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Asia-Pacific Forum
on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 11, Issue 2, Article 13 (Dec., 2010) |
The effect of constructivist science teaching on 4th grade students’ understanding of matter
Yılmaz CAKICI1 and Gülben YAVUZ2
1Trakya University, Faculty of Education, Edirne, TURKEY
E-mail: yilmazcakici@trakya.edu.tr2Alpullu Şeker Primary School, Kırklareli, TURKEY
E-mail: gulben_yavuz@hotmail.comReceived 27 Apr., 2010
Revised 22 Jun., 2010
In the last three decades, the constructivist approach has been the dominant ideology in the field of educational research. The aim of this study is to explore the effect of constructivist science teaching on the students’ understanding about matter, and to compare the effectiveness of a constructivist approach over traditional teaching methods. The study was conducted with 33 fourth grade students at a state primary school in the Babaeski-Kirklareli district located in the Northwestern part of Turkey, during the autumn term of the 2007-2008 academic year. Students were randomly divided into two groups as control group (CG, n=17) and experimental group (EG, n=16). An achievement test consisting of 13 open-ended questions was developed through piloting. Initially, pre-tests were applied to both the CG and EG. Following the first four weeks, the EG was taught using the constructivist teaching practices, while the CG was taught using the traditional teaching practices based on direct speech and question-answer. Then, the post-tests were carried out in order to determine the effect of a constructivist teaching approach on student learning. Students’ responses to the questions have been categorized mainly as scientific, partially scientific and non-scientific. Responses in the non-scientific category were further classified as either a misconception or nonsensical. A comparison of the responses between the CG and EG was made using a chi-square test. The results revealed that there was a significant increase in achievement within the EG students compared to the CG. In particular, the teaching based on the constructivist approach appears to be effective in eliminating the misconceptions the EG students had prior to the instruction.
Keywords: Constructivist approach, science teaching, matter, states of matter, primary education.
