The effect of instruction with concrete materials on fourth grade students' geometry achievement


Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Eğitim Fakültesi, Matematik ve Fen Bilimleri Eğitimi Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2010

Öğrenci: SİBEL SARI

Danışman: SAFURE BULUT

Özet:

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of concrete materials on fourth grade students’ geometry achievement. The secondary purpose was to investigate their opinions and feelings about instruction with concrete materials. The study was carried out in a private school in Ankara with 32 fourth grade elementary school students. One group pretest-posttest design was used. Geometry Achievement Test was administered to collect the necessary data. The instruction with concrete materials was applied by the researcher five hours per week in 10 weeks. The data were analyzed by using one-way repeated measures analysis of variance. Also, an interview was conducted with 11 students to determine their opinions and feelings about instruction with concrete materials. The results of the study revealed that there was a statistically significant change in geometry achievement of fourth grade students who participated in the instruction with concrete materials over three time periods. In other words, there were statistically significant positive changes in students’ geometry achievement across pre-intervention and post-intervention and across pre-intervention and followup. Moreover, there was no statistically significant change in students’ achievement across post-intervention and follow-up. The other results can be deducted from the study: most of the students enjoyed the class more when concrete materials were used; some of the students became anxious when they first saw the questions in preintervention; most of the students stated that questions become easier after instruction with concrete materials; cubes and the geoboard were the most useful and most liked as perceived by the students.