مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - The Reflections of the Village Institutes’ Examples on Secondary School 8th Grade Simple Machines Unit

Abstract :

The purpose of this study is to identify the reflections of the activities on secondary school 8th grade simple machines unit in the Village institutes and find out whether these reflections have effects on the students’ academic achievements and attitudes towards Science. Nonequivalent groups design, one of the quasi-experimental design, was used in the study. The study was carried out with 8th grade students attending a secondary school in Akdeniz district in Mersin. The data of the study were collected during 10-week period in the first semester in 2016-2017 academic year. “Academic achievement test” and “Attitude towards Science and Technology Class Scale” were administered before the instruction as data collection tools. “Basic Machines” unit was studied with the students in the experimental group, who were taught with reflections of the activities on secondary school 8th grade simple machines unit in the Village institutes and with the students in control group, where the teaching method set forth by the program was used. After the experiment, the data collection tools were administered as posttests. For the descriptive data, numbers, mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage were used. One-way ANOVA and Pearson correlation were administered for the collected data. The findings revealed that there is a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test score variation in all the tests administered on behalf of the experimental group. A statistically significant positive relationship was found between the achievement and attitude posttest scores. In the light of the results obtained, it can be stated that the teaching based on “action” and done with the activity samples in the Village institutes have changed the students’ academic achievements and attitudes towards science and technology class positively.