension scale included two dimensions and nine items. The internal consistency reliability of the scale was 0.76. The analysis indicated that students learn better because they enjoy biology, do their homework willingly and find the subject entertaining. On the other hand, it was noted that the most important goal for the students centered on attaining high scores. Female students' intrinsic and extrinsic regulations were higher than those of the male students. It was also found that the ninth grade biology students' extrinsic regulations were higher compared to other students.