The effect of context based instruction on 9th grade students understanding of cleaning materials topic and their attitude toward environment


Tezin Türü: Doktora

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

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2012

Öğrenci: RIDVAN ELMAS

Danışman: ÖMER GEBAN

Özet:

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effectiveness of context based instruction over traditionally designed chemistry instruction on 9th grade students’ understanding of cleaning materials topic and their attitudes toward environment. Moreover students’ science process skills were measured for using as a covariate. Participants were 222 ninth grade students from eight classes in two different types of high schools in Ankara. Experimental group students were instructed with context based instruction and control group students were instructed with traditionally designed instruction through five weeks. Cleaning Materials Achievement Test and Attitudes toward Environment Scale were used as pre and post tests. Science Process Skills test was used only as a pretest. MANCOVA technique was used as a statistical analysis procedure. According to statistical analyses, there was a significant mean difference with respect to context based instruction and traditionally designed instruction on cleaning materials topic in favor of experimental group and no significant difference with respect to attitude toward environment. There was no significant mean difference with respect to school type in both Cleaning Materials Achievement Test scores and Attitude toward Environment Scale scores. Beside, science process skills were a strong predictor for understanding the cleaning materials topic. Four focus groups were conducted separately regarding the students’ career choices after the treatment to have an idea over the quality of the instruction in experimental group. Focus group results revealed that students were appreciated and more motivated with context based instructional design.