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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004) Salih ÇEPNİ, Tuncay ÖZSEVGEÇ and Lale CERRAH Turkish middle school students'cognitive development levels in science
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Asia-Pacific Forum on Science
Learning and Teaching, Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004) Salih ÇEPNİ, Tuncay ÖZSEVGEÇ and Lale CERRAH Turkish middle school students'cognitive development levels in science
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Discussion and Results
Data obtained from this study shows that sample were 22.9% concrete 2A and 64% concrete 2B reasoners and 12.4% formal 3A and only 0.7% formal 3B reasoners. These results show evidence that the majority of the sample have not reached the formal operation level yet. However, the majority of the subject's ages were over 11 years who are supposed to have the characteristics of formal operational thinking of the Piagetian theory. In the related literature, the universality of the first three stage of cognitive development has been substantially confirmed, however the stage in the development of formal operational thinking, have not been so confirmed (Lawson, 1995). Nordland, Lawson and Kahle (1974) found out that 83.4% of seventh grade Hispanic middle school students were at concrete and 15.6% of them were at formal level. Some research results show middle school students generally are at a concrete developmental level, the percentage ranging from 77% to 83.4% (Renner & Stafford, 1972; Chiappetta, 1976). In our study, findings concerning concrete development level were 86.9%, which is parallel to the existing literature results.
When we began to plan this study, firstly we hoped to find gradually increasing students' cognitive development levels from east to west. But, at the end of the study it was surprised that seventh grade student's public school in one city, which is rural area and has socially, economically and physically insufficient conditions, were more successful from other cities. At the same time, another interesting result, all the formal 3B thinkers are female and private school students. This result support Wilson and Wilson's (1984) view that cognitive abilities can differ from one society to another and even differs among students who are in the same classes.
However, students performed poorly on almost all items of the SCDT and the sample was more successful in concrete questions than formal questions. Private school students gave more correct answers (44%-68.3%) than public school students (36.2%-46.4%) to the SCDT. This shows that private school students are more successful for both concrete and formal questions than their peers at public schools.
Generally private school students had higher cognitive development levels than their peers in the public schools. Comparison of seventh grade public (mean = 36.32) and private middle school (mean = 44.26) students in terms of cognitive development levels showed significant difference (t(220) = -4.04, p< .05). Eighth grade private middle school students mean was (48.74) rather higher than public middle school students mean (34.11) in the SCDT and differences between 8th grade students were found significant at .05 level (t(213) = -6.38, p< .05). A study by Iqbal and Shayer (2000) showed that scores related to private school students' cognitive development were higher than public school students' cognitive development. All these results show that socio-cultural factors seem to have a more important effect on cognitive development than the Piaget's prediction. In our case, the majority of our sample has not reached at formal operational stage. However, the test results indicated that many students were in the process of developing their reasoning abilities. As mentioned earlier, these results may arise from socio-cultural differences of Turkey. It is believed that cultural or educational environments have a supporting role, that is, they may help speed up or slow down cognitive development. But, they cannot change the very nature of development (Dasen & Heron, 1981), because cognitive development could be explained more clearly from a biological point of view (Moessinger, 2000). Various studies have identified factors that may explain why private school students have higher cognitive development levels than students at public schools. These factors are: laboratory possibility and conditions, instructional techniques, textbooks, measurement-assessment methods, socio-economic level and using up to date technologies in the teaching-learning process (Lawson, 2000; Valanıdes & Markoulıs, 2000; Çepni & Özsevgeç, 2002; Özsevgeç, 2002).
An important characteristic of Piagetian theory is the relationship between cognitive development and individuals' age. In this study, the relation between students' ages and cognitive development levels were examined but significant relation (F(4,437) = .491, p>.05) was not found. The similar result was found by Wilson and Wilson (1984) that students' cognitive development levels were not related to subjects' age in Papua New Ginea, if subjects' ages are close to each other. However, if we are looking for a relationship between age and cognitive development, sample age intervals should be taken over a wide scale. In our study, we took only seventh and eighth grade students. Therefore, our non-result may be due to the narrow age distribution of our sample.
In many studies gender differences have been linked to cognitive development, but other studies have claimed the contrary. In our own study, while there were gender differences in the distribution of scores, the mean difference between the two groups was not significant. There was no significant relationship between cognitive development and gender (t(443) = .81, p> .05). Ehindero's (1982) and Mwamwenda (1993a) also did not find a significant relationship between students' cognitive development and their ages in Nigeria, and Africa generally.
Piaget's theory is considered to predict a relationship between students' cognitive development and science achievement. Many studies in the literature have reported a meaningful relationship between them. In our study, an important significant relationship was also found between students' cognitive development and their science achievement (F(4,437) = 39.05, p<.05). Lawson (1983), Mwamwenda (1993b) and Vass et al. (2000) found similar results; students who are at the upper cognitive levels have higher scores in science lessons. At the same time, Adey and Shayer (1994) argue that it is possible to intervene in students' cognitive development with effective science teaching. In this way formal reasoning abilities could be significantly increased, and it is claimed that such efforts affect students' academic achievement positively.
However, socio-economic and cultural factors affect individuals' cognitive developments, regardless of industrial or agriculture society, majority of children has not been fully able to reach the expected levels or the formal operational levels. All these results would show that there were not too many differences among developed and developing countries children in terms of cognitive development levels.
Copyright (C) 2004 HKIEd APFSLT. Volume 5, Issue 1, Article 1 (Apr., 2004). All Rights Reserved.
