The Effects of Activity and Gain Based Virtual Material on Student’s Success, Permanency and Attitudes towards Science Lesson

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to research the effects of a student gains and activity based virtual material on students’ success, permanence and attitudes towards science lesson, developed for science and technology lesson 6th grade “Systems in our body” unit. The study, which had a quasi-experimental design, was conducted with the participation of a total of 70 6th graders in a primary school. Before the study, a virtual material was developed by research which consisted of interactive activities for each of students’ gains of the unit. In the experimental group, the virtual material was used by the teacher while teaching the unit. The Unit was treated in the usual way in the control group during the study. Achievement test, permanence test and science and technology lesson attitude scales were used as data collection tools and they were conducted on both groups as pre-test and post-test. SPSS 17 package program was used in the analysis of the data. As a conclusion, a significant difference in favor of the experimental group was found in students’ achievement. But, it was not seen that virtual material based on activity and gain affected permanency in a positive way. Also, no statistically significant difference was found between groups as to students’ achievement. In addition, when the attitudes of experimental and control group students towards the lesson after the study were examined, no statistically significant difference was found in post-test and permanency tests.