Mevlana International Journal of Education (MIJE) Vol. 4(1), pp. 55-66, 1 April, 2014 Available online at http://mije.mevlana.edu.tr/ http://dx.doi.org/10.13054/mije.13.55.4.1 An Investigation of Science Active Learning Strategy Use in Relation to Motivational Beliefs Yasemin Tas * Department of Elementary Education, Ataturk University, Erzurum, Turkey Birgul Cakir Department of Elementary Education, Agri Ibrahim Cecen University, Agri, Turkey Article history Received: 29.07.2013 Received in revised form: 02.01.2014 Accepted: 07.01.2014 The present study investigated middle school students’ science active learning strategy use in relation to motivational beliefs of self-efficacy, science learning value, personal goal orientations, and perceived parent goal emphasize. Totally 458 Grade 6-8 students participated in the study. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that perceptions of parent mastery goal emphasize, personal mastery goal orientation, self-efficacy, and value beliefs were significant predictors of active learning strategies. Accordingly, students who perceived higher levels of parent mastery goal emphasize, who engaged in science tasks with the purpose of improving understanding, who were confident about their abilities to perform well in science activities, and who believed the importance and utility of the science task used higher levels of active learning strategies. Some suggestions were made to science teachers in order to form science learning environments which support students’ motivational beliefs and active learning strategies such as emphasizing the importance of learning the material and improving skills; showing students that ability can be improved through effort; and holding discussions about utility of the science task. Parents were also suggested to promote their children’s mastery goals by highlighting the importance of meaningful learning rather than just memorizing, encouraging their children to do challenging problems and work hard. Key words: Active learning strategy; self- efficacy; science learning value; goal orientations; science Introduction The importance of learning strategies for enhancing students’ learning has been addressed in several research studies (e.g., Pintrich & De Groot, 1990; Pintrich, 2002). Some studies made distinction among cognitive, metacognitive, and resource management strategies (e.g., Pintrich, 1999); superficial, deep cognitive, and metacognitive learning strategies (e.g., Young, 2005); active and superficial learning strategies (e.g., Meece & Miller, 2001). Cognitive strategies refers to rehearsal (i.e., recitation of items), elaboration (i.e., making associations between new information and existing knowledge), and organizational strategies (i.e., formation of groups and hierarchies) (Weinstein & Mayer, 1986). Elaboration and organization are deeper processing strategies than rehearsal which is a superficial strategy (Weinstein & Mayer, 1986; Young, 2005). Regulation of cognition is related to metacognitive strategies (Pintrich, 1999). For instance, skimming the text before reading, asking questions about the text to check understanding, rereading the portion of the text that has not been * Correspondence: Ataturk University, Kazim Karabekir Faculty of Education, Department of Elementary Education, Erzurum, Turkey, tasyase@gmail.com