Effectiveness of hands-on and minds-on activities on students’ achievement and attitudes towards physics

It was found that hands-on/minds-on activities were an effective means of increasing physics achievement about simple electric circuits. Students instructed by those activities gained a higher achievement in physics. However, the hands-on/minds-on activities did not increase the students’ attitude towards simple electric circuits significantly more than the traditional method did. In comparing the results of this research with those of previous ones, this research supports the findings of previous studies (Freedman, 1997; Stohr-Hunt, 1996; Turpin, 2000) reporting that learning via hands-on activities are more effective than learning in traditional method in the area of science achievement. Stohr-Hunt (1996) investigated the effect of frequency of hands-on activities (daily, once a week, once a month, never) on eight grade students’ science achievement. Results of his study indicated that students who experienced hands-on activities frequently (every day or once a week) had significantly higher scores of science achievement than those students who experienced hands-on science infrequently (once a month, less than once a month, or never). The findings of this study support the findings of Stohr-Hunt (1996). Similarly, in this study, the experimental group studied all the lessons with hands-on activities including minds-on experiences twice a week and students in the experimental group had significantly higher scores compared to students in the control group. The findings of this study are also in agreement with those of Freedman (1997) and Turpin’s (2000) study in terms of the effects of hands-on instruction on science achievement and attitude towards science. They also concluded that the students in hands-on laboratory instruction or activity-based science curriculum had significantly higher scores compared to students using a traditional science curriculum. However, no significant differences to students’ attitude towards science were found in their study.

This study also supports the findings of meta-analysis studies of activity-based science programs in the area of achievement. Bredderman (1983) conducted 57 studies of activity-based programs and found a positive effect of these programs on student achievement as compared with traditional science programs. Similar results were found in analysis of 105 studies by Shymansky et al. (1983). The mean effect sizes of these studies were 0.35 and 0.29, respectively, which are small. In the other studies, the effect sizes were not reported. However we calculated the mean effect size as 0.32 for Freedman’s (1997) study, which is also small. In our study, results also yielded approximately small effect size for the PSTACH.

The findings of this study are not in agreement with that of Bristow (2000). He examined whether sixth grade children learn science concepts better when taught using hands-on teaching methods versus a traditional approach. As a result of her study, there was no significant difference between the performances of the groups but students receiving hands-on instruction had a more positive attitude towards science instruction than those students receiving a traditional textbook instruction. It is interesting why the data in our study showed no significant difference in the attitude of the students although some of the literature supported the superiority of the hands-on teaching method (Bilgin, 2006; Bredderman, 1983; Bristow, 2000; Jaus, 1977; Kyle, Bonnstetter, & Gadsten, 1988; Schibeci & Riley, 1986). In trying to reach a view about this reason, some explanations might be put forth in order to clarify this reason. Firstly the treatment lasted for three weeks, which may not have been a long enough period to show a difference in the attitude of students between the two teaching methods. In the study of Bristow (2000), the treatment lasted 12 weeks or it lasted 15 weeks in the study of Bilgin (2006). A longer treatment time may be needed to elicit a change in the students’ attitude.

Moreover, some researchers (Simpson & Oliver, 1985; Yager & Yager, 1985) claim that students’ attitudes towards science are declining from elementary to high school. Simpson and Oliver (1985) also found that attitudes towards science declined from the beginning to the middle of the school year for each grade level studied. Our study was conducted on ninth grade high school students in the last weeks of the semester, which may also have caused students not to increase their attitude towards simple electric circuits significantly more than they did in the traditional method.

During observations, it has been noticed in this study that students were not used to perform hands-on/minds-on activities, so they had some difficulties following the manuals and doing the activities. The reason might be the fact that in their regular lessons, they were used to listening to their teachers and taking notes during lectures without performing experiments on their own. Studies have shown that the lecture approach associated with most textbooks leaves students as passive learners of facts and is an ineffective way to teach. Students become accustomed to receiving knowledge rather than helping to generate it by this way (McDermott, 1990; Weaver, 1998). Renner et al. (1985) claim that students who are taught physics in that fashion are not experiencing physics; they are being informed about the products physics has produced.

Ayas, Çepni and Akdeniz (1993) states that as developments in science education around the world had been continuing during the late 1960s and early 1970s, some attempts (organizing in-service training for teachers, producing the curricular materials and establishing moving laboratories for schools where there was no laboratory) were also taken place in Turkey. Some of the well-known curricula (PSSC, BSCS, CHEMS) were adapted into Turkish and implemented in the schools. At those times, the economic conditions in Turkey were not sufficient to implement such curricula and the social background was significantly different than the country of origin. Therefore, the programs were never fully implemented all over the country and policy makers decided to finish this application in secondary schools (Ayas, Çepni, & Akdeniz, 1993). In fact, the traditional patterns of Science and Physics curriculums did not change fundamentally until the new Turkish Science and Technology curriculum in elementary education has been announced by the Ministry of National Education in 2004 and the new Physics Curriculums (through grade one to four) have been started to be implemented in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively. Hands-on and minds-on experiences are frequently emphasized in those curriculums in which principles of constructivist philosophy have been integrated. Therefore, students attending science and physics lessons are expected to be both physically and mentally engaged in activities and tutors are expected to replace teaching methods that rely on rote memorization with authentic experiences, guide and facilitate students’ learning, and encourage their students to perform hands-on/minds-on activities in order to construct their own knowledge.

Various studies show that although hands-on science programs are more effective, teachers indicate use of textbook rather than activity-based programs. Moreover, they often prefer to demonstrate an experiment rather than to have students perform it themselves (Morey, 1990; Glasson, 1989). When the researches investigated in Turkey about the new Science and Technology Curriculum were analyzed, tutors similarly complain a lot about lack of resources and emphasize the need for in-service training about new teaching/learning methodologies and assessment/evaluation techniques (Ateş & Akdağ, 2006; Erdoğan, 2007; Kırıkkaya, 2009; Yangın & Dindar, 2007). Yangın and Dindar (2007) state that if tutors do not have enough resources, they tend to lecture in a traditional way. Teachers mostly tend to teach in the same way as they have been taught. According to McDermott (1996), even very competent teachers, who eventually might be able to adopt content learned through lecture to activity-based instruction, cannot be expected to do this so quickly. In fact, teacher’s uncertainty, discomfort, lack of resources, lack of time, material management problems, limited backgrounds with experiential approaches to science teaching, and dependency on textbooks cause to conduct hands-on/minds-on activities less frequently than lecture and discussion (Lebuffe, 1994; Morey, 1990; Tilgner, 1990).

In this study, the teachers told that they were used to teacher-centered learning environments and complained that preparing and guiding such activities takes too much time and effort. Therefore, having adequate preparation and gaining authentic experiences are also very important while implementing these curriculums. Based on the findings presented, the practical significance of this study is low. Therefore, we cannot claim that drastic changes should be done in the programs. However, we may give some recommendations. For example, some courses including hands-on/minds-on activities might be developed in universities to familiarize prospective teachers with linking physics with daily life phenomena. Moreover, in-service trainings, workshops or projects may be organized for the teachers allowing them to gain practical experience and proficiency with hands-on/minds-on activities. Lastly, materials consisting simple set-ups or low-cost items that can be found and assembled very easily should be developed and provided to the schools in order to implement the curriculum efficiently and effectively, especially for the certain topics in which low-cost activities are easily available, e.g. simple electric circuits. Thus, students better realize that they do not need a special laboratory environment or complicated apparatus to perform hands-on and minds-on activities and learn physics better.