2011 YÜksek lisans tez özetleri

The Effects of Cooperative Learning Activities Related To Environmental Problems And Its Effects on Students’ Knowledge, Attitudes And Behaviour

In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effects of cooperative learning activities developed towards the subject of “Environmental Problems and Its Effects” under the Unit of Human and Environment, in the 7^th grade Science and Technology lesson, on students’ knowledge, attitudes and behaviours towards environment.

This study, which was used pre and post testing control group design, was implemented with 81 students attending Mustafa Vasif Karsligil Primary School in Istanbul, in second semester of 2009-2010 academic year. One of two different classes, which were found no significant differences in terms of knowledge levels, attitudes and behaviours towards environment, was determined randomly to control (N=40) and experimental (N=41) group. The instruction of the subject of “Environmental Problems and Its Effects” was accomplished with traditional approach in control group and with cooperative learning activities, develeoped by the researchers, in experimental group. The instruction of the subject was completed by the same teacher during 8 teaching periods in control group and 9 teaching periods in experimental group.

In order to gather data, “Environmental Knowledge Test”, “Environmental Attitude Scale”, “Environmental Behaviour Scale”, “Cooperative Learning Assessment Questionnaire”, which were developed within the scope of this thesis and ensured their validity and reliability, and “Semi-structured Interview Forms” were used.

The results of the “Environmental Knowledge Test”, “Environmental Attitude Scale” and “Environmental Behaviour Scale”, which were administered to both groups after the instructions, showed that experimental group students had significantly higher scores than the control group students. The results also indicated that cooperative learning activities were very effective on increasing of students’ knowledge levels (X_E=16.32, X_C=11.37), development of positive attitudes (X_E=109.22, X_C=102.35) and behaviours (X_E=78.95, X_C=67.75) towards environment when compared with traditional approach. In addition to this, the results of “Environmental Knowledge Test” showed that there were no significantly differences among some of the experimental students’ knowledge. The semi-structured interviews which were implemented with these students underlined that some of the experimental group students had some misconceptions and inadequate knowledge about acid rain, ozone layer and greenhouse effect in low rates. The results of the “Cooperative Learning Assessment Questionnaire”, which was administered to experimantal group students, showed that most of the students thought cooperative learning provided them to improve their motivations, self-confidences, learning achievements, relationships between friends. They also denoted that instructions like this must be implemented in other lessons.